[Kzyxtalk] A note to the board members of KZYX. (Written email reply requested from each board member.)

[David Gurney]

Well written and right on the money.  Thanks, Marco the Great!

...

On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Marco McClean <memo at mcn.org> wrote:

> A note to the board members of KZYX. (Written email reply requested from
> each board member.)
>
> Marco here. One thing that struck me during the Fort Bragg MCPB board
> meeting was how board members and their friends in the crowd so clearly
> felt that it's ridiculous to even consider restructuring to be able to
> pay airpeople. But consider: KZYX is paying hundreds of thousands of
> dollars every year to retain superfluous bureaucrats who are /not/
> talented people sitting at a microphone connected to a transmitter. And
> paying nothing to those who are. John Coate is getting $60,000 per year
> --that's half a million ($500,000) dollars in a little over eight
> years-- and what is he working on now? A web jukebox so a few people can
> click to hear shows on demand. Gimcracks and gewgaws that have nothing
> to do with radio. And the result is the station has to limp along on
> old, unreliable equipment that frequently fails utterly. Think of how
> much equipment could simply be bought new and replaced on a regular
> schedule, like changing the oil in your car, if you weren't paying just
> John Coate quite so much, if you were instead paying him by the hour for
> the few basic tasks that are actually required of a radio station
> manager, that KNYO's manager, say, performs in an afternoon per month.
> And then there's David Steffen-- KZYX's "Business Support Coordinator"?
> Why would a non-profit community radio station need a business support
> coordinator, whatever that is, and pay him $40,000 a year, yet? And Mary
> Aigner the program director-- what is she doing that's worth whatever
> you're paying her? If that's also $40,000 a year, then divide that by
> $50 and you get 800 (eight hundred) yearly memberships diverted to go
> just to Mary-- for what, exactly, compared to someone preparing all
> during the week, every week, to do a live show the best he or she can
> and then doing it. Why should management be paid so exorbitantly merely
> to show up, and airpeople who show up and in addition do radio not be
> paid at all?
>
> If you really want to further dilute your radio mission in a web startup
> adventure, beyond just having a website with the show and events
> schedule on it, then why do you even need the broadcast license? A
> scarce educational-band radio broadcast license to blanket the county
> should be held by people dedicated to doing radio. And radio is cheap.
> At ten cents per kilowatt-hour and figuring in waste heat your
> 1,000-watt main transmitter costs only about $5 a day to operate. Your
> two 30-watt translator stations together cost less than fifty cents a
> day. I think you've forgotten this, if you ever knew it. Your entire
> operation-- the main transmitter, the STLs, the translator stations,
> tower fees, music publisher fees, power and water, phones, internet
> service, all the studios, engineering service /and pay for airpeople/--
> can be well-maintained for about a third of the money you're burning now
> in counterproductive busy-work. You might never have to do more than one
> egregiously unlistenable pledge week per year ever again, let alone
> three or four. The first step to making KZYX a real community radio
> station for Mendocino County is to cut the fat at the top.
>
> And I'd be on about this even if my show were on KZYX. It's not. I want
> to ask Stuart Campbell a few questions now. Stuart, is your show
> worthwhile and interesting and an asset to the station? Are you good at
> it, and are you proud of the show? Now, try to put yourself in my shoes.
> Imagine you weren't on the board of directors, that you brought your
> show as a finished proven product to KZYX, and you waited and waited
> --waited for years-- and when you asked what progress was being made to
> put your show on the schedule you got no answer at all. And when you
> wrote to the manager, he told you /he/ wasn't the program director. And
> when you asked, "What do I have to do to get my show on KZYX?" the
> manager said, "I guess you have to convince Mary." And when you stopped
> by the station to talk about it you were treated as though you were an
> unwanted intrusion and told to use the telephone next time. What would
> you do then? Go to the board of directors? They'd tell you /they/ have
> no control over who's on the air and who's not. Then what would you do?
> Really-- it's a Kafka story you have set up there, Stuart, and it's been
> that way since the beginning.
>
> I waited a long time to speak up. Much longer than I think any of you
> would have. The situation has got to change. And you have to change it,
> because if not you, who? And if not now, when? And if not at all, why not?
>
> I want and deserve a written reply from each board member. I'll read the
> replies on my show on KNYO in Fort Bragg, whose entire yearly budget
> --for everything-- is about a fifth of just what you're paying your
> general manager.
>
> Marco McClean
> memo at mcn.org
> http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
>
> -------------------
>
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