[Kzyxtalk] Don't be fooled again. Think it through before giving money to KZYX.

[Marco McClean]

Marco here. Hear me out. This will take five minutes.

Not-for-profit Mendocino County Public Broadcasting has a bookkeeper, so 
General Manager and self-styled Chief Executive Officer John Coate 
doesn't have to do the books. It has a program director, so John doesn't 
have to direct programs. It has an operations manager to manage 
operations, and an engineer who can be called to come and engineer, and 
a "business support coordinator" to, I guess, coordinate business. And 
still John Coate is being paid a salary of, I piece together from 
various stories, $60,000 a year, the equivalent of 1,200 (twelve 
hundred!) yearly $50 memberships, to do what, exactly? Really, what? And 
just last year he dealt himself a ten percent raise. And when I 
suggested that he take a cut in pay instead, and pay off the station's 
debt and replace all the unreliable equipment using thus-freed-up money, 
he declined to comment upon that, and at the board meeting of two weeks 
ago the very idea of even diminishing his salary was declared ridiculous 
and laughed at. Meanwhile none of the people doing the actual work of 
radio at KZYX are getting paid anything at all, nor is anyone in 
management likely to offer to pay them. Which I hope doesn't seem right 
to you, because it's not right.

So when you're chirped at on the air by pledge-drive chuckleheads that 
KZYX needs your money to keep the bills paid and keep the shows you love 
on the air, the shows your friends do, you're being lied to. In fact if 
the pledge drive leads to $60,000, all those pledges, if actually 
honored, funnel into the bank account of someone who could literally 
vanish for weeks or months at a time and nobody but his fellow 
bureaucrats would notice. In similar news, if an entire year's 
commercial underwriting of the station brings in $40,000, that just 
about covers the salary of the man soliciting commercial underwriting 
for the station; it does nothing to pay the station's bills or help your 
friends in any way to stay on the air. $40,000 is 800 (eight hundred) 
yearly $50 memberships.

KZYX gets an annual grant of taxpayers' money* which by itself is enough 
to maintain and operate the station in fair weather and foul. All the 
frenetic hustle and bustle of a pledge drive and its week or two of 
egregiously unlistenable begging, that preempts and steps on the /shows 
that you have already paid to hear/*, benefits no-one but the few people 
at the top. Your friends who do the real work of radio, who prepare all 
week every week to do their shows and then do them, who are trying to do 
what KZYX is supposed to be there for in the first place, get nothing. 
They don't even get gas money to drive to the studio. Sure, they're 
happy to volunteer --I'm happy to volunteer at KNYO and KMEC-- but why 
isn't KZYX' manager class happy to volunteer in return? The few tasks 
required of a radio station manager can be accomplished in two to four 
hours per month. If you must employ and pay a manager, why not pay him 
by the hour for that monthly short afternoon and pay the airpeople at 
the same rate for at least their on-air time? It can be done on a 
stipend system, like at any other small nonprofit organization, like at 
any theater company. And the decision to move forward in this way and 
climb out of a medieval feudal system and into an egalitarian 
progressive era can be made by the board members at their next meeting. 
I'm told they will never, that there's no chance, but if you give up 
then of course they will never.

This pledge week send a message to those board members by waiting. Just 
don't pledge. If you're feeling particularly brave, call the pledge line 
and briefly and politely but firmly tell why you're not pledging just 
yet, and ask the phone volunteer to pass the message along, and say 
goodbye and hang up.

Here, look at MCPB's financial report:

http://kzyx.org/Board/audits/MCPB%20FY%202014%20Audit.pdf

(Page 3 of 13 is for fiscal year 2014). Skip past Memberships And 
Contributions ($314,730), Grant Income ($192,022)* and underwriting 
($58,100) (which includes both commercial and private underwriting) and 
see the section just showing money actually paid out to keep on the air 
the shows you love and also the shows you love not so much:

 >For Programming and Production: $63,737 (most of this went to NPR and 
other shows produced elsewhere).
 >For Broadcasting: $133,313 (fees, studio overhead, electricity, 
equipment, transmission equipment and repairs, everything). (Notice: 
that leaves $60,000 of just the grant income untouched, and, also 
untouched, donations, memberships and underwriting.)
 >Total: $191,927.

Now look at the section showing the amount MCPB paid out to just a few 
top people to be a collective hood ornament and look busy when there's 
anyone around to see, like for example during pledge week. This is where 
the rest of the grant income went, and all of the donations, memberships 
and underwriting:

 >For Management: $181,924
 >For Program Promotion: $76,708
 >For Fundraising and Membership Development: $50,256
 >For Underwriting Solicitation and Grant Solicitation: $44,046
 >Total: $352,934

Even if you figure it by management's own numbers, the station's budget 
is three times what it needs to be, all to pay entrenched bureaucrats, 
little people with a little power, resulting in interesting and quirky 
locally produced shows like mine never being given a chance, because 
management feels entitled to its power and money stream, like a big mean 
dog crouched down with its arms around all the food bowls pushed 
together, snarling as it eats and darting its eyes about the place. 
Another result is accomplished, genuine, soft-spoken, well-educated, 
articulate airpeople like former Mendocino County Supervisor Norman de 
Vall and even former and future MCPB boardmember Doug McKenty being 
kicked out of their air gigs merely for not sufficiently stifling 
others' criticism of a few top people at the station. And Late Night Liz 
waiting seven years and still not being allowed to do the children's 
show that she can do so well. And so on.

It's up to the MCPB boardmembers to make progress with any combination 
of any of a dozen single strokes any time they're motivated to do so.

You can provide that motivation to improve KZYX by simply putting off 
pledging until you have some positive indication that change is likely 
to occur. For me, that would be their cutting off all management 
salaries and then negotiating from that point. You decide what is change 
and what isn't, and then donate or don't; it's your money.

Marco McClean
memo at mcn.org
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com

p.s. If you want to put a little money where it'll do tangible good 
right now, you can give any amount to tiny 107.7fm KNYO-LP in Fort Bragg 
(knyo.org) or 105.1fm KMEC in Ukiah (kmecradio.org), both of which, 
unlike KZYX, are entirely supported by and entirely responsive to the 
communities they serve, and are continually progressing and improving by 
being dedicated mainly to giving airtime to locals to do radio. I know 
for a fact that there are time slots open at KNYO. If you have ever 
wanted to do any kind of a radio show --written-word or interview or 
documentary or drama or variety or news or even just playing music-- 
email bobb at poetworld.net (that's Bob Young) and say so, and there you 
are on the radio in Fort Bragg. And then if KZYX ever gets properly 
liberated and you want a countywide platform you can move your polished 
project over there, or use both, from wherever you are. Every second or 
third week I do my KNYO show from my wife's house a hundred miles away, 
using the web and equipment assembled for less than $200. There's never 
been a better time to do live creative radio. The very small amount of 
money that's really needed just needs to go to the right places and not 
the wrong people, that's all.

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