[Kzyxtalk] Marco McClean to KZYX board

[nsi at mcn.org]

 Brilliant, Marco. Please forward it to the Discussion listserv More
KZYX membership there than here. 
And then there is the Ukiah Blog managed by Dave Smith that has
umpteen inland viewers.   Thank you for your persistence. You're
going to win this one, Marco. --beth bosk

----- Original Message -----
From: "King Collins" 
To:
Cc:
Sent:Mon, 16 Feb 2015 20:54:20 -0800
Subject:[Kzyxtalk] Marco McClean to KZYX board

 Marco McClean writes in the AVA, Feb. 11, 2015:

 Editor,

 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 dollars ($500,000)
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
 Mendocino
memo at mcn.org [1] 
http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com [2]

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