[Kzyxtalk] The crux of the biscuit.

[Marco McClean]

(K.C. Meadows, I’m sorry. I’m trying, but despite all my newspaper and 
radio experience I’ve never been much of a traditional editor. The more 
time I spend on cutting things like this, the longer it gets, and then I 
start over, and then I look up and it’s three in the morning and I 
haven’t started my real work. I have to stop now.)

(Here, if you can use this, use it. If you can’t, don’t. It won’t make 
me mad; I know you have space constraints.)

The Crux of the Biscuit
--by Marco McClean

An open letter to the agitated KZYX people who clearly misunderstood 
what I wrote about thinking it over before pledging money:

Read MCPB's financial statement. In 2014 KZYX' managers were paid in 
total over $180,000. That's 3,600 $50 yearly memberships, when you only 
have 2,300 members. It's as if the managers are taking the money out of 
all the pledge envelopes and stuffing it in their own pockets, and then 
some. What am I saying? It’s not /as if/, that’s exactly what’s happening.

Radio is cheap. It costs surprisingly little to run a radio station. CPB 
grants paid $190,000 to MCPB in 2014; that's plenty to never need a 
pledge drive. And it is dead easy to make radio that’s smarter and 
better than commercial stations; it doesn’t require an all-powerful 
master deciding who enters and who stays and who goes-- and continuing 
to kowtow to these masters because you're afraid to lose your show is 
pathetic. And before you tell me /you're/ not afraid to lose /your/ 
airtime, try bringing this matter up on the air on KZYX and see what 
happens. Try recounting on your show any conversation you've ever had 
with anyone in the KZYX office. Try being exactly who you are, on the 
air, and not cramping your style down because of how Mary Aigner might 
view what you say and do, and see what happens.

And “the members control the station” is a lie. I was talking with Doug 
McKenty last week; he told me about arguments he had with Stuart 
Campbell, where Stuart said, "Members do /too/ control the station. They 
elect the board." But then the board transfers complete control to John 
Coate and Mary Aigner, neither of whom pay the slightest attention to 
what station members might have to say. And when you write to the board, 
using the form on the website, they don't even receive it. It doesn't 
get to them; and they don't care. They /like/ being as insulated from 
the members as they are from the general public.

Just for comparison, KNYO-LP in Fort Bragg has microphones, mixers, 
music players, a broadcast booth with a microwave oven and a bathroom, 
an STL link of sorts, remote studios, a transmitter, and even a 
storefront performance space downtown. The only operating difference 
between KNYO and KZYX is in maximum allowed transmitter power. KNYO’s 
manager’s real tasks are the same as the combined real tasks of all the 
managers of KZYX, but he’s paid nothing; he does it because he loves 
radio. Anyone who wants to do a show on KNYO can do it. When problems 
crop up they get solved. KNYO doesn’t get any tax grant money; every 
donated dollar goes to run the station. And radio is a thing that anyone 
can do if he isn't prevented from it by oppressive gatekeepers like the 
managers of KZYX. You don’t have to go to school for it; you just have 
to have a radio hero or two to emulate until your own style emerges. Or 
even just have an idea.

Everyone who has a show on KZYX would still have his or her show if the 
managers who insist on being paid like kings all went away, which is 
what I suspect they’d do if their salaries were yanked, because they’re 
not in it for radio. People who are in it for radio would replace them. 
That would be an improvement.

Without the people on top sucking all membership money and underwriting 
money out of the system, just the federal grant money would easily 
maintain KZYX, because that’s what it’s doing now, and what it’s been 
doing for 25 years of this.

So I say this time wait to pledge money, until something changes. How is 
that threatening to you? And of course I'm going to say it during pledge 
week. When else would it make more sense to say it?

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