[Kzyxtalk] KZYX and Labor Day.

[Marco McClean]

Subject: KZYX and Labor Day.

On 8/31/2025 6:03 PM, Joshua Daniels wrote:
 > As many of you know, the removal of federal CPB funding has left our 
local public radio station KZYX with a sizable budget deficit of nearly 
$200k per year...

Marco here. Josh, hear this in a warm, friendly, amused tone. I'm gonna 
give this ten minutes of my time: You started out with an obvious lie.  
In fact, last year KZYX acquired and somehow disposed of three quarters 
of a million dollars. $170K of that came as a tax-derived money grant 
from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All of KZYX's real 
operating expenses put together add up to considerably less than $300K. 
740K minus 170K leaves $570K, close to twice the amount needed. That's a 
200K-plus /surplus/, not a 200K deficit. KZYX is and has always been 
swimming in money, from all the sources you mention later on in your 
note, but mostly from big-money donations, many of them secret, some of 
them not so secret, like the $100,000 grant a few years ago from the 
heirs to a San Francisco law firm fortune. KZYX has never been in 
trouble for money, and if it were in trouble for money now, that could 
only be the result of chicanery, shenanigans, and/or laughably bad 
management. The very well-off donor class who pay the lion's share for 
KZYX, however it is managed, are richer than ever.

Josh, you say, "Lots of local programming could be on the chopping 
block." That's another obvious lie. It costs KZYX nothing for local 
programming. The local airpeople are not paid. And they don't need 
management. They show up and do their show and go home. The 4000-watt 
transmitter costs two dollars an hour to run whether there are shows 
squirting through it or not. The translator stations cost a nickel or 
two per hour to run. There are tower fees, and music publisher fees, and 
there's rent and internet, and some beloved canned programs from a 
thousand miles away whose producers are paid pretty darn well from over 
1,000 NPR-colonized stations, but there's no link at all between any 
rise and fall of funds at KZYX and the fate of local shows. "Your 
generous donations keep the great shows you love on the air" has always 
been a big fat lie.

Which reminds me, Monday is Labor Day, really Workers' Day, in 
appreciation of the people who keep the wheels of the world turning with 
our expertise and effort and dedication and hands and feet and brains, 
such as they are. KZYX has always had plenty of money to pay at least a 
token of monetary respect to the local airpeople and has never done it. 
Throughout the decades of gravy train years, whenever I brought it up at 
a board meeting, the response I got was, There's no money for that, and 
besides, they're all volunteers. The manager/CEO never volunteers his 
services. Why should he? $5,000 a month, without fail, into his personal 
bank account, and not a penny for all the local airpeople prepping for 
and showing up for and doing all their shows, all year long. You've seen 
the books, you already know that, and it boggles the mind that it seems 
right to you or to anyone.

And, Josh, you say, "I’ve seen some discussions on this ListServ 
suggesting KZYX is spending too much on transmitters, infrastructure, 
etc. These people are largely misinformed and have never worked in 
radio. I’ve reviewed the latest KZYX budget and there really isn’t a lot 
of fat to cut that isn’t going to negatively affect programming and/or 
signal transmission." Wow, who are you talking about? Who are those 
people and what did they actually say? I'm really curious. Because if 
you're talking about me, I never said KZYX is paying too much for real 
things it needs. It's disappearing money. And I've worked in commercial 
and noncommercial radio and television and events and music and theater 
production and publishing in Mendocino County for more than forty years. 
I've built radio stations with my fingers.

Let's talk about all this on the air.

--
Marco McClean, memo at mcn.org, https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com