<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:small">Well written and right on the money. Thanks, Marco the Great!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif;font-size:small">...</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 5, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Marco McClean <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:memo@mcn.org" target="_blank">memo@mcn.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">A note to the board members of KZYX. (Written email reply requested from<br>
each board member.)<br>
<br>
Marco here. One thing that struck me during the Fort Bragg MCPB board<br>
meeting was how board members and their friends in the crowd so clearly<br>
felt that it's ridiculous to even consider restructuring to be able to<br>
pay airpeople. But consider: KZYX is paying hundreds of thousands of<br>
dollars every year to retain superfluous bureaucrats who are /not/<br>
talented people sitting at a microphone connected to a transmitter. And<br>
paying nothing to those who are. John Coate is getting $60,000 per year<br>
--that's half a million ($500,000) dollars in a little over eight<br>
years-- and what is he working on now? A web jukebox so a few people can<br>
click to hear shows on demand. Gimcracks and gewgaws that have nothing<br>
to do with radio. And the result is the station has to limp along on<br>
old, unreliable equipment that frequently fails utterly. Think of how<br>
much equipment could simply be bought new and replaced on a regular<br>
schedule, like changing the oil in your car, if you weren't paying just<br>
John Coate quite so much, if you were instead paying him by the hour for<br>
the few basic tasks that are actually required of a radio station<br>
manager, that KNYO's manager, say, performs in an afternoon per month.<br>
And then there's David Steffen-- KZYX's "Business Support Coordinator"?<br>
Why would a non-profit community radio station need a business support<br>
coordinator, whatever that is, and pay him $40,000 a year, yet? And Mary<br>
Aigner the program director-- what is she doing that's worth whatever<br>
you're paying her? If that's also $40,000 a year, then divide that by<br>
$50 and you get 800 (eight hundred) yearly memberships diverted to go<br>
just to Mary-- for what, exactly, compared to someone preparing all<br>
during the week, every week, to do a live show the best he or she can<br>
and then doing it. Why should management be paid so exorbitantly merely<br>
to show up, and airpeople who show up and in addition do radio not be<br>
paid at all?<br>
<br>
If you really want to further dilute your radio mission in a web startup<br>
adventure, beyond just having a website with the show and events<br>
schedule on it, then why do you even need the broadcast license? A<br>
scarce educational-band radio broadcast license to blanket the county<br>
should be held by people dedicated to doing radio. And radio is cheap.<br>
At ten cents per kilowatt-hour and figuring in waste heat your<br>
1,000-watt main transmitter costs only about $5 a day to operate. Your<br>
two 30-watt translator stations together cost less than fifty cents a<br>
day. I think you've forgotten this, if you ever knew it. Your entire<br>
operation-- the main transmitter, the STLs, the translator stations,<br>
tower fees, music publisher fees, power and water, phones, internet<br>
service, all the studios, engineering service /and pay for airpeople/--<br>
can be well-maintained for about a third of the money you're burning now<br>
in counterproductive busy-work. You might never have to do more than one<br>
egregiously unlistenable pledge week per year ever again, let alone<br>
three or four. The first step to making KZYX a real community radio<br>
station for Mendocino County is to cut the fat at the top.<br>
<br>
And I'd be on about this even if my show were on KZYX. It's not. I want<br>
to ask Stuart Campbell a few questions now. Stuart, is your show<br>
worthwhile and interesting and an asset to the station? Are you good at<br>
it, and are you proud of the show? Now, try to put yourself in my shoes.<br>
Imagine you weren't on the board of directors, that you brought your<br>
show as a finished proven product to KZYX, and you waited and waited<br>
--waited for years-- and when you asked what progress was being made to<br>
put your show on the schedule you got no answer at all. And when you<br>
wrote to the manager, he told you /he/ wasn't the program director. And<br>
when you asked, "What do I have to do to get my show on KZYX?" the<br>
manager said, "I guess you have to convince Mary." And when you stopped<br>
by the station to talk about it you were treated as though you were an<br>
unwanted intrusion and told to use the telephone next time. What would<br>
you do then? Go to the board of directors? They'd tell you /they/ have<br>
no control over who's on the air and who's not. Then what would you do?<br>
Really-- it's a Kafka story you have set up there, Stuart, and it's been<br>
that way since the beginning.<br>
<br>
I waited a long time to speak up. Much longer than I think any of you<br>
would have. The situation has got to change. And you have to change it,<br>
because if not you, who? And if not now, when? And if not at all, why not?<br>
<br>
I want and deserve a written reply from each board member. I'll read the<br>
replies on my show on KNYO in Fort Bragg, whose entire yearly budget<br>
--for everything-- is about a fifth of just what you're paying your<br>
general manager.<br>
<br>
Marco McClean<br>
<a href="mailto:memo@mcn.org">memo@mcn.org</a><br>
<a href="http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com" target="_blank">http://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com</a><br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div><br></div>