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According to their latest Form 990, total payroll expenses for 2022 were $426,290.</div>
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Legal fees were reported at $27,848. Nothing was reported for accounting expenses, even though KZYX's Form 990 was prepared by a Certified Public Accountant.</div>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size:11pt" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> kzyxtalk-bounces@lists.mcn.org <kzyxtalk-bounces@lists.mcn.org> on behalf of kzyxtalk-request@lists.mcn.org <kzyxtalk-request@lists.mcn.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, December 11, 2023 12:00 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org <kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Kzyxtalk Digest, Vol 119, Issue 5</font>
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Today's Topics:<br>
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1. Shoestring. (Marco McClean)<br>
<br>
<br>
----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
<br>
Message: 1<br>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2023 01:17:58 -0800<br>
From: Marco McClean <memo@mcn.org><br>
Subject: [Kzyxtalk] Shoestring.<br>
To: kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org<br>
Message-ID: <fcd2e452-fad5-49e0-b1a5-a498f9738a0c@mcn.org><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed<br>
<br>
SHOESTRING.<br>
<br>
Marco here. Re: Marty Durlin's letter titled Inside KZYX: "On a <br>
shoestring budget, KZYX operates..."<br>
<br>
That shoestring budget includes paying Marty Durlin $60,000 a year plus <br>
full medical, dental, and vision. Just the money she sucks out of KZYX <br>
for herself in three months would fully fund every aspect of KNYO for a <br>
year, you know, speaking of shoelaces. Just two people in the management <br>
suite of KZYX, Marty and the next one in line, personally swallow every <br>
penny of all KZYX membership dues. 2000 members at $50 each is $100,000. <br>
Last time I checked, the station was burning through $600,000 a year, <br>
provided by a six-figure government grant and large, controlling <br>
donations from rich people whose class and stripe and financial <br>
interests you will consequently never hear a discouraging word about. <br>
And then there are underwriters.<br>
<br>
About the underwriting. On the KZYX underwriting info page, three points <br>
are stressed to potential underwriters:<br>
<br>
/1. Eighty percent of public radio listeners say they have a positive <br>
impression of a company that supports public radio. 2. Seventy percent <br>
of listeners say that underwriting messages have a positive impact on <br>
purchase decisions. 3. Eighty-six percent of listeners considered NPR <br>
personally important to them./<br>
<br>
Underwriters are encouraged to buy time for their message on the air <br>
expecting a return in brand attraction and sales. How is that not <br>
advertising? And when programming decisions, like the decision to soak <br>
the broadcast day with NPR shows, are made with potential underwriting <br>
money in mind, how is that different from commercial radio, that <br>
similarly plays what pays.<br>
<br>
The reason the low end of the FM dial was set aside for noncommercial <br>
radio was so radio could be done by people not concerned with whether it <br>
made money or not. Radio is only expensive to do when the folks who run <br>
the station like money. And who doesn't like money? So the expense of <br>
acquiring the plant and the license naturally ratchets to absurd <br>
heights, pricing everyone not mainly concerned with money entirely out <br>
of having a reasonably high-power radio station. So real noncommercial <br>
radio needs those specially allocated slots, and can do fine there, <br>
because doing radio is cheap. Transmitters last decades without <br>
maintenance; they're as reliable as a refrigerator. Once you've got the <br>
transmitter and you've got permission to plug it in and switch it on, <br>
your main expense of broadcasting is electricity. If the transmitter <br>
uses 4,000 watts, and electricity is 40c per kWh, which it is now, <br>
that's $1.60 an hour. That's two medium-size bites off the end of a <br>
burrito. A decent mixing board can be had used for just a few hundred <br>
dollars. Computers and microphones are practically free anymore. <br>
Internet access for phones and web is $100 a month, say $200 a month <br>
with all the bells and whistles. You get better equipment for more <br>
money, but you can't hear the difference.<br>
<br>
The people who make KZYX's shows from distant places (for NPR and etc.) <br>
are often paid bogglingly well. Ira Glass, for example, just pre-Covid <br>
got divorced and sold his million-dollar apartment in New York. It's the <br>
local Mendocino County airpeople on KZYX who are not paid for their <br>
shows, though they're the ones who do all the actual work the radio <br>
station is there for in the first place, and also they have to <br>
periodically beg for money, "to keep the great shows on the air," as <br>
they used to put it, money that instead, see above, goes to a handful of <br>
people in the office. All of KZYX's transmitters and <br>
studio-to-transmitter links and all the studio lights and computers and <br>
microwave popcorn ovens comes to well less than $20,000 per year in <br>
electricity. So if the folks in the management suite, including the CEO, <br>
the bookkeeper, the microphone-cable mender guy, the underwriting <br>
salesperson, the program director and the newslady, are getting a total <br>
among them of, say, $200,000, and rent on the various places, and the <br>
tower fees, and replacement lightbulbs, and Henry's roof patch and a <br>
shingle every once in awhile, and so on, come to another $50,000 a year, <br>
that all adds up to less than $300,000. But it's $600,000, isn't it? <br>
Where's the extra $300,000 going? That's three million dollars every ten <br>
years. That's a mystery. Unless my math is way off, KZYX is /swimming/ <br>
in mystery money. And if it isn't, where did it vanish to?<br>
<br>
The main item on the job desciption for a CEO for KZYX has always been: <br>
the candidate must be able and committed to raise money. Hence the <br>
periodic pep talk and poor-mouthing from the CEO. And yet the first job <br>
of the manager of any business, for-profit or nonprofit, bar or gas <br>
station or pet grooming salon or grammar school, is to see that the <br>
workers are paid before she pays herself. No manager at KZYX has ever <br>
done that, despite all the copious available money. I'd start with a <br>
$1000-a-year stipend for regular weekly airpeople, which is only $20 per <br>
show, but it would be a step. If the airperson is independently wealthy <br>
and $1000 for him is a bottle of fancy alcohol and a Japanese beefburger <br>
with gold flakes in the pickles, and he doesn't need it, he can tear up <br>
the check. People who need it can get a fresh set of tires and a year's <br>
worth of car insurance, or pay rent for January, or have a few teeth <br>
fixed right instead of having to keep gluing the caps back on in the <br>
bathroom mirror.<br>
<br>
I was at KMFB for almost 15 years. That was a commercial station, that <br>
didn't get government grants to keep going, and had plenty of expenses a <br>
noncommercial station doesn't have, and was in a depressed radio market, <br>
and the string of owners always took their profit, and manager Bob <br>
Woelfel every once in awhile could not pay himself. Yet he paid us every <br>
time, both for our airtime and a cut of the advertising money our shows <br>
brought in. And he didn't dick around with our shows. Everyone at KMFB <br>
had more leeway and freedom than anyone at any NPR station I have ever <br>
heard of has ever had. That's my model for managerial integrity. Bob <br>
Young at KNYO, same thing. I don't mind not being paid at KNYO, because <br>
nobody is being paid. Bob manages the station so there'll be a station <br>
to do his show on. To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, Marty Durlin could <br>
volunteer to manage KZYX, like the airpeople volunteer, but she doesn't <br>
have to if she doesn't want to, and I guess she doesn't want to, so.<br>
<br>
With some of poor shoestring KZYX' mystery riches lately MCPB has bought <br>
prime real estate in downtown Ukiah with existing suitable buildings <br>
intact and ready to paint. When they move the office in, meaning some <br>
final paperwork, a dish antenna on a mast on the roof, a new <br>
studio-to-transmitter box, and a lazy afternoon plugging in the mixing <br>
board, phone and internet connections, a couple of microphones and a <br>
wingback chair, that'll be nice, but what will change on the air, where <br>
it counts? Will shows finally be allowed on KZYX that push the envelope <br>
out a little farther than chortling about sports or playing genre music <br>
and reading the liner notes in a genially stoned drawl or Terry Gross <br>
interviewing the granddaughter of the inventor of the windshield wiper, <br>
besides Ralph Nader at 5am Saturday morning?? Will anything change at <br>
all? I'm aware I'm harping on the pay issue, but if the local shows are <br>
valuable (I say even the most banal of them is) and radio work is worth <br>
being paid for, then pay the airpeople. If you value them, Marty, pay <br>
them. Not paying them is not valuing them; it's slapping them in the <br>
face. Of /course/ it's nice to be on the air and it feels good to have a <br>
show, and it's a rare opportunity in the world, and that softens the <br>
blow somewhat. That's no excuse. You can pay them, so pay them. If I <br>
were in your shoes, and if there was any hint of the station being <br>
embarrassed for funds, I'd take a substantial pay cut and pay them some <br>
more. I'd pay the token LGBT talk-show people a lot more. They clearly <br>
take the responsibility seriously. It's the best show you've got. That <br>
is a driveway show, called that because you get where you're going and <br>
sit in the car to hear the rest of it. Their work, and all the other <br>
local airpeople's work, brings in all that money that you pay yourself <br>
with. So pay them.<br>
<br>
To compare, KNYO will be moving into another building soon, too, as its <br>
main studio and performance space of ten happy years of very fair rent, <br>
downtown in the city it serves, is being sold, which was expected, and <br>
no hard feelings. KNYO had some trouble this year; the tower-tree blew <br>
down in a storm, money was raised and that was dealt with, and there's <br>
money left over, saved, toward moving the tower and transmitter to a <br>
much better place early this coming year. All the problems, obligations, <br>
technical considerations, paperwork, and real expenses of KNYO are <br>
remarkably similar to KZYX's. And KNYO is constantly changing and <br>
adapting and continues to provide a platform for people to do radio from <br>
wherever they are, with cheap personal studios all over the county, <br>
including welcoming problematical people like me, and that's saying <br>
something. The difference comes from, I think, the level of money <br>
corruption. KZYX, $600,000 (one year it was $750,000!). KNYO, $15,000. <br>
/KNYO, at least forty times less corrupt./ That's a good slogan. I'll <br>
have to write that down.<br>
<br>
Oh, also the difference is, KNYO's broadcast radius is limited by law to <br>
just a few miles. KZYX's signal can blanket the entire country 24 hours <br>
a day with a sometimes hourly pitch for ever more money, beyond the CPB <br>
grant that they get /because/ they can blanket the county. Does that <br>
seem fair to you?<br>
<br>
Shoestring, tch.<br>
<br>
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