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Bravo, Marco!</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 <kzyxtalk-bounces@lists.mcn.org> on behalf of kzyxtalk-request@lists.mcn.org <kzyxtalk-request@lists.mcn.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, September 1, 2025 12:00 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org <kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Kzyxtalk Digest, Vol 140, Issue 1</font>
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Today's Topics:<br>
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1. KZYX and Labor Day. (Marco McClean)<br>
2. Re: KZYX and Labor Day. (Marco McClean)<br>
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----------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
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Message: 1<br>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2025 23:54:16 -0700<br>
From: Marco McClean <memo@mcn.org><br>
To: "kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org" <kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org><br>
Subject: [Kzyxtalk] KZYX and Labor Day.<br>
Message-ID: <3ff22a42-a621-47e1-a24a-08a8451af678@mcn.org><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed<br>
<br>
Subject: KZYX and Labor Day.<br>
<br>
On 8/31/2025 6:03 PM, Joshua Daniels wrote:<br>
> As many of you know, the removal of federal CPB funding has left our <br>
local public radio station KZYX with a sizable budget deficit of nearly <br>
$200k per year...<br>
<br>
Marco here. Josh, hear this in a warm, friendly, amused tone. I'm gonna <br>
give this ten minutes of my time: You started out with an obvious lie.? <br>
In fact, last year KZYX acquired and somehow disposed of three quarters <br>
of a million dollars. $170K of that came as a tax-derived money grant <br>
from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All of KZYX's real <br>
operating expenses put together add up to considerably less than $300K. <br>
740K minus 170K leaves $570K, close to twice the amount needed. That's a <br>
200K-plus /surplus/, not a 200K deficit. KZYX is and has always been <br>
swimming in money, from all the sources you mention later on in your <br>
note, but mostly from big-money donations, many of them secret, some of <br>
them not so secret, like the $100,000 grant a few years ago from the <br>
heirs to a San Francisco law firm fortune. KZYX has never been in <br>
trouble for money, and if it were in trouble for money now, that could <br>
only be the result of chicanery, shenanigans, and/or laughably bad <br>
management. The very well-off donor class who pay the lion's share for <br>
KZYX, however it is managed, are richer than ever.<br>
<br>
Josh, you say, "Lots of local programming could be on the chopping <br>
block." That's another obvious lie. It costs KZYX nothing for local <br>
programming. The local airpeople are not paid. And they don't need <br>
management. They show up and do their show and go home. The 4000-watt <br>
transmitter costs two dollars an hour to run whether there are shows <br>
squirting through it or not. The translator stations cost a nickel or <br>
two per hour to run. There are tower fees, and music publisher fees, and <br>
there's rent and internet, and some beloved canned programs from a <br>
thousand miles away whose producers are paid pretty darn well from over <br>
1,000 NPR-colonized stations, but there's no link at all between any <br>
rise and fall of funds at KZYX and the fate of local shows. "Your <br>
generous donations keep the great shows you love on the air" has always <br>
been a big fat lie.<br>
<br>
Which reminds me, Monday is Labor Day, really Workers' Day, in <br>
appreciation of the people who keep the wheels of the world turning with <br>
our expertise and effort and dedication and hands and feet and brains, <br>
such as they are. KZYX has always had plenty of money to pay at least a <br>
token of monetary respect to the local airpeople and has never done it. <br>
Throughout the decades of gravy train years, whenever I brought it up at <br>
a board meeting, the response I got was, There's no money for that, and <br>
besides, they're all volunteers. The manager/CEO never volunteers his <br>
services. Why should he? $5,000 a month, without fail, into his personal <br>
bank account, and not a penny for all the local airpeople prepping for <br>
and showing up for and doing all their shows, all year long. You've seen <br>
the books, you already know that, and it boggles the mind that it seems <br>
right to you or to anyone.<br>
<br>
And, Josh, you say, "I?ve seen some discussions on this ListServ <br>
suggesting KZYX is spending too much on transmitters, infrastructure, <br>
etc. These people are largely misinformed and have never worked in <br>
radio. I?ve reviewed the latest KZYX budget and there really isn?t a lot <br>
of fat to cut that isn?t going to negatively affect programming and/or <br>
signal transmission." Wow, who are you talking about? Who are those <br>
people and what did they actually say? I'm really curious. Because if <br>
you're talking about me, I never said KZYX is paying too much for real <br>
things it needs. It's disappearing money. And I've worked in commercial <br>
and noncommercial radio and television and events and music and theater <br>
production and publishing in Mendocino County for more than forty years. <br>
I've built radio stations with my fingers.<br>
<br>
Let's talk about all this on the air.<br>
<br>
--<br>
Marco McClean, memo@mcn.org, <a href="https://memooftheair.wordpress.com/">https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmemooftheair.wordpress.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C3d6afc8b0bb54369c96908dde989c381%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638923500107588871%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=GHy50zqaSCkFjTR7EK1ryt7vwYk%2FwX1LSoU6XwTs5sM%3D&reserved=0</a><br>
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<br>
Message: 2<br>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2025 01:28:15 -0700<br>
From: Marco McClean <memo@mcn.org><br>
To: "kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org" <kzyxtalk@lists.mcn.org><br>
Subject: Re: [Kzyxtalk] KZYX and Labor Day.<br>
Message-ID: <4d1b05c8-542f-4f41-91bf-7f4b7b44e87e@mcn.org><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed<br>
<br>
On 9/1/2025 12:46 AM, Joshua Daniels wrote:<br>
> Marco, Why don?t you disclose that you represent KNYO, and that you <br>
want people?s money to go to KNYO instead of KZYX? Then you could just <br>
speak in facts and not have to make disingenuous nonsensical arguments. <br>
Just a thought.<br>
<br>
Marco here, Josh. Okay, I'll give you another couple minutes of my time, <br>
but that's all for tonight; I'm working on this coming week's <br>
eight-hour-long all-Friday-night Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show, <br>
after all, and I have a day job to make at least a cameo appearance at <br>
tomorrow, as well as get my car fixed, and pick up a donated computer <br>
for my wife's mother, and visit my own mother, who is recovering from a <br>
broken arm. I have to sleep sometime.<br>
<br>
I disclose the existence of my show on KNYO and KAKX here at length <br>
twice every week. I don't represent them. They allow me to connect and <br>
do my show, and I'm grateful. And I volunteer because the managers of <br>
the stations volunteer. If Bob Young, for example, was paying himself <br>
with money my show brought in, I would expect to be paid for my work. <br>
And I subscribe to the sentiment: Let a thousand flowers bloom. Support <br>
all the art that you appreciate by supporting the artists.<br>
<br>
The main difference between the stations you mention is broadcast <br>
radius, which gives KZYX a far greater area to beg for money from, at <br>
the cost of $1.90 more per hour for electricity. Yet KZYX somehow burns <br>
up enough money to operate /fifty/ radio stations like KNYO and KAKX, <br>
not to mention two or three times what it truly needs itself, and, I <br>
repeat, KZYX does not pay the local airpeople, though it can and always <br>
could. You think that's fine, I think it's cynical and Trumpish. We can <br>
agree to disagree.<br>
<br>
I did almost fifteen years at KMFB, all night every Friday night, and <br>
also did a lot of engineering work for the station. KMFB had all the <br>
reach and responsibilities and facilities and relationships and <br>
operating expenses and complexity of KZYX, but without any government <br>
grant money ever, and ran on 1/3 of KZYX's budget, in a depressed radio <br>
market, and manager Bob Woelfel kept it sailing along and paid all of us <br>
by the hour as well as a cut from the ad money we brought in, every <br>
month, before he paid himself. It was a point of honor for him.<br>
<br>
I'm not arguing nor shilling for anyone. I'm relating well-documented <br>
facts, in the warm, gentle tone of a person speaking to a small child <br>
sitting in his lap.<br>
<br>
--<br>
Marco McClean, memo@mcn .org, <a href="https://memooftheair.wordpress.com/">https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmemooftheair.wordpress.com%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C3d6afc8b0bb54369c96908dde989c381%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638923500107618620%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=YoTyBjeKTDNUlGeyeMQv4tJvxJAB03JQRcx0ronYUB8%3D&reserved=0</a><br>
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End of Kzyxtalk Digest, Vol 140, Issue 1<br>
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