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Another Pacifica Station Has A Financial Crisis

Like WBAI, WPFW spends its hard-earned money poorly. They lease space in a very expensive building on L Street (Lawyer's Row).

That would be fine if the station had any chance at attracting lawyer's donations. But it doesn't. WPFW has been a very rootsy station, very down-home, old-school DC jazz station that would be better suited on U Street NE or sub-leasing space from another non-profit. Maybe getting office space donated! There's a creative solution!

The station once had very popular old-school jazz experts on the air. Not the best speakers for the radio, but they had real folksy appeal, and that's what earned them local money. Sadly, a lot of their most-popular talent have passed away recently. They haven't done much program development in recent years. Then again neither has WBAI.
 
Some years ago I met with WPFW management and observed that they had to be careful not to let the station become a Music Museum, suggesting that they needed to reflect current-day DC--even if they didn't personally like the music. They acted like I had the plague.

In a lot of ways they're the embodiment of "community radio," but they're being held hostage by staffers unwilling to move forward with the people outside their walls.

And, yeah, if they're going to artificially limit their revenue universe, they've got to live accordingly. If you know that your income is going to be on the meager side, you'd better embrace frugality.
 
amfmxm said:
Some years ago I met with WPFW management and observed that they had to be careful not to let the station become a Music Museum,
Click to expand...

Very common problem in all of non-commercial radio. When a station is built around a heritage music genre like jazz, classical, folk, bluegrass, or even alternative rock, the staff becomes more focused on the music than the radio station. That's great for fans of the music, but bad for the station. By not growing the audience base, you reach a point where there aren't enough listeners to pay for the station.

This is one of the advantages of dropping music formats and replacing it with news. Unlike heritage music, news is always changing, always attracting new listeners, and is more like a commercial format. So public stations that go all news will have the ability to attract new audiences and funding sources without alienating existing listeners or station staff. The problem with Pacifica is the news programming they choose has limited appeal, mainly on the west coast.
 
TheBigA said:
Like WBAI, WPFW spends its hard-earned money poorly. They lease space in a very expensive building on L Street (Lawyer's Row).
Click to expand...

You probably know that when the building their previous studios were in was marked for demolition earlier this year, they started to sign an agreement to take over the old Metro Traffic studios in Maryland--but because the space was still owned by Clear Channel's Total Traffic Network (who bought out Metro), some of the diehards at WPFW were convinced that Clear Channel was gong to take over the station (even though that is totally impossible) and the deal had to be called off. Isn't Pacifica wacky?
 
The former Metro Traffic studio was in a very expensive building too. These folks have champagne taste.

They need to learn how to operate with a budget, and that means putting studios in donated space, maybe shared with a library or other non-profit. I know stations like WPFW that operate from old house trailers and apartment buildings. That's where their audience is. Not Silver Spring.
 
Yeah, they really liked their Adams-Morgan digs--a very cool (and expensive) part of town. But you're absolutely right, Big A--they need to be seriously combing through their universe of like-minded organizations until they find one with some space to share. Well, maybe not exactly "like-minded"--that might be hard to find--but, at least, "similarly-minded" organizations.

And barring that, they need to gear down and embrace frugality.

And not just in DC. In all their markets.
 
These folks have an aversion to dealing with big corporations. They don't accept big corporate grants, so they're not going to accept big corporate buy outs or rescues. Had they been willing to work with corporations, they might not be in the state they're in.
 
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