Stations
Citing budget crunch, KUAC drops out of statewide Alaska radio network
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A reduction in funding prompted KUAC to leave APRN, making it the state’s only pubcaster missing from the network.
System/Policy
Alaska station cuts PD to offset university budget reduction
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KUAC-FM in Fairbanks, Alaska, laid off programming director Jerry Evans Friday as part of ongoing measures to cut spending. According to the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Evans was let go as part of a plan to offset $170,000 in funding cuts imposed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which operates the station. Evans’s duties will be absorbed by other employees. He had been with the pubcaster for six years. The university announced in July that it would cut funding to the station in light of a $12 million shortfall of its own.
System/Policy
Alaska’s KUAC, APRN reach agreement to help station with budget shortfall
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Joint licensee KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Alaska Public Radio Network have agreed on a three-month extension that will allow the station to continue airing APRN content while it addresses a $170,000 funding shortfall. The University of Alaska Fairbanks, which owns KUAC, announced July 1 that it would cut the station’s funding by that amount to offset its own $12 million budget shortfall. The reduction amounts to about 6 percent of KUAC’s total budget. APRN helps stations in Alaska share content and offers the programs Talk of Alaska and Alaska News Nightly, both of which air on KUAC. The agreement between KUAC and APRN allows the station to continue running APRN content without paying dues until November 30.
System/Policy
GM says recommended funding cuts to Alaska’s KUAC would have disastrous result
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Suggested budget cuts at the University of Alaska Fairbanks could jeopardize the survival of KUAC, the university’s public broadcasting outlet, according to the station’s g.m.
A committee tasked with closing a gap in the university’s budget of as much as $14 million included cuts to the station’s funding in a proposal released in May. Trimming KUAC’s funding could save the university between $800,000 and $1.4 million, according to the budget committee, the highest estimated savings of all the recommendations except for consolidating or eliminating some degree programs.
The committee listed the cuts as “recommended with reservations” and noted that the station could move toward self-support. But the station wouldn’t be able to support itself if the cuts are made too quickly, said KUAC General Manager Keith Martin. KUAC received $1.3 million from the university in 2013, amounting to a little more than a third of its budget. “Even if they want to implement self-funding in up to three years, we’re pretty much done,” he said.
Quick Takes
Tuesday roundup: Pubmedia inspires poetry volume; ESPN prez responds to Kirk’s “whining”
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• I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! Granted, that’s probably not among the verses in The Liberal Media Made Me Do It!, a new collection of poems based on public broadcasting stories and shows. But the book does contain pubmedia-centric contributions from more than 50 poets who were inspired by Radiolab, Performance Today, A Prairie Home Companion and other fare. “For me, the greatest delight in receiving these pieces has been to recognize the stories I have heard on the radio, with the added dimension of another’s perception added in,” writes editor Robbi Nester. “This brings home the truth that each of us could start with the same raw material and yet produce finished products that resemble one another only in incidental ways.”
The book is now available from Lummox Press.
System/Policy
Anchorage becomes hub in Alaska’s latest public TV alliance
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A new configuration of public TV stations in Alaska will begin sharing a single programming feed July 1 under the name Alaska Public Television, a move that shifts distribution duties from KUAC in Fairbanks to KAKM in Anchorage. The change disbands AlaskaOne, a network operated by KUAC for 17 years that excluded Anchorage. KUAC will not participate in Alaska Public Television but will attempt to make it on its own with a renewed focus on programming tailored to its local community. Viewers in Anchorage will receive much the same programming from Alaska Public Television as before, while viewers of Bethel’s KYUK and Juneau’s KTOO may notice some changes. The centralcasting facility at KAKM allows for program feeds customized for each station, but that option will not be used at first.
System/Policy
Fairbanks station quits shared feed as Anchorage arrives
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Cooperation among Alaska’s public TV stations took a backwards step last week after a modest gain in September. A major result of three years of talks among the three largest stations was that KAKM-TV in Anchorage, the state’s dominant city, would join the AlaskaOne consortium of stations in Fairbanks, Juneau, Bethel and smaller towns, which have shared a TV schedule since 1995. Last week, KUAC-TV in Fairbanks said it will drop out of the AlaskaOne TV consortium as of July 1. The Fairbanks station, which had assembled the feed, opted out after its partners in AlaskaOne voted in November to merge its program feed with that of KAKM in Anchorage. In a Dec.