System/Policy
Licensee of KHSU weighs options as community group makes bid for ownership
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Humboldt State University laid off most of KHSU’s staff last month, citing a disconnect between its mission and the station’s and a need to reduce spending.
Quick Takes
Listeners ask university to rethink defunding of Tri States Public Radio
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The funding cut will cost the station about half of its annual $1 million operating budget.
System/Policy
Illinois licensee to end funding for Tri States Public Radio
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The station will lose about half its annual operating budget, according to GM Jonathan Ahl.
"The Pub" Podcast
The Pub #10: Pronunciation matters, techies leaving public media, SXSW and reporting on your employer
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Why are public media’s tech-savvy workers leaving?
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
University licensee trims Arizona Public Media by $2M over five years
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Arizona Public Media will lose $2 million in support from its university licensee over the next five years starting July 1. Over that time, the University of Arizona’s annual cash contribution to AZPM will fall 4 percent a year, from $2.6 million to $600,000. University leadership “is working with us to identify sources of new revenue,” General Manager Jack Gibson told Current. The university has weathered nearly $200 million in cuts since 2007 due to reduced state appropriations. Administrators “have turned up the heat wherever they could to recover working capital,” Gibson said.
Development
Jefferson Public Radio’s deal with university splits radio from real estate
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A new agreement between Southern Oregon University and Jefferson Public Radio settles the months-long dispute between the two parties over control of the 22-station radio network and related real-estate projects that had caused concern among university auditors. The mediated settlement, announced Aug. 27, splits JPR’s radio activities from the theater restoration projects that a related nonprofit, the Jefferson Public Radio Foundation, had undertaken in recent years. Southern Oregon University will assume control of all 22 stations in the JPR network, seven of which are now owned by the foundation. Meanwhile, the foundation’s theater properties will be controlled by Jefferson Live!, a new limited-liability corporation to be established as a subsidiary of the JPR Foundation.
System/Policy
Pubcasters in R.I., N.H. go independent as they lose state funding
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Two New England public television stations are moving to sever their ties to state and university licensees, cutting loose to become community-based nonprofits as they adapt to new business models and learn to live without state subsidies.
License transfer
WMFE-TV sells for $3.3 million to University of Central Florida
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WMFE-TV in Orlando, Fla., the former PBS flagship that had been set for sale to religious broadcasters, has a new buyer. The University of Central Florida announced June 21 that it plans to purchase WMFE for $3.3 million. The boards of UCF and WMFE, a community licensee that also operates a radio station, must approve the sale contract before it goes to the FCC. UCF, also in Orlando, played a role in preserving PBS service to the market last year when WMFE moved to sell its TV operation and focus on its public radio station. UCF partnered with Brevard Community College in Cocoa to convert WBCC, a pubTV station licensed to the community college, into a full-service PBS station broadcasting as WUCF.