Sunday, February 9, 2014
HOW WILL IT ADD UP?
With $465,485.00 pledged so far and 18 days to go....the $500,000.00 goal needs about $25,860.00 a day if it is to be reached. In his colossal naivité, Berthold Reimers also came up with a lower goal of $400,000.00, which would require $22,222 in daily intake. These clowns can't do anything right.
Absent infomercials, absent capital reserves, absent magical benefactors, they will have to borrow massively against assets or sell something(s) even to *attempt* to save themselves, let alone 'turn the situation around' and rebuild their listenership.
ReplyDeleteThey have essentially no cash flow and essentially no liquid reserves/resources.
Perhaps I'm wrong, but I see no other analysis – the numbers, the facts, are sufficiently stark.
~ 'Indigo Pirate'
Chris' blog mentions, that in its Halcyon days, there were wealthy donors, who gave to BAI and did not listen to the content, or took it seriously. Summer Reese mentioned on Chris DeRienzo's interview on U-tube, that NPR copied Pacifica's format. She is being either ignorant or untruthful. The not-for profit radio in the US is separated into two camps that until DN! came about, did not try to cross the lines between Public Broadcasting and Community Broadcasting. NPR is Public Broadcasting, largely underwritten by large grants from large foundations and large business. Community Broadcasting sticks to listener support. Amy Goodman's brand of journalism tried to muscle its way into Public Radio with professional activism, and did not pass the professionalism standard. Everyone, apparently loves it, but they say that it is more advocacy and less journalism, and I agree with that. Pacifica supporters would like to think, that they are more free to broadcast the truth, because they do not accept Corporate underwriting. This issue was addressed by the editor of Harper's Magazine on his op-ed page, where he wrote, that Harper's survived by avoiding the Internet Publishing trap of hoping to boost readership with free online access to content, and instead insisting on subscription-0nly distribution, AND by accepting advertising and donation from large corporations, at the time, when the left wing editorial staff in the 1960's or so, thought that corporate money would change the magazine's objectivity or progressivism. That proved to be a fallacy. The Captains of Industry were glad to support the progressive magazine and did not micromanage its content, writing donation checks that beat funding raised by other left wing publications. I agree with this. Harper's is more balanced and objective today, with excellent coverage of both corruption taking place under the US occupation of Iraq and an excellent report on the various factions that made up Iraqi insurgency (that journalist risked his life and wrote a piece that surpassed both, intelligence reporting and social research!). This is a long way from the Harper's Magazine issue I read that was printed in 1863, when there was a, unique, excellent, and eye opening Popular Mechanics-style article about how a Monitor class iron clad is built and launched into water. At the same time, nowhere in the magazine was it mentioned that there was a large scale war taking place in the United States, another Civil-War era issue of Harper's had some nature writing, and no mention of war, so it is progress. Mother Jones matched Harper's in its coverage of Iraq, but not the BAI.
ReplyDeleteJustice and Unity Coalition, they should be deservedly called "Just Us Unified", worsened the quality of shows, and made coverage more lop-sided. The so-called student advocates for the "Dream Act" made mis-statements, that went unchallenged, to the effect that there were as many "dreamers" from Canada, as there were from the Global South. Listening to the BAI's raving broadcasts, you would think that the Dream Act was a done deal.
I don't know, what happened to the wealthy benefactors, who gave money to BAI in the 1960's, or what drove them away. It would be poetic, if radical social justice rage is what destroyed the BAI as a station. I don't think that any bank will loan the kind of money BAI needs to sustain and rebuild itself. Sub-leasing the broadcast license and frequency in exchange for syndicating some of the Pacifica/BAI content may be the only viable option. With Reese at the helm, the syndicated stuff will may just be public affairs programming from California. Good-bye BAI.