$2 million in three months: Can WLIU save itself?
Stony Brook University has given WLIU a two-month reprieve,according to the Southampton Press. This article has been revised from the print edition to reflect that change. The station's deadline for vacating school facilities has been moved from Oct. 3 to Dec. 3.
Listeners, friends and staff of Long Island’s WLIU-FM are hoping they can pull off the kind of magic trick that has saved several independent pubcasting stations in recent years.
WLIU has a little over three months, until Dec. 3, to raise about $2 million to buy its license, while hunting up new sites for its offices, studios and broadcast antenna. Long Island University, which holds WLIU’s license, announced Aug. 7 [2009] that it can no longer afford to help support the station.
The university has determined it must sell to the highest bidder, says LIU Chief Financial Officer Robert Altholz. LIU’s interpretation of tax regulations is that it must sell assets to support its educational mission.
A number of stations have kept their licenses by raising large sums on deadline. Eight years ago in Greeley, Colo., KUNC-FM bought its freedom from its licensee university, raising $2 million in just 20 days and foreclosing an already-arranged sale to an out-of-town pubcaster.
And last year in Salt Lake City, the staff and friends of KCPW-FM came up with cash and loans totaling $2.4 million to preserve their news station when another out-of-town pubcaster fell into money problems. They went from signed incorporation papers to signed purchase contract in 10 weeks.
“As much as I and others love the station, it’s running a deficit,” more than $1 million for the fiscal year ending Aug. 31, says Altholtz. “What we’re really doing is taking tuition revenue and subsidizing a radio station,” Altholz says. It’s not a popular idea with students and parents who pay tuition, he says.
Even before the recession, the station was relying on the university for $600,000 or more a year, Altholz said.
The station’s million-dollar loss contributes to the university’s expected deficit of $5 million to $7 million on a budget of about $365 million, Altholz estimates.
Wally Smith, WLIU’s g.m., told reporters that the university alerted him of its plans in April, and had been working with LIU and Stony Brook to arrange a consortium of local colleges to operate the station and help support it.
“We had every reason to believe we were on a positive track for a collaboration,” Smith told Current last week. Those discussions continued until the end of June, he says.
The presidents of LIU and Stony Brook talked about creating a consortium, perhaps with other local schools, to operate WLIU, Alholtz confirms, but it would have worked only if a number of backers had shared the support, holding it down to about $200,000 per school, he says.
Three years ago, the university sold its Southampton campus, where WLIU is based, to state-owned Stony Brook and agreed to vacate the station’s offices, studios and tower by Oct. 3, according to Altholz. [This month, Stony Brook agreed to delay the deadline until Dec. 3.]
On the same day, Long Island University will end support for the station, Altholz says.
By then, Smith expects the station will have to have raised $1.8 million to $2 million to keep its radio spectrum. He expects his staff will receive 30-day notices next week. He hopes to get a reprieve from Stony Brook’s move-out date, remaining on its tower until the school wants to tear it down.
Smith says the fundraising can’t begin accepting money until the university declares its proposed new nonprofit licensee to be the successful bidder, though he’s been spreading word of the project and finding supporters for the board. He says actor Alec Baldwin may take a leadership role. WLIU is still working to establish the nonprofit to bid for the license and other assets, he says.
He expects to call the company Peconic Public Broadcasting, named for a bay at the tip of the island. [Supporters have established a website by that name.]
He emphasizes the local service that WLIU provides as the only public radio station based on the big island. “People on the island believe the station ought to be in the hands of a local station,” he says. If WNYC or WFUV from New York City wins it in bidding, he predicts “a big squawk.”
But it doesn’t beam the only public radio signal across the island. WSHU, in Fairfield, Conn., across Long Island Sound, has one transmitter and four translators on the island, plus its main signals from Connecticut.
WLIU airs a mix of jazz, eclectic music, news and entertainment, while the Connecticut station airs two streams, classical/news and news/talk.
George Lombardi, g.m., says WSHU also had to give up subsidies from its licensee, Sacred Heart University, but it had years to reduce dependence. When he came to the station 28 years ago, it took a third of its budget from the university. For 20 years it has had no subsidy.
Public Radio Capital is acting as broker for WLIU and a smaller repeater station, WCWP. PRC has assessed the stations’ value for the university but is revealing its findings only to the school, says Marc Hand, PRC managing director.
Both frequencies are reserved by the FCC for noncommercial purposes, so bidders most likely plan public radio or religious broadcasts.
WLIU, at 88.3 MHz, has a 25,000-watt signal covering the east end of Long Island from Southampton. WCWP, at 88.1, has 100 watts, serving the area around LIU’s main C.W. Post campus closer to the island’s center.
Engineering studies for the station indicate there are at least four usable tower sites where WLIU could put its antenna, Hand says.
Reported with assistance from Karen Everhart
Web page posted Aug. 27, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC
