Nonprofit Radio Stations Retrench and Activate Campaigns for Survival

This weekend finds public-radio station KLON-FM waging its first emergency campaign for money, while fellow public-radio station KUSC-FM struggles with a major cutback in personnel.

“I guess we’re both sort of retrenching and building back again,” said KLON general manager Rick Lewis.

KLON (88.1) is making its current pitch for $75,000--in addition to its regular fall and spring drives--because of “a shortfall in just about every area of revenue,” Lewis said.

“We have had a very tough year,” Lewis said. “We have been cutting back on expenses but it’s still falling short, so we’re trying to make that up.”

Funding from Cal State Long Beach declined by more than $137,000 from last year, and money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting dropped by about $8,000 from 1988 to 1989. Also, corporate support dropped by about $3,000 from last year, according to Cindy Young, KLON’s director of marketing and development.

So on-air personnel can be heard making their pitch, if a bit apologetically.

“It is a tone we haven’t used before,” Lewis said. “We try to stay upbeat and try to avoid pleading as well . . . but we do want to be candid about the situation. We have nothing to gain by fooling ourselves or anybody else that there is a serious problem there and we have to deal with it. We would hate to have it all fall apart and have people ask later, ‘Why didn’t you tell us how serious it all was?’ ”

Meanwhile, KUSC-FM (91.5) in Los Angeles plans to cut back its staff of 36 full-time employees by seven positions at the end of the month while adding two vice presidents (and promoting a third) to oversee the operation. The staff cuts include the director of production and programming, a program host and employees in finance and administration, programming and public relations.

In addition, six other people have left the station in the past several months and their jobs have not been filled, although management said it will replace two of the positions. So the staff that numbered 42 full-time employees a few months ago will soon be down to 33.

But the changes are not the result of financial shortfalls, said Wally Smith, general manager of the USC-owned station. He said the move was prompted in part by a directive that USC issued to all departments to look for ways to cut costs.

“It’s a change in business strategy more than anything else,” Smith said. “It affects personnel but it’s really looking at ways in which we can reduce overhead.”

Asked about a report that the mood among KUSC employees was gloomy because of the cutbacks, Smith said, “Gloom is an exaggeration. There is sadness; they worked very closely together. I would say that it’s a period of change and people are always concerned during a period of change. But I think there are as many people here who are excited about the future of the radio station as there are people who are depressed about the radio station. I don’t think there will be a morale problem when we get through this.”

Susan Taylor, KUSC’s director of public relations, explained that the station has met its revenue projections, but that the cutbacks are a way to attack the problem of increasing expenditures before they reach crisis proportions.

Smith said that nonprofit radio stations tend not to be as business-minded as for-profit stations and he hopes to streamline operations at KUSC to make it a better business.

“The primary thing we’re doing is adjusting the whole organization and operation of KUSC to make the next major thrust forward in the development of the organization,” Smith said. “We’re in the process of reorganizing and recruiting talent in this new effort. I think we have an obligation to the sponsors and individual contributors to think as cleanly and clearly as we can about how we spend our money.”

He said the station is trying to reduce overhead by phasing out the in-house production unit and replacing full-time producers and announcers with free-lancers.

Although public radio stations such as KRCW-FM (89.9), KPCC-FM (89.3) and KCSN-FM (88.5) are not encountering problems like those at KUSC and KLON, station managers there are only cautiously optimistic.

“We’re experiencing a period of fairly significant growth, especially on the East side and in the San Fernando Valley,” said KPCC general manager Rod Foster. But he was quick to point out that “L.A. is a very difficult market for public radio and it’s a difficult time.”

Stations are competing for a limited amount of federal dollars, he said, and although each station’s programming is quite different from the others, there are some areas of overlap, which lead to heightened competition.

Ruth Hirschman, general manager of KCRW, explained that scrambling just to keep up with last year’s standard of programming is the norm in public radio. The programming that $2 million buys this year will require $2.25 million next year, she said.

“The budget grows at a horrendous rate; that’s the problem for all of us,” Hirschman said.