KCET $1 Million Behind in Its Budget Projections

Just two months into its fiscal year, public-television station KCET Channel 28 reports that it is already $1 million behind its budget projections.

Barbara Goen, the station’s vice president for public information, said that the shortfall comes from a slowdown in donations. She theorized that viewers were hard-hit by the recession and therefore unable to give.

“It’s tied without question to the economy,” Goen said. “We’re just one tiny example of what’s going on out there.”

Goen said that the station’s August pledge drive had been on target, but that donations were coming in more slowly than projected in other areas, such as membership renewals, direct-mail solicitations and telemarketing.

The station has not yet decided how to deal with the revenue slowdown, Goen said.

KCET will look both at new ways to raise money and at ways to reduce expenses, she said, but specific plans have not yet been drawn up.

Goen said it is “too early to tell” whether layoffs would be required.

Station executives have been asked to develop plans to cut expenses in their department by 5%, she said, but the proposals are meant to be hypothetical.

This is the third year in a row that KCET’s income has fallen dramatically below projections. At the end of KCET’s last fiscal year in June, the station was an estimated $2 million below projections.

But this year’s shortfall hit sooner and harder than in the past.

And it comes despite efforts by KCET to scale back its spending and revenue plans in anticipation of a slow year. When this year’s $40.5-million budget was drawn up, it was projected to be just $500,000 over fiscal 1992. And that year’s budget was planned to be 17% smaller than fiscal 1991.

Goen said that the shortfall did not signal a reduction of support for KCET in the community: Like last year, recession-strapped viewers are still donating to the station; they’re just not giving much.

“The irony is that we have more individuals giving than we ever have,” Goen said. “They’re just giving less.”