Lifecoach5000

KNON is a non-profit radio station and an important institution for the community. They are strictly publicly funded and they need your help now more than ever. From one of my friends who is a DJ there:

“It’s way way way worse than it sounds.

Take it from someone who has been in public broadcasting for 27 years now…. I don’t think non-profit broadcasting is going to survive.

Somewhere around 4 months ago, we non-profits all got letters from the FCC basically saying that non-profit is being watched very very very closely for violations of non-profit licensing involving money. This is everything from on air mentions, to the way we discuss premiums for donations. When I have guest DJs or musicians, I’ve moved to simply not talking about their gigs out of fear that we’ll lose our license for advertising a for-profit business. I can’t even comfortably mention that an artist is on Bandcamp because you can buy things from them on Bandcamp.

Now…. The station I’m on was originally founded 42 years ago by ACORN people. Yes, that ACORN. (Ask me for a side rant about the real story and impact of ACORN because it’s not even close to the story that people think it is).

When the drama of ACORN happened after Obama’s election, my station was cut out of any federal funding whatsoever. We were booted from CPB entirely. No more grants from anyone that receives federal funding. We’ve been operating since then “entirely on user donations” like you mention. (AFAIK, we are the ONLY non-profit station in the country operating outside of CPB grants).

It’s been HARD. There have been more than a few times we thought we would have to shutter our doors, but somehow we’ve persisted.

So fast forward to this CPB news. You’d think that wouldn’t touch us because we were politically ousted from CPB due to our ACORN associations. Wrong. I’m not sure we’re gunna make it. I’m not sure any of us are.

You see…. Somewhere just before the CARP agreement for licensing dissolved in 2004 to form the CRB…. our lawyers through ACORN together with CPB lawyers, among probably other organizations’ lawyers… we all went to court on behalf of non-profit broadcasting licensing. The end agreement was that those on non-profit licensing would have a pooled, flat rate licensing fee that was a deep discount from commercial rates for licensing. This was not done through CPB, but it allowed CPB stations and us to afford broadcast licensing.

That is going away along with CPB. Instead of paying one licensing fee, we are going to have to secure individual licensing with multiple entities. And each entity will be charging us commercial licensing rates, each of them many several times more costly than the flat rate licensing we’ve been using for 20+ years.

And we are being more closely watched on how we fundraise for it to the point that we can barely even thank a commercial donor. It’s crazy strict. We were once fined for calling a restaurant “all you can eat” because that was considered price qualitative and thus outside of non-profit regulations.

So on that note…. I have pledge drive tonight, and frankly I have a feeling I’m going to walk out of the studio crying because people just don’t give a flying fuck. I’m one of the top revenue driving shows in my segment of the funding, and I’m downright embarrassed to admit how little in donations I’m able to raise in a year. I’ll say this: There are only 3 people who consistently pledge enough that I reach my goals… and one of those 3 died last month, and I am another one of them… which leaves me, technically, with only 1 consistent pledger.”