WFIU Community Advisory Board Meeting
Indian University Radio & Television Center, Faculty and Staff Lounge
January 11, 2010 at 4 p.m.
Prepared by Josephine McRobbie
Present: Carolyn Calloway Thomas, Becky Cape, Pam Davidson, Laura Ginger, Peter Jacobi, Nancy Krueger, Christina Kuzmych, Mike McGregor, Perry Metz, Lynn Schwartzberg, Janis Starcs, Janet Stavropoulos, Charlotte Zietlow.
Janis called the meeting to order at 4:07pm with one correction (Eva Kor, not Eva Korr). Meeting minutes adapted, seconded by Pam.
Station Manager Update
• We’d like to introduce Janet Stavropoulos. She received her Ph.D. and J.D. from IU, and has been practicing estate planning law since 1996. She is on some other boards in Bloomington, loves public radio, and is delighted to be here!
• We’re carrying the State of the State 1/19 at 7pm on WFIU and WTIU.
• We’ve done a few legislative preview programs recently, funded by state money. We will be continue to cover the legislative session, but there will be no video updates this session.
• Stan is visiting Poland for a week on a sponsored trip to cover the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi camps. Pam: Eva Kor was the subject of a documentary (Forgiving Dr. Mengele), maybe TV could run it in conjunction?
• Final dedication of the Auer Hall organ is upcoming, we’ll cover this on Artworks and Profiles, and a possible special. TV will also be involved, to some extent. Amazing that our organ department has been so highly respected with no organ ;)
• We’ve submitted a grant proposal to IPBS for the development of a website for A Moment of Indiana History, the 2-minute module hosted and produced by Dan Skinner, researched and written by Yael Ksander. Check out www.momentofindianahistory.org for the current revamped website
• We’ve been looking for a stronger, Class B transmitter for Terre Haute for quite some time. We would like to locate the translator at the ISU campus. It would take ISU over a million dollars a year to launch a station on their own, so this would be a good collaboration.
• SEE HANDOUT: Programming comes from WFIU, but interstitial material comes from Terre Haute.
• Some support would likely come from the Oakley Foundation. ISU costs depends how much they can offer in real estate and program production. If it doesn’t work out, we could work with Rose-Hulman. NOTE: Charlotte is on the Presidential Advisory Committee for ISU.
• Timeline: We have until Feb. 17th to submit it to the FCC. We’ve have competition from religious entities who want to initiate a station. A local entity would have a strong case, so we’re at a disadvantage there. Last time 5 or 6 entities were interested, and all religious. All competing parties will make their names public, we can see all applications online.
• Did people come out to see Vivian Schiller at the Buskirk? Yes! Ground floor was full. Perry: She does a lot of station visits, she’s heard and seen it all. She was particularly interested and complimentary of our depth of local programming, online and integrated news department approaches.
• Janis: do we hire part-time people as work-study? Yes, but we do pay a percentage.
• We got the small fiscal stabilization grant from Washington, and it will be distributed by the 25th. Would be thrilled if it would offset the money we lost from the state.
Major Gifts and Grants
• We received less money in grants this year than in recent years. Not surprising, many nonprofits have taken a hit. We received over $28K for the 2009 calendar year.
• We have 2 endowed funds now – Al Cobine is at currently at $31K, and Johnny Mathis gave an additional $5K. This fund is unusual in that it was created specifically for people who wouldn’t otherwise think to give to WFIU.
• We have a giving society posted downstairs. We increased the % of donors giving $1,000 or more by 10% and have been notified about 5 more planned bequests (some shared with WTIU).
• We are planning a WFIU hospitality room for Cleveland Orchestra before the concert. Let Nancy know if you’d like to go to the reception afterwards at the Neal-Marshall.
• Pam: Charitable IRA rollover will be extended, I would be happy to help craft an infobox for Directions in Sound. Music endowment fund.
• Charles Davis started a classical music fund.
• Laura: Was Ruth Lilly interested in us, by chance? Gave some to the Business School and English Department. No, she didn’t leave anything to us. We couldn’t even approach her, because we had to go into the IU Foundation’s queue.
Financials
• Governor has acted by saying that the 3rd and 4th payments will not be sent to any state stations. Public posture is that we can’t afford it, but he hasn’t explained why the state agency cut is 10%, while arts is 50%.
• Interestingly, if you look at it politically, this is an allocation that was supported by both caucuses, as well as House and Senate.
• We’re waiting for 7-10 days to hear from IU about what percentage of IU’s state cut will be allocated to the stations. We’re assuming that the Bloomington campus amount is roughly $29M. We do know that both cuts will hit us after the midpoint of the fiscal year, which will limit our flexibility. We anticipated when we built our budget that there would be a reversion from the university and state, but the numbers are higher.
• There might be some flexibility with the state budget officer – maybe a 30% cut instead of a 50%? Perry will hopefully have a meeting soon. All departments are looking for ways to curtail spending. We have a $200K now. $59M cut starts January 1, 2010, and runs for the next 18 months. We’ve already made cuts and had our additional fund drive, we have nothing else to cut except programming or staff.
• How can we let people know the predicament? Withdraw for the day. Dead air? Messaging on air? We aren’t planning to make obvious public cuts to draw outrage. We don’t want to penalize people who do give. We’d have to cut out something that was supported by state money, like local news.
• How does this impact Wait, Wait? Listeners came up with additional $10K, so it will still launch.
• Starting tomorrow we are launching a website with information about the cuts, legislator contacts, and a factsheet about what the state and university money does for us. Some of this is pre-proofed in your packets. We will have an on-air message directing people to the website.
• We are adding the extra classical from Wait, Wait’s spot to the afternoon. Hoping to eventually make that a pre-programmed local classical block.
• Peter: One reason that this committee was formed was because of complaints about programming changes and cuts. We don’t hear much choral music, and almost no vocal or operatic music. Christina disagrees! We have vocal evening shows for the first time in our history! But operatic arias, yes. There are less.
• Janis Starcs: How will TV cope with their cuts? Hope it won’t affect WFIU. It’s standard (illegal) practice at other stations to comingle funds, and we don’t do this, don’t intend to save for a catastrophe. We do have some staff work in both areas when one has a tighter budget.
Upcoming Meetings:
April 5
July 12
November Fund Drive TBD
No new business, motion to adjourn by Janis, seconded by Laura.