Ex-WYEP speaks out : Pittsburgh Indymedia

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Ex-WYEP speaks out
by Chris Holm Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2005 at 4:41 PM
chris@cardinalpoints.net (email address validated)

Off course, just when you thought it was over...

Off course, just when you thought it was over.....

Another in a series of stories that can be found here:

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2005/07/19547.php

Apparently leaving unanswered questions by Music Director Mike Sauter, has brought out a knowledgeable voice of conscience from behind the scenes.

Add me to the list of secret source users, but this one wanted to remain anonymous. I will honor their request. Don't worry, no covert agents will be outed in this story.

After Sauter refused to answer my questions after finding me funny for assuming he wouldn't, a former station employee, not volunteer, came forward and contacted me with internal information about the station. This individual verified their claims and position at the station and their knowledge on the subject.

Not only was light shed on Sauter's comments, but confirmation of my previous accusations of WYEP's emphasis on money over content with documented cold hard facts was established.

First this individual claimed that among a tapestry of reasons why WYEP is in the state it is in, It was this witness' claim that WYEP began taking a competitive posture to the commercial stations, in some cases for staff ego reasons. They wanted to capture certain artists and sponsorships.

The source also claims though unconfirmed that staff have even left due to a covered up scandal.

But let's deal with the facts.

In an answer to previously asked yet unanswered inquiry:

“Mike,

"the unanswered questions by your station that make this a critical journalistic piece are as follows:"

Real simple, do you have a comment on these statements/questions or not?

1. Your station has been listed on Michele Clark's webpage and been taken down and put back up several times, indicating some kind of action going on there that relates to your station.

2. Your station has seen as high as 89% favor rating of her playlists.

3. A label that claimed to be being extorted by her's big name artist Richard Thomson wasn't being played while other AAA stations did, and then was played later after Spin Art appeared on Clark's webpage of promoted artists.
fit the formats."

4.The CD's you make incentive money off of namely your CD of the week given in exchange for "listener support money" is that something that WYEP pays retail cash for? Are these CD's ever given freely by a record label, or intermediary either directly or indirectly, thus giving you a form of payola which would indirectly give you money in exchange for airplay, your incentive being the money you get from listeners in exchange for the CD, and the label, or promoter due to the fact that you would chose to air it over some small label who could only afford to send you a half dozen CDs or so for the studio and programming staff.

5. Has the station ever received free concert tickets from Clear Channel directly or indirectly, or allowed access to their venues free of charge or at a discount? This also would be an incentive to as a favor to play artists you wouldn't otherwise, or over look artists you might play in favor of offering touring support to Clear Channel's show. Obviously here, you make out with free goodies, they make out with more show promotion, and certain artists again get favored treatment while others get cut from airplay due to an incentive deal.

6. Your free member shows, where does the money come from to pay for the venues, and artists, and does that in anyway mean the artists' play at reduced wages, or free entirely?

7. If your station is so against payola and payola like practices, why do you support these artists to such a degree or at all?

Last chance, Otherwise Monday night I will cap up this story with your blatant refusal to answer these very incriminating facts.

Chris”

My source had this to say,

“I can tell you, though, that, at least when it got started the CD of the
Week was free (at least in cash) to the station. At the very beginning, we
worked through NRM Music and the labels. Obviously, that model has changed,
but I'm guessing the labels (i.e., the artists) are still either comping
those units or selling them at deep discounts. The airplay and the constant
promotion of the CD of the Week certainly helps to drive sales in the
market. If you contributed to the station last week (or last month, or
anytime not long enough ago for you to feel compelled to give again), but
are impressed by the CD of the Week (either because of its quality or its
hype), you might well go out and buy it.

Member Appreciation shows didn't cost the station anything, either. The
venues liked the deal, didn't charge the station any fees, and even put out
a complimentary buffet, because we packed their house at 6pm on a weeknight
and enabled them to make money selling beverages and more substantial
foodstuffs than those found on the complimentary buffet. The artists
sometimes sold CDs at the shows, depending on the labels' desire for
SoundScan results. At any rate, however, the live show could drive sales,
and, perhaps more importantly, "break" the market for the band, so they
might more readily find a promoter willing to pay them to return to
Pittsburgh at a later date.”

Sorry Mike, looks bad.

The artists you play are not only the type of amateurs that would subject themselves to after paying legal fees, practice room space, instrument investment, studio costs, and to boot being possibly $100,000 - $200,000 in debt to a label that one could only have a chance in paying back by revenue through ticket sales is garnishing your paying members with free shows, and not very good ones either due to the fact that they are in fact mediocre talented status quo schlock. Artists that have paid their dues for 10-15 years that haven't gotten a break may be skipped over if they don't want to reduce themselves back to garage status and playing for free which they probably haven't done since the open mic nights while they were still practicing in their parents basements. It also puts you nearly in the category of Clear Channel or Belkin Productions which it now calls itself (yes if you're hearing Belkin ads on WYEP, then it's just a sneaky way of disguising Clear Channel) by creating play for performance type scenario.

The CD of the week should speak for itself. The station pretty much apparently sells them without paying for them. Good thing the Rolling Stones get 501c3 support. Those poor guys got to keep the platinum cigarette lighters in their maseratis in good repair.

But we were treated to some info that wasn't so obvious just based on their actions.

The money.

Now, just to clear things up. Their budget is separate from the building funds and any other noncom perks that come with it. So when my source or I discuss “the budget” it refers to the operating budget.

First I received this statement from my source.

“You probably know that WYEP has canceled its fall member drive. I think
that's probably for several reasons. First, the station has often generated
a surplus of revenue over expenses in recent years. You can check their IRS
Form 990 at http://www.guidestar.org. The corporate name is Pittsburgh Community
Broadcasting Corp. There, for example you will be able to see that Lee
Ferraro made about $67K (if I recall correctly) in 2003.

I need to get a source together for this information, but I know that WYEP
has extraordinarily high costs for a non-profit organization. It spends
less than half of the money it collects on programming and mission, while
spending exorbitant amounts on fund raising and administration.”

This my source claims is shameful for a public radio station, but very confusing to me, and very contradictory for a station claiming to be homogenizing it's programming due to money woes.

The source further said,

“I am registered with GuideStar, and have seen the WYEP 990s. Lee's salary
is actually listed specifically, since he's on the board of directors of the
station. Based on the financial success of WYEP, Lee's salary doesn't seem
to be outrageous. It is high, however, considering the audience size,
number of contributors, number of people he manages, the overall size of the
station's budget, and the fact that WYEP acquires very little programming
from outside producers.

It's easy to keep costs down when a station isn't buying much programming,
gets its CDs for free, and pays relatively low salaries to DJs. It puts
WYEP in the position to really be a cash cow, and they're milking it for all
it's worth. Seems disingenuous to me to be on the air talking about how
much money they need to raise to keep the station going, when they're
sitting on a surplus.

I suspect that surplus, the fact they've already been on the air three weeks
this year fund raising, and that they fund raise on the air on a daily basis,
whether there's a membership campaign or not, having continued with a
membership drive last year in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, and the recent
natural disaster in the Gulf Coast have combined to cancel the fall drive
that would have been on the air last week and this.

The station takes a rather smug approach to membership drives, commenting on
the relative shortness of its campaigns. In fact, they bamboozled the
public into thinking they were using fewer days of on-air fund raising, when
they were actually increasing the number of days, by conducting three drives
per year, rather than two. They have also recently had to extend drives
beyond their scheduled end dates, because sufficient funds were not raised
during the allotted time.

The conflicts of interest on the WYEP board are numerous. Marco Cardamone
of Club Cafe is a board member. In fact, he sold them the real estate for
the new studios. Colleen Criste, who controls the ad budget for the Andy
Warhol Museum, is on the board. That's a convenient relationship for both
parties, leading to the annual World Cafe tapings at the Warhol. Heather
Clark, who placed time on the station for the Pittsburgh Symphony, and now
does so for the African-American Cultural Center, is also on the board.

The station also rattles on about diversity, but its audience is
overwhelmingly white, as are the on-air hosts. Its really shameful, when
you think about it, for the station largely to ignore the people of color in
this market.

WYEP reaches about 75,000 people a week. By far, it is the smallest of the
public stations in Pittsburgh. They just happen to do a very good job of
reaching the "arts intelligentsia," which makes them the darlings of writers
and grant makers at mainstream media and funding organizations. That's fine,
but the station is given far more importance than it deserves in those
circles.

The most unethical thing they do, from my perspective is to spend so little
on programming, while spending so much of the money listeners donate, on
fund raising and administration. It's always tougher for radio stations to
have as much of their budgets devoted to programming as is the norm at other
non-profit organizations, but WYEP's ratios are way out of whack.

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2004/237/257/2004-237257055-1-9.pdf

I doubt you can open this without registering, but there is a 67,000
compensation of officers which is neatly divided into Program services
22,434 Management and General 22,433, and Fund raising 22,433.

Here's a verifiable source for my claim that WYEP spends less than half of
its money on program expenses.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/8946.htm

In this case, that means what it spends making radio, and not what it spends
acquiring programs. The salaries of all on-air people would be considered
program expenses. Anything involved in actually putting radio on the air
would count. Compensation for underwriting salespeople, for example, would
not be considered program expenses.

More than half of every dollar donated to WYEP is spent either to raise more money or
to pay people who don't make radio. A quarter out of every dollar donated
is used to raise more money. It's shameful.”

So there's the sad reality of WYEP. It leaves little room for excuses for survival and paints a picture of low paid DJs, deals with the mainstream music industry, and personal profits and prominence for the top brass few as apposed to the general public and a failure to their own declared mission statement. The ill of the age, that being gain for the few at the top and more demanded on the poor at the bottom appears to have permeated even our non-profits. Not to mention just blatantly continuing on in corrupt unaccountable practices because no is going to do anything about it anyways. Well Bush may own Congress and the Judicial system, but WYEP's scenario is mere public apathy.

Although there is no legal definition that creates boundaries for where the line is drawn between profit and non profit as far as how business is conducted in many ways, perhaps there should be.

A good start would be accountability which WYEP has failed at miserably. Another would be public awareness and involvement which Pittsburgh as a community has failed at miserably.

These WYEP stories of course were turned down by the Post Gazette and City Paper, and we're approved by Pulp shortly before going out of business.

I approached Daniel Calig of The Front over the phone with this, yet he has not returned several emails for the past few months.

Another significant reason WYEP can continue doing business the way they do.

www.cardinalpoints.net

What happened to goodbye?
by CamperMan Friday, Dec. 23, 2005 at 12:03 AM

Chris,

Did you not drop this earlier saying you were leaving Pittsburgh? Man, maybe that would be the healthiest thing for you than this hysterical vendetta that you have against a pretty benign and harmless thing like WYEP. From having read your rants earlier I suspected like most that you were initially a musician who was pissed off about not getting played on the station. I had a friend did the same to WRCT for years. Then I saw your website and yessiree you are a musician and it sounds pretty unlistenable. And YET that is my opinion. And all that shit you say about the music at WYEP is your opinion. Not my thing but my girlfriend and parents dig them. And for all your righteous muckracking - you're not fucking Edward Murrow. Go spend your time and energy on things that matter, man! You are NOT uncovering anything that any media savvy person doesn't know already. But for all the cogs in the big wheel this just isn't worth all your venom and energy. You take all this information you gather and neatly fit it into what you want it to say. Kind of like Fox News. And yet I read your stuff and it just doesn't work.You feel righteous but you are so angry you have no perspective. And dude - get someone to proofread your rants. You are on some seriously misspelled Unabomber-esque tangent. Your back and forth with the staff is pretty juvenile too. They did a pretty nice thing of giving you any answer at all when they didn't really have to. No, they really don't have to! But you are so lost in this that you can't get away from it. So, go away, take a physical breather, direct your energy somewhere else. And then come back and visit this another day and see if you can get some perspective and be more helpful and informative about the matter. And seriously dude, don't get me started on commerical radio, WDUQ (no local news or information programming), WQED (talk about staff salaries what the F? and commercials on public TV?) But your smarmy tone that you are the only one who knows about media or everything crooked with it is so tired. So, go away again. Pittsburgh will be OK without you!

Go away!
by CamperMan Friday, Dec. 23, 2005 at 12:06 AM

No, He's On Target
by Insider Thursday, Dec. 29, 2005 at 8:23 PM

It is absolutely proper for *anyone* to question whether a publicly funded charity is fulfilling its mission, acting ethically and serving its community, especially when said charity is the licensee of a rare, non-commercial license that is afforded special protection by the FCC and consumes spectrum that is in short supply.

That nobody beyond Chris has reported critically on this matter is sad; the erosion of WYEP did not need to happen and would not have been tolerated in many other cities.

Reports of conscience should be welcomed here whether you agree with them or not.

Your source is on the money
by Someone who kinda knows too Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2006 at 11:08 AM

The staff are nice enough folk but at some point "public" was taken out of WYEP. They like to provide the illusion of it, "community broadcast center" and all, but reality is they operate like a growing business and "public radio" has become just a branding phrase. With 75,000+ audience of 95% white people of which only 7000 contribute financially - I dunno, not my concept of true to heart public radio. Maybe they realize the facade in some way, which could explain why they let that Friday overnight DJ air music and a political viewpoint that's so radically different from what the station airs during daytime/primetime hours. It's a shame that a station with the resources of WYEP offers DJs like that little support other than the use of their broadcast booth after midnight.

PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center