KPFK Members should know that serious revenue declines threaten the future of KPFK and Pacifica Radio. Expense reductions need to be made.
Membership, listenership and income have been decreasing at KPFK over many years. Per day fund drive totals have been going down. These declines have been masked by lengthening fund drives and by greater and greater dependence on premiums not directly related to our programming. We are now at a crisis point. We are spending much more than we make.
On June 11, 2020 the Pacifica National Board (KPFK is one of 5 radio stations owned by Pacifica) agreed that expense cuts of at least 30% at KPFK were urgently needed and directed the KPFK GM and the Pacifica interim Executive Director to make those cuts as soon as possible.
Read the full text:
Here is the June 11th motion that was approved by the National Finance Committee and then adopted unanimously by the Pacifica National Board:
Whereas: Currently the National Office has over $500,000 in outstanding payables. We owe NETA $206,000 currently as of June.
KPFK was unable to make its payroll in mid-April. About $45,000 had to be taken from an Affiliate Program bank account to make that payroll.
KPFK is at least 5 months in arrears on its Central Service payments. It currently owes $184,000 in Central Service payments. The KPFK Business Manager stated on May 14th that up to the end of April 2020, KPFK listener support had declined by 11%, its total income had gone down by 22%, although its payroll had increased by 5%.
The KPFK Business Manager stated that this decline had very little to do with the Coronavirus epidemic as these numbers are mostly from before the lockdown.
In the last 2 months KPFK’s income has declined precipitously. KPFK is currently bringing in only half the income necessary to meet its expenses. This means that KPFK is not able to make Central Service payments currently, is backlogging bills and is having trouble meeting its own payroll. KPFK’s monthly expenses are about $300,000. KPFK’s income has only been $150,000 per month for the last 2 months.
It is unclear as to whether Pacifica will receive any emergency stimulus loans or if there will be any other significant influx of revenue sufficient to make up for the heavy loss of KPFK Central Service payments.
Compounding this is the fact that every station, with the exception of KPFA, is seriously in arrears in its Central Service payments, with the possible exception of KPFT.
We have no reserves. If our financial situation deteriorates any further we may be forced to sell one of our buildings.
Therefore, be it resolved that significant expense cuts be made at KPFK as soon as possible. These cuts should be at least 30%. Expenses must be less than income as there are no resources to cover any shortfalls.
Further, all units (excluding the National Office) should provide a plan within 1 week to the NFC, the PNB, the Management Team and the iED that balances expenses and revenues if the units in the preceding six months have had expenses that exceeded revenues. (ie, if a station’s expenses are exceeding its income by 10% the plan should show an expense decrease of 10%.) As KPFK is currently running a $150,000 per month deficit, it is absolutely urgent that expense cuts be made immediately at that station. Other fundraising plans should be encouraged, but they would not be able to cover shortfalls of that magnitude. Thus, substantial expense cuts are unavoidable.
The full minutes for June 11, 2020 can be found at:
https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb200611/pnb200611_6596_minutes.pdf
