WBAI + MNN = Audience Growth & Financial Stability
A Negotiated Partnership With MNN Would:
It would:
- Allow WBAI to continue at 99.5 FM & with our valued programming.
- Dramatically reduce on-air fundraising days.
- Require MNN to pay all operating costs, including tower rent & salaries of staff (which MNN has pledged to expand), eliminating budget deficits.
- Infuse money into prime-time shows to improve production quality.
- Provide WBAI with a viable business model that could leverage loans to pay off debts.
- Add a television channel exclusively for WBAI & provide state-of-the-art studios.
- Offer producers training in social media & documentary-making.
- Provide support for WBAI’s off-air fundraising.
- Provide fair program evaluations & decisions.
- Be limited in duration, per a contract that staff and listeners would help shape.
- Lead to other community broadcasters carrying WBAI programming.
What is MNN? Correcting the Falsehoods
Manhattan Neighborhood Network (www.mnn.org)—like many public-access cable-TV stations nationwide—was created in the ’90s after grassroots demands for open channels, using clawed-back funds from greedy cable giants. Spectrum (formerly Time Warner) and others are mandated by contract to auto-forward a fixed amount of user fees to MNN every year. By law, CABLE CORPS CAN’T INTERFERE IN EDITORIAL CONTENT.
MNN is an independent nonprofit with a mission of open access to diverse grassroots voices and a board that includes community advocates. MNN’s Executive Director, Dan Coughlin, is a former E.D. of Pacifica and longtime independent media advocate who led Pacifica out of debt in 2002-2005.
As with Democracy Now! and Free Speech TV, WBAI’s listenership & viewership will greatly increase if we join with public-access already in millions of homes. To reverse WBAI’s relentless decline and endless fund drives, we have to hugely change the business model. That takes a board that will be serious about holding management accountable and moving forward boldly.
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