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WBAI Local Programming Ceases

TheBigA said:
Here's an article from yesterday's Brooklyn Eagle. It quotes one show host as saying Pacifica has control of the station's bank accounts.

https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/...witter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bkeagle

It also claims Pacifica's decision was political. But if you listen to the national programming the station is airing now, it's not much different politically than the local programming.
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Political in the internal company politics sense, or political in the national political Right vs. Left sense?
 
TheBigA said:
Not sure what you're suggesting. The current owner of WABC is a far right conservative. Never in a million years would the Pacifica board in Berkeley approve such a sale. They'd rather donate the signal to Democracy Now. In fact that would be a great solution.

To your other point, many of the shows that air on WBAI are also offered as podcasts and YouTube, and the producers have made mention of that via social media. Regular listeners are not missing their favorite shows.
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I know, I was just daydreaming that the far-left FM and far-right AM could magically wind up together under new ownership and thought it would an interesting twist... that will never happen.
 
tomservo said:
By the way, if you guys want a bit of a laugh, one of the commentators on the Gothamist article about WBAI has… an interesting worldview:

https://gothamist.com/news/complete...reeform-radio-station-wbai-abruptly-shut-down

He says DJs are illegal and seems to be accusing everyone and anyone of fraud. It's a hoot to think some people are this bat-S crazy.
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I just "love" one of the comments which credits WBAI for informing him about the "struggles of the Sendero Luminoso"...

(Radio tie-in coming soon)

Sendero Luminoso, or "Shining Path", was a Maoist guerilla group operating in Peru in the 70's and 80's. They believed in the violent overthrow of government and the existing economy, with a destruction of all the commercial infrastructure, in order to build a new nation.

I was at work at Radio Omega AM & FM in the San Borja section of Lima, Peru in around 1984 when a bomb went off on the ground floor of the building we were in. The whole structure shook, ceiling tiles fell and stuff flew off shelves and desks.

Nobody was hurt at the stations. But on the ground floor there had been a bank; it was very damaged and several customers, all indigenous laborers there to cash checks or send money, were injured or killed.

If that is what WBAI's progammers considered "struggles", I want no part of it.
 
Re: Gothamist - the multi-level commentator called Buckner - aka self anointed "super attorney." I suggest everyone go read that "guys" take on life and see if you ever want to do live radio again vs. a bunker.
 
I think any neutral observer would say WBAI needed something like this. The station has neither been producing audience nor revenue, therefore something had to change.

It's really sad that Pacifica's revenues are so low that a $4 million note due 4 years from issuance is in danger of bankrupting the network, if that is a true assertion.
 
Barry said:
Here's an article written in defense of the actions taken last week by the Executive Director of Pacifica, toward WBAI. Apparently the writer is a former member of the Pacifica Board. The part relating to 'BAI starts around the middle of the page.
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Its such a contract to what we've been reading from the staff for the past week. We all know this article to be true, because we've seen the documentation about the ESB disaster, and the loan they took out to pay for it. That saved the station from bankruptcy 18 months ago. Station management created this problem, and they seem oblivious to it. Someone had to be the adult in the room. Someone had to do what no one else was willing to do. That's what happened this week.
 
That Radio Survivor post is really spot-on. Good find! I find this entire situation to be very interesting. The fact that the in-house clowns think they are so friggin smart and self-anointed shows how
insane the ideology really was and why they never moved the ball, but rather waited to have their diapers changed and be pampered. The interesting thing to me is that this mindset is
not often that much different in commercial radio and what really is saddest of all is that the big radio corps have pretty much all failed and most actually filed their bankruptcies and here
you see another course of disaster with years of virtual "un-action" and avoidance mentality at WBAI and their parents are trying to actually not file B and screw people outta their money.
That is pretty impressive to me. I would fully expect that all these "listener" board members from hell and the WBAI "team" would certainly appreciate not having their names run down with the demise
of WBAI and Pacifica. But, then again, it seems that if you are self-centered then if it's a win for only yourself, and everyone else looses, then it's still a perfect win.


Now, on this subject, and admittedly I don't have time to read up on this as much as I should, did Carol Spooner (see Radio Survivor link) send her comments supporting John's actions at WBAI
to the board members before the action was taken? Do we now know if the board "approved" of his actions? Either way, I think the good ole Einstein crew in NYC is totally T O A S T. It probably
doesn't matter, but I think the truth will come out they all finally saw the light.
 
Tibbs4 said:
The interesting thing to me is that this mindset is not often that much different in commercial radio and what really is saddest of all is that the big radio corps have pretty much all failed and most actually filed their bankruptcies and here you see another course of disaster with years of virtual "un-action" and avoidance mentality at WBAI and their parents are trying to actually not file B and screw people outta their money.
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It depends. In the case of the iHeart and Cumulus bankruptcies, they were each done with full co-operations of their lenders, who all got majority ownership of each company. iHeart was a private company with no stockholders, and Cumulus stockholders had a lot of advance warning. The biggest Cumulus stockholders were the ones who hired the CEO who filed the bankruptcy. It's just business.
 
Tibbs4 said:
The interesting thing to me is that this mindset is not often that much different in commercial radio and what really is saddest of all is that the big radio corps have pretty much all failed and most actually filed their bankruptcies and here you see another course of disaster with years of virtual "un-action" and avoidance mentality at WBAI and their parents are trying to actually not file B and screw people outta their money.
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The lenders for iHeart were essentially the same investment bankers who took the group private. They fronted the money and took original company equity. With the Chapter 11, they lost the "old iHeart" equity and now they took less debt and more "new iHeart" equity in exchange. They lost the original equity, took a haircut and kept reduced value debt and equity. The other major lenders knew what they were getting into.

Suppliers, FICA, the electric company, ASCAP and the like came out whole. It was mostly the investment bankers who created the monster debt that lost out. If they Mays family and Red Coombs had kept Clear Channel, they would have been very profitable (and all along they made money on operations) because the whole failure was the LBO, not the radio stations.

Cumulus' big loosers were the bakers of the Dickey family that put Cumulus together. Again, mostly a debt situation. Lenders know that bad debts are part of making loans. But bad management complicated the situation and poor acquisitions like the ABC group, made it worse.

Pacifica is different. It has failed to produce revenue from donations in NYC and the national organization has had to make them whole. But now the debts threaten the stations in DC, Houston, LA and SF. So they had to cut the losses or lose it all.
 
Tibbs4 said:
Do we now know if the board "approved" of his actions? Either way, I think the good ole Einstein crew in NYC is totally T O A S T. It probably
doesn't matter, but I think the truth will come out they all finally saw the light.
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The sad part is that the NY staff and board really believe this is about content and really believe Berkeley wants to sell NY to spruce up the Berkeley office. They are calling this a coup, and don't recognize they created this situation themselves, mainly due to the debt they caused with ESB. I saw one interview where the NY GM says the debt is only $700,000. He needs to go to accounting school. First of all, if that's all it is, it will take them years just to pay that off. But they ignore the $1.8 million they owe ESB. They don't see that as their debt, because the national took out the loan. But the loan was taken out to save the station from going bankrupt. No one (including the station's lawyer and board) seem to understand that.
 
https://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/42/42/dtg-wbai-accuse-pacifica-lying-2019-10-18-bk.html

Apparently the people claiming to speak for WBAI is claiming this allegation against Pacifica Management and KPFA in Berkeley.

The national nonprofit radio company trying to shutdown Brooklyn’s beloved 99.5 FM WBAI lied to the public about debts owed by its listener-funded broadcast, according to executives at the radio station, who claim their tax-exempt overseers really just want to strip the station for parts.

“The four-million-dollar figure is a complete and total fiction,” said Alex Steinberg, a member of the local and national station boards that oversee WBAI and Pacifica. “They just created it to make WBAI look like a deadbeat.”

Big shots at the California-based Pacifica Foundation claimed WBAI was drowning under $4 million in debt after workers stormed the radio station’s Boerum Hill offices, firing most of the staff and taking over the station’s programing.

But the $4 million debt claimed by Pacifica is totally bogus, according to WBAI’s general manager, Berthold Reimers, who said the station only owes Pacifica and outside lenders about $700,000.

The exaggerated debt was circulated as a ruse to distract from Pacifica’s true motives, according to Steinberg, who said the closure was a rogue decision by Pacifica’s new director, John Vernile, who he speculates wants to sell the 99.5 FM signal — worth between $20 and $40 million — in order to cover mounting deficits plaguing Paficia’s other radio stations.

“Their game plan I believe is to sell the signal,” said Steinberg.
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Just expect the disputes to escalate at Pacifica as usual.
 
I imagine when they get to court on the 18th, Vernile will have the specifics on the debt. He can also present how WBAI's financial situation is worse than any of their other stations. And that will be the end of the hearing.
 
FWIW, a tweet from the WBAI staff states that last night, the Pacifica Board of Directors voted to restore the local WBAI staff and programming, and "undo the heist that occurred."
 
Son of a Berthold. Reimers? I mean Really? The hallowed and "beloved Brooklyn station" is actually returning? Let's see how this, uh, progresses. Pretty amazing. So the Board has turned on John and that means they will let the entire ship sink AND they will let all the clown shows return, get plenty of violations from the FCC now that people are actually listening just to hear the cattle sell their wares and run their self-anointed know-it-all mouths against all the rules and procedures? Yet, they are not smart enough to see they will be silenced and unpaid forever in a matter of weeks? Sounds to me like the Board is actually going along with John without admitting guilt so these folks will destroy themselves from within and make their own demise. Am I wrong? The only other option is John did this on his own and all the board members were pressured to vote from all the threats and listener board members and they buckled to pier (as in wood) pressure and things return to their broken state to suddenly get fixed ... How?
 
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TheBigA said:
I imagine when they get to court on the 18th, Vernile will have the specifics on the debt. He can also present how WBAI's financial situation is worse than any of their other stations. And that will be the end of the hearing.
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Evidently things are never that straightforward when Pacifica and WBAI are involved. As indicated in the last few posts, the Pacifica Board voted last night to restore the WBAI staff, equipment and programming. So the actions of the Director last week in shutting down the station could be seen as going against the wishes of Pacifica. The Board even voted to order the law firm that had been defending Pacifica in court against WBAI "to withdraw from all litigation representing Pacifica."
The article from Pacifica in Exile linked below optimistically expects WBAI to "return to local control" tomorrow afternoon.
The Pacifica Director contends that the vote was illegal, because it included votes from Directors elected by WBAI.
More on the Pacifica Board vote: https://pacificainexile.org/archives/2781
 
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