After reading through most of the .pdf files, there were some things that were surprising and some things I would like to have seen that were not there.
Among the surprises were the low cume and Average Quarter Hour listenership numbers for these stations and the network as a whole. The report touted them as large. I would have apologetically said something else.
I also wish that there was a revenue and expense breakout for the radio operation alone. Aside from whatever it has to pay for the NPR and PRI programs, this is one dirt cheap operation.
The numbers are there: the equipment, with the exception of microwave relays was not that expensive to begin with.
The transmitters are mostly on state-owned land, and a number of them share towers with NJN-TV. Accountants can come up with numbers, but even on an annual basis how much extra does it cost to have an FM antenna on a tower you already own for another reason? And that land would be state owned and not private anyway, so no tax revenue is lost.
Almost all of these stations have low power costs. How much does it cost for electricity for a 500-watt transmitter? A few bucks a 24-hour day, at most? Maintenance has to be minimal too, these are probably all, work fine - last a long time units. Does a contract engineer need to visit more than a few times a year, if that ?
The studios are mixed in with the TV operation, but if they were stand alone what would you need? One small studio for production and one small studio with one board for on-air, and a satellite receiver on the roof.
As I have said before, they have, likely cheap, and could in the future be volunteer, board operators. But with computer automation, and programming coming from networks and other stations, do you really need an operator at all?
As to the rest of the staff for just radio, what do you need? You might need one person to oversee everything, and every once in a while make programming decisions, put together a budget, and handle grant requests, and organize membership drives.
The data I saw listed income from corporate grants, a small amount from listener membership, and there was a mention of eligibility for funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
It is possible that the entire radio operation needed a boost in fund raising and attention, that it didn't get being the very poor stepchild of TV, but the whole thing is so cheap to run that it probably wouldn't take much in additional corporate grants and listener memberships to keep the books in the black, if the aren't there already thanks to the CPB funding.
It was encouraging to see that the stations are for sale only to non-profit organizations, and that the state wants to see entire plans for operating the stations, building studio's, staff structure, program content etc. along with the bids.
If they follow the schedule, on July 1 we should be hearing whatever comes next, let's hope it is better.
