Ron Hetrick, CEO of WITF, resigned yesterday. Wondering if he might be considering joining WHYY to lead the WPSU assimulation? Kind of a tough position to be in as he (like a lot of public media stations) took a salary cut with the CPB recission. Lots of positions open in public media elsewhere.
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Penn State considering transferring WPSU to WHYY, Inc.
- Thread starter Rollo-Smokes
- Start date
The WHYY view:Here is a quote reported by Current:
Penn State approves sale of WPSU to WHYY
WPSU had faced a wind-down in operations after a Penn State board committee rejected a proposed deal last month.current.org
Here's the story from Penn State:
Penn State Board of Trustees approves new deal for WPSU | Penn State University
The Penn State Board of Trustees today unanimously approved the material terms of a proposed transaction to transfer the operating assets of WPSU public radio and television stations to WHYY, a public media organization based in Greater Philadelphia (licensed out of Wilmington, Delaware), which...www.psu.edu
A month after rejecting an earlier proposal, Penn State trustees agree to WHYY’s takeover of school’s public media station
Which I am forced to admit is rather interesting given that they've just paid a football coach $50 million to walk away.
Athletics department money is a separate account:
James Franklin's Penn State Buyout To Be Paid by Athletic Department, No adidas Involvement
www.athleticbusiness.com
From the Penn State Athletic Director, Pat Kraft, quoted in the article:
Still very bad optics. And there are other cases where specific athletic programs are not self sustaining that need to be subsidized by other athletic programs (eg football subsidizing lacrosse) or by general university funds.
General university funds are not used for athletics in any sport at Penn State.
It's a nice story, but we all know that money is fungible.
It can be. In non-profit organizations, it all has to be reported for tax purposes. The sports money stays with sports. The donors put restrictions on it in that way. The big schools like Penn State have specific alumni groups that raise money for sports.
Money definitely has to follow donor restrictions. But that doesn’t mean that general operating or unrestricted general university money might also be used for athletics.
The issue here is paying millions of dollars to a football coach. I doubt that the money is coming from general university money. Penn State has a very active sports alumni association. They're the ones who likely are behind the coach's salary. Example: We were paid by a college team to broadcast games. The money came from the school's sports alumni club. Not from the university.
I already posted where the money comes from to pay James Franklin.Athletics department money is a separate account:
James Franklin's Penn State Buyout To Be Paid by Athletic Department, No adidas Involvement
From the Penn State Athletic Director, Pat Kraft, quoted in the article:
UPDATE: WHYY, Inc.'s board has given their stamp of approval today (Thursday 10/23).
EMF isn't taking stations over in the educational band.
The best possible outcome in this situation
It has in the past (South Florida and most recently, an attempt in St. Louis).
The issue is most commercial stations are in the business of making money. Most educational band stations are not, and usually are idea oriented. There are just not nearly as many non-commercial stations available for purchase.
If it boiled down to it, I could’ve easily seen EMF making Penn State “an offer they can’t refuse”. But that’s a moot point now!
EMF already has K-Love and Air1 affiliates with good signals in the State College market and the Hispanic population in the area is very negligible, meaning that I really couldn't see EMF purchasing WPSU unless such an effort was made out of spite. Vcy America and Bott Radio network on the other hand...
WHYY's Studio 2 did a live remote from WPSU today, discussing the demise of local media and WHYY's takeover of the station, although they emphasized that the deal hasn't been finalized yet.
Ignoring the rhetoric, do our readers expect WHYY to keep most local programs at WPSU or do you anticipate more simulcasting?
While the latter is more likely (see what happened to the south New Jersey stations that came into WHYY's orbit), a lot will depend on 1) the terms of the contract WHYY signs with Pennsylvania State University; and 2) the amount of pledge money that can be raised from the local population.