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WHYY-FM has changed their legal ID

M

MikefromDelaware

I've noticed that when giving their legal ID, WHYY-FM says, you're listening to WHYY-FM Philadelphia, WHYY-HD, and WHYY.com, your member supported public media (rather than member supported public radio) for the Delaware Valley.

I wonder how long it will be before the other stations that have websites (most do now where you can listen online) will stop promoting the radio aspect of their business and promote more the idea that they provide media rather than radio.
 
It's a great idea as it creates the image that WHYY is more than a radio station. Radio is only one among multiple mediums provided by WHYY through the HD2 channel, the station website and audio streaming. Many stations are already taking advantage of this concept, but not all promote it. I believe it will not be very long before this changes when other radio stations begin following the WHYY lead.
 
The above may all be true, but WHYY FM & TV appear to face a vicious circle of demographics.

The highly-paid C.E.O. for WHYY is hell-bent on establishing multiple platforms. Nothing wrong with that, even commendable.

But public broadcasting tends to skew towards older demographics, and the donor base tends to be older. Many don't give a damn about multiple platforms. The FM & TV signals remain WHYY's bread & butter.

Already reduced WHYY staff are stretched serving these multiple platforms.

The station brass seems to show tone deafness in this regard.

Faced with declining grants from Pennsylvania and Delaware - and from public-service foundations - WHYY naturally has tried to cut budget.

But sometimes the cuts have been penny-wise and pound foolish. Cutting back the nightly Wilmington-originated, "Delaware Tonight", on TV 12 for example.

For this, WHYY TV now faces challenges from the City of Wilmington (the city of license) and from U.S. Ted Kaufman (D-DE). This may all come to naught, of course, in a fairly de-regulated environment.
But not until the station spends extra dollars on legal or other fees to defend itself.

Plus, it has now alienated the Wilmington-area "blue-blood" donor base which long supported WHYY.
Hardly a week goes by without a letter critical of WHYY to The NEWS-JOURNAl newspaper in Wilmington; a critical caller to a Wilmington radio talk-show; or someone otherwise questioning WHYY in public.

But, of course, all this might be defensible if WHYY was saving substantial dollars with its decision. It does not appear to be.

With the glut in office space in Wilmington, it's finding it difficult to give-up its location on Orange street in Wilmington.

Plus, its concession to its Wilmington license has been the production of a half-hour newsmagazine featuring documentary vignettes. Unfortunately for WHYY, that's just about as labor-intensive as the old 5:30 p.m. newscasts were, and appears NOT to have yielded significant savings.

A sign of the increasingly antagonistic environment for WHYY in Delaware, WHYY-TV has now scheduled repeat broadcasts of that half-hour.

Strange, just a few years ago, WHYY not only opened a bureau in Dover, but also planned a presence in Georgetown, the county seat for Delaware's southernmost county, Sussex. (WHYY's downstate Delaware repeater transmits from Seaford on Channel 64.)

Meanwhile, talking about new "platforms", the WHYY website itself is rather difficult to navigate.

But to repeat the bottom line of this reply: WHYY's donor base doesn't seem to be all that enamored with all these platforms. And the station has definitely suffered erosion from Delaware.

Younger people, who, in theory, might be more attracted to these platforms... don't tend to migrate to the serious content of public broadcasting. Plus, hey, they don't want to PAY for anything. Just ask the music industry.
 
DX makes some very good points. Unfortunately, the FCC has always treated the Wilmington TV market as the "red haired step child". This goes all the way back to the early 1950's when then WRCV channel 3 NBC Philly, pressured NBC to take Wilmington's WDEL-TV channel 12's NBC affiliation away from them. This caused WDEL-TV to be in a difficult spot where they literally had nothing to air that could possibly compete with the network shows as there weren't reruns then or all the syndicated programming that an independent station could access today. That set the path for Wilmington to never have a real TV station. The FCC did nothing to stop NBC, from what I've been able to find out, from sticking it to the then WDEL-TV 12 (had started out as WDEL-TV channel 7 and the FCC moved them to channel 12 so as to not interfere with NYC and Washington's channel 7's.

Also, there is Channel 61, (ION TV) that is also licensed to Wilmington, which also has no presence in or programming for Wilmington.

Also Channel 64 Seaford that simulcasts Philly's WHYY Channel 12 (might as well call it what it is as it sure isn't any sort of Wilmington station). So there are really 3 Delaware TV licenses that have ignored their city and state of license. All three should be held to task by the FCC. Kind of makes you wonder what sort of lobbyists does WHYY have in Washington.

When WHYY moved from channel 35 to channel 12 back in 1963, even then their main studio of operations was in Philly (the old WFIL studios at 46th and Market Sts, Philly. The Wilmington studio was a broken down old school house at 5th and Scott Sts. They aired two shows from Wilmington then, Delaware Tonight at 6pm and 11pm and a weekly show called Dover Docket - a week in review, sort of a lesser tech version of this news magazine they now do.

What always bugged me about WHYY was they knew that people from Philly would never financially donate to a Wilmington NET, later PBS station, but yet expect Wilmingtonians to financially support a Philly PBS station. Go figure. I used to give an occasional donation to WHYY, but not any more. My feelings are, if they can't serve Wilmington and want to be a Philly station, then let Philadelphians pay for it (those are the people they target and truly want as viewers). So I'll watch TV 12 and listen to 90.9 FM, but I no longer financially give them any money.

It would be great if the FCC finally made WHYY truly serve Wilmington, by requiring them to move back into their 8th and Orange St studio (since they haven't been able to unload it yet) and restart Delaware Tonight with an evening newscast at 7pm rather than 5:30 pm which is before most people are home from work (they wonder why their viewer ship was so low - can't watch TV and drive at the same time - that's what radio is for) and a later night live newscast either 10 or 11pm. Also require that they air the Delaware Governor's state of the state and inaugural address in the evening so the working tax payers could actually get to see it (WHYY airs the PA governors speeches at night so why not the governor in your state of license). They should also be required to feature some Delaware cultural programming, like the Delaware Symphony, etc, a Delaware cultural special a couple times a year to highlight the cultural life here. Yes, that is a pipe dream, but that would truly be a Wilmington oriented PBS station. Will this happen? I doubt it seriously. The FCC hasn't given a hoot about Wilmington as a TV market since WDEL tried to make Wilmington a TV city over 50 years ago, so why should that change now. I'd sure like to be proven wrong.
 
Well, Mike, I know you'd "like to be proven wrong", but you won't be!

In WHYY's defense, the WHYY stations took a huge hit with corporate & non-profit underwriting as the economy began to tank.

Otherwise, why would WHYY have opened a Dover bureau, and planned some presence in Sussex County, only to scrap everything?

The station suffers from both a highly compensated CEO - which has been documented time and time again - and overly restrictive union rules for its technical workers. Then the recession hits...

If you want an example of the overly restrictive union rules, here's an example. Once WDEL proposed originating one of its news programs from the WHYY Wilmington facility, which would be excellent cross-promotion, plus the host could just walk into the main studio to be a "talking head". But the union would hear none of it. It insisted that a union technician operate the WDEL remote equipment (with appropriate compensation from Delmarva Broadcasting); otherwise, it was a "no go".

I'm not union-bashing (I was once a member of one), but this insanity in this day and age?

It's as crazy as a big-market commercial station I know where - in the 1970's - if you were air talent, you had to wait for the engineer to manually remove a cart from a cart machine. If the technician was on lunch-break, you had to wait!

I remember once when a train derailment had occurred; the technican - who was rigid about such things - had gone on "break", and there was no other technician to remove the cart so we could get the audio on-the-air!

But back to WHYY, it suffers from rigidity at the top and the bottom levels.

Its board of directors is also unaccountable. I remember once when attempts were made to reach a Delaware professor who happened to be a member of the WHYY governing board, to get his defense of the looming reduction of WHYY's Delaware operation. You'd think a professor - of all people - would delight in the give-and-take, and seize the opportunity to defend WHYY; cite the reductions in corporate & non-profit grants; etc. No way. He spurned repeated attempts to interview him; referred all questions to WHYY's PR department.

The WHYY governing board seems to be a clique, subservient to the overly-compensated CEO, incapable or afraid to express any independent thought!
 
Even WHYY is trying to promote a tie-in to their own station presence recently by airing promo bumper between programming for an upcoming three-episode run of the "Antiques Roadshow" that were taped in Atlantic City. Last time I checked, though, New Jersey has their own public television media outlet called, erm, NEW JERSEY NETWORK. Gee, I wonder... :-/
 
DX you explain what is wrong with unions excellently. I believe unions used to serve the good of the working person. Today, due to their arrogance and anti business attitude they are costing Americans jobs in a major way. As you know, I worked part time in radio for over 30 years (1260 WNRK, 1380 WAMS, 101.7 WNNN -FM, and 1450 WILM) and yes none of those stations were unionized. They were all great places to work. I also worked in industry for a company that does have some union locations. I worked at one in Philly about 18 years ago. I had to get a small hole tapped for a screw thread. It's a 2 minute job, and that counts getting the tool out of the drawer. As a lab technician I wasn't allowed to make such a repair, because as the union would say, "you're taking food out of my children's mouth". I had been allowed at a non-union location to do most of my repairs and only troubling the maintenance folks with big problems that required more expertise, training, etc. I had to walk the part to the far side of the plant and go to the maintenance shop where I found 4 men sitting with their legs up on a work bench (it wasn't break time or lunch). So I think, great they're not busy, I can get this done quickly. One of the men says fill out a form, I did, then he said, place the form with the piece over there. When we get time, we'll fix it for you and call you so you can come back and get it. Two weeks later, I finally got that phone call.

Yes this is a non-radio example of one of the problems with unions. But as DX pointed out in his radio example, the nonsensical rules that actual stop work and cause a company, in industry, to lose money while paying top dollar for a poor work ethic and attitude, or having a radio station have a long period of dead air making them sound like a "Podunk radio station" in a major market so that a radio technician can go have a cup of coffee away from the board he's supposed to be operating which is why companies do not want unions and will relocate a plant to another part of the country that isn't as unionized as the Northeast to avoid the additional expense and crap the union costs their business. Your example with WHYY's union and WDEL's willingness to partner with Channel 12 to help promote Delaware Tonight is another classic example of unions being stupid and cutting off their own noses. I'm assuming that many of those union folks at the Wilmington WHYY studio are now laid off and out of work. So in once sense, they did that to themselves.

Oh by the way, that Philly industrial plant I worked at 18 years ago is no longer there, that work was moved to a non-union location in another state thus saving that company much money and aggravation and being able to work more efficiently.
 
I didn't mean to get too far astray from the initial topic, which was WHYY FM's top-of-the-hour I.D.s; platforms; and then whether WHYY management may be getting too far ahead of its traditional donor base with all the emphasis on platforms.

I cited the example of the union's inflexibility with a Wilmington commercial radio station originating a broadcast from the WHYY facility to suggest that WHYY public broadcasting may have a structural problem from top to bottom: Its incredibly well-paid CEO (and the board of directors which selected him!) down to the union structure.

But in fairness to union technicians, now, their presence didn't stop WHYY from going to automatically-triggered cameras at the Wilmington facility on Orange Street, for example. The union has been fighting cutbacks for years!

I would say, though: I find it amazing that a station in such financial distress still manages to employ two or three P.R. people. I think they ought to be more expendable than the hard-working journalists and creative people who create CONTENT.

Then again, I wouldn't expect a CEO with zilch prior background in broadcasting to understand that. Reminds me of the late CBS Inc. CEO Lawrence Tisch, who managed to drive that network into the ground long before the complicated media environment we have today. The CBS news division never recovered!
 
Maybe WHYY told those technicians, that either those automatically-triggered cameras were going to be used in the Wilmington location for the only broadcast originating there (30 minutes a day Monday - Friday) or they'd shut down the Wilmington operation thus causing the other union members at 8th and Orange Sts. to lose their jobs. That's probably how that was sold to the "Amalgamated TV Camera Operators Union local". If they'd fought that, then they'd be taking food out of their brother and sister union members mouths.

I'm not anti-union, broadcast or industry, they do serve a function when they are being reasonable. The problem comes when they've got so much power and control that they can demand ridiculous stuff from a company (think American auto industry during the past 60 years) that their demands make a company no longer able to compete in the market place and then eventually the place closes its doors and goes out of business, or we the American tax payer get to bail them out.

One final thought, from what I've read, it appears the only part of the economy where union membership is growing is in government/tax payer supported businesses (think teachers and government workers). Neither has to show a profit, they just tax the actual working public more. So they can be as unreasonable as they want, you and I get the bill and we have no choice, unlike in the business world where you can go down the street and spend your money elsewhere.

Getting it back to WHYY, sure they've got a very expensive CEO, just like the U of Delaware does with their President, who is one of the highest paid college presidents in the nation (again the Delaware tax payer does give some money to the U of Del as it is a "state school" - personally I believe that should be stopped).

DX, I believe you'd agree with me that Delmarva Broadcasting or any local radio station in Wilmington or Philly wouldn't spend that kind of money on a CEO, because they realize that they've got to stay competitive with their competition in their given market and make a profit for the owners or possibly the shareholders in some cases. WHYY, nor the U of Del doesn't have to make a profit, so they get away with paying such a high price for their CEO or president.
 
Check out Philly TV for some updated info that I'm posting there about channel 12.
 
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