“When staff found out there was all this money—not only in the
bank, but being generated [during pledge week]—they asked: Why
are we duping the donors? “That’s how a former KUOW staffer
characterized internal reaction to the station’s upcoming annual
financial report. Last year, the station had a $1.3 million surplus.
This year’s report,
according to the former staffer, will show an
even larger surplus.
So why do KUOW’s twice-yearly pledge drives—one started on
October 8—make it sound like the wolves are at the door?
“Maybe they’re too good at raising money,” says one longtime
supporter of the station.
But with that much money in the bank, he
adds, “maybe they should have only one annual pledge drive.”
KUOW is a very successful public radio station. Last year it was
number four among all Seattle radio stations; it ranks 10th in public
radio nationally, which is impressive for a medium-size market. The
community clearly supports the station. But scrutiny of this
Seattle sacred cow has been rife since veteran KUOW staffer Ken
Vincent cited low wages and high cash reserves as one of his reasons
for leaving the station in August.
Now donors are starting to ask questions: Is the sacred cow milking
us? Must pledge drives be so long, so frequent, and so frantic? Why are
the station’s surpluses such a closely guarded secret?
“The brouhaha with Ken made it sound like there’s somebody over here
living off the fat of the land and that listeners are being
double-talked,” said KUOW general manager Wayne Roth, who’s led KUOW
since 1983. Roth
acknowledged that the station enjoys a large
surplus, but he insisted that there always has been a surplus and that
the station is just being prudent.
“I don’t know how we could be more transparent,” Roth said.
Others think transparency is lacking.
“We have a reasonable right to know everything but salaries,” says
Seattle resident Brian Grant. “On their website, they’re not saying in
plain English what their financial situation is. The annual report does
not even have a balance sheet.”
Grant’s no muckraking blogger. He’s a psychiatrist and sits on local
arts boards. He gives money to arts organizations, social services, and
KUOW. Grant also matches his employees’ contributions to KUOW. But
Grant was frustrated when he attempted to look into KUOW’s
finances.
“There’s nothing that says in plain English, ‘Here’s our surplus,'”
says Grant.
Roth told me that the station’s 2006 audits were on the KUOW site.
Only after I informed Roth that neither Grant nor I could find them did
Roth supply a link. The station’s audits weren’t anywhere near the
annual report, the most logical place for them, but tucked away on an
“About” page with information concerning the station’s board of
directors.
The audits showed that nonprofit KUOW has made a sizable “profit” in
the last two years, but they also show that KUOW has been investing
heavily in new projects. In 2006, KUOW acquired KXOT in Tacoma, two HD
channels, and an Olympia AM station (1340). “We’re fortunate to have
this amount of working capital—not all public radio stations do,”
says Roth.
Grant was mollified after seeing the financial statements.
“They were able to buy a new house without taking out a mortgage” by
using the surplus, Grant says. “We should all be so lucky.”
Nevertheless, Grant feels the station should be more open and honest
with listeners about its financial position.
“We’re not stupid,” says Grant. Instead of making it sound like the
wolves are at the door, why isn’t KUOW telling listeners that the
station is on solid financial footing?
If KUOW has nothing to hide, and it would appear that the station
does not, why is it so hard to find the clear information about its
financial position? Could it be that it’s a harder sell to
would-be donors if they knew the station was sitting on a
million-dollar surplus?
As staffers beg for donations on-air this week, listeners will be
told that their money is desperately needed for programming,
programming, programming. Listeners will not be told about surpluses or
the station’s expansion, its planned innovations, or new platforms
being built with the money KUOW raises from its listeners. There’s
nothing wrong—it’s commendable, even—that KUOW is using its
surpluses to expand and innovate. But public radio listeners are
famously well-informed and sophisticated. They can be trusted with the
whole story. Perhaps the station fears it’s a tougher sell, but in
these days of transparency and easy information accessibility, there’s
no point in obscuring where the money is actually going.
Once Grant got past the sleight of hand with the audits on KUOW’s
website and actually dug into the numbers, he was satisfied, and ready
again to financially support the station as he always has.
KUOW has nothing to hide—it ought to stop acting like it does.
Michael Hood writes about talk radio at blatherwatch.blogs.com.