Summer Reese on the future of WBAI

LSB member Frank LeFever's take on Summer Reese's Report to the Listener:

 I thought she did well, and moreover said what some of us expected her to say: that we were near an edge we had been approaching for a decade, but could pull back from the edge if listener response and staff/volunteer morale was sufficient.

She honestly said nothing was guaranteed but we had a fighting chance IF we really FOUGHT to survive.  This squares with everything I know from behind the scenes as well as what's public knowledge if public cares to look.

Nice timing with the immediately following promo for Giuliani Time, a fund-raiser "somebody we know" organized and is working hard to promote (I'm collaborating via social media). He also has finally obtained OFFICIAL go-ahead and website contact channel for recruiting VOLUNTEERS. One of the things I and John Brinkley (yes yes, I know: JUC) hammered at Wednesday night with Berthold was the need for HIGH-LEVEL volunteers, e.g. retired execs of exec secretaries or techies who have maturity and SKILLS -- not HS students who can pack and mail packages. Painful contrast after Summer and callers voiced aspirations for better programming (e.g. arts): Kathy Davis and the Numerology personal portraits scam immediately following. In the two-hour slot that yielded $855 or so for Ecologic, she got $575, and the first $320 of that may have been spill-over from Summer's giving the pledge number near the end of her gig.

Unfortunately, despite the big bucks days Summer alluded to, the trend over the past 3 days has been down, and yesterday's take was about half of what's needed and only 1/3 of the "$30K" that impressed Summer last week. Wednesday night, I told the group (after some back-of-envelope figuring) that we were averaging $18,311 per day, slightly less than the $18,820 projected in the FY 2014 budget, and by Nov. 1 we'd clear more than 500K (fulfilled). Now, I dunno...


Frank is a member of the WBAI Local Station Board