Goodbye, WLIU, Make Way for WPPB
Supporters of WLIU public radio have breathed a huge sigh of relief as word spread that Long Island University has signed a letter of
 Josh Gross for Wainscott Studios Photo
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intent to sell the station to Peconic Public Broadcasting. The nearly-established nonprofit group was thrown together shortly after Long Island University announced the intent to sell the station in August, and since then supporters have rallied to raise money to purchase the station, under the banner of Save Public Radio on the East End.
According to Porter Bibb, a SPREE member who was one of the chief organizers of the purchase, it will cost about $2.4 million to move the station to a new home at Wainscott Studios, although the actual price to be paid for the station and the license is $850,000.
“That’s near the bottom of the fair market value that both we and the brokers who represent L.I.U.,” which is California-based Public Radio Capital, “had agreed on.” While other nonprofits including religious organizations had bid on the station, Peconic Public Broadcasting offered the most attractive deal. Among other things, they agreed to fund a sister station, WCWP, a student-run operation at L.I.U.’s C.W. Post campus for the next three years.
“There’s still the daunting task ahead of us now, to put all the pieces together, but it’s a very positive challenge right now to create this new company and move forward with our service in the community,” said Wally Smith, the station manager. Once the paperwork is in order and the station is moved, “we’re looking toward creating new, locally-centric programming for the region, building on what we already have,” he added. “There will not be significant changes in the format that already exists.”
“The SPREE Web site,”peconicpublicbroadcasting.org, “is going to be our main communications platform,” with news on the station’s progress, said Mr. Bibb. Within the coming months, the call letters of the station will be changed from WLIU to WPPB, and if all goes according to plan, programming will not be interrupted.
While nearly enough money to seal the deal has been raised, mostly from private individuals and organizations, it has yet to be moved into a bank account as Peconic Public Broadcasting awaits official approval for nonprofit status, which is expected to happen, said Mr. Bibb, after a New York State Board of Regents meeting after a board of regents meeting on Monday.
He said that Peconic Public Broadcasting will also cover the month-to-month operating costs of the station through the closing, “and will pick up certain expenses that L.I.U. had incurred while preparing to shut the station down.” Staff members who thought they might be losing their jobs on Oct. 3, when the university anticipated shutting the station down, will continue to be paid while the deal is in the process of closing.
“We didn’t want to have to put the staff in limbo. They would have been in a horrendously vulnerable position,” said Mr. Bibb.
The station’s antenna is to be moved from a radio tower at Stony Brook Southampton College, which the State University System of New York acquired as part of the deal when they purchased the campus from L.I.U. several years ago. Both the Long Island Power Authority and Cablevision have offered to place the antenna on towers they own in Southampton. Mr. Bibb said long-term negotiations are also in the works with the Shinnecock nation, which might consider allowing the new station to build an antenna tower on the reservation.
Mr. Bibb has spent the past few months working on a business plan, which is to be made available to the public through the SPREE Web site shortly. He said he was confident that the station would be entirely self-sufficient by 2011.
While L.I.U. had said the main reason for choosing to sell the station was that the college could not afford to support it anymore, Mr. Bibb said it was entirely feasible for a public radio station to sustain itself.