Two Groups Form to Save WLIU
Hope is strong that station could be turned
Into a self-sustaining entity
(09/03/2009) Since early August, when Long Island University announced its intent to shut down WLIU by Oct. 3, public radio supporters have been working furiously to make sure that eastern Long Island continues to have a radio station that provides local content.
 Jenny Gorman
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A newly formed group called Save Public Radio on the East End has been actively campaigning for support, and a nonprofit called Peconic Public Broadcasting has been formed with the intention of purchasing the station.
With a recent reprieve from Stony Brook University that will allow the equipment and radio antenna to stay at the Stony Brook Southampton campus until Dec. 3, Wally Smith, the manager there, said he is more optimistic than ever that the station can be saved — but the battle is far from over.
“I cannot tell you about the excitement or the outpouring of the community in response to this. It’s very clear there are people in leadership in this community who want this station to be on the East End, and are raising their voices to keep it here,” he said on the phone last week.
Politicians including Representative Tim Bishop, State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle have all pledged their commitment to keeping WLIU alive in its current form.
While it was evident that it would eventually need to find a new home when the State University at Stony Brook took over Long Island University’s Southampton campus two years ago, the university’s decision to nix the station entirely was a recent development that came as a shock to Mr. Smith and his co-workers, he said, as well as thousands of listeners.
“It wasn’t until the economic collapse that the final bell was tolled for the radio station,” Mr. Smith said. “We had a working plan [with another university], which unfortunately fell through at the eleventh hour.”
Long Island University officials say the station will go to the highest bidder. However, “by virtue of the license we need to sell it to a not-for-profit” such as a school or religious group, said Robert Altholz, the chief financial officer at the university.
“What we would be doing is we would be able to take the maximum amount of proceeds and reinvest into the educational purpose of the university,” he said.
“There has been an increasing gap between the revenues and the expenditures of the radio station,” he said, and for the last two years the university has had to come up with over $1 million a year to keep it going.
Public radio “relies significantly on fund raising, and in this environment, for the last couple of years, it’s been tough,” Mr. Altholz said. Money that could be keeping tuition costs lower has instead been channeled into subsidizing the station, he said.
But Porter Bibb, a part-time Hampton Classic commentator who has taken the helm in the fight to save the station, said he was confident that the station could be turned into a self-sustaining entity once it was purchased. He spoke of forming partnerships with other stations that could lead to corporate sponsorships and the possibility of syndicating shows that are “local-centric with national appeal,” such as Steven Gaines’s weekly broadcast from the American Hotel, or coverage of the Hampton Classic.
“There is a lot of sentiment coming out of L.I.U. that the station is a money looser and a constant drain that is not sustainable without subsidies,” Mr. Bibb said. “We are talking to our funding sources about a business plan, and after the move and restart of the station there will be no more capital infusion and it will sustain itself.”
Mr. Bibb is in a unique position to help Peconic Public Broadcasting, considering his line of work. His company, MediaTech Capital Partners, is in the business of buying and selling media companies.
“I’ve bought and sold hundreds of stations,” he said, adding, “I am a passionate advocate and supporter of the radio station and I have been since it went on the air in 1963.”
He asked WLIU supporters to add their names to the list at peconicpublicbroadcasting.org and wait for further information about future fund-raising goals. “We don’t want to take people’s money until we know how much we’re going to need,” he said, adding that the entire cost of moving, purchasing the station, and eventually buying a new tower would be “significantly less than $3 million.”
“Five or six different current broadcasting entities” have expressed interest in buying the station, Mr. Altholz said, but not one has placed a bid yet. The sale is being negotiated by a San Francisco-based brokerage called Public Radio Capital.
There has been concern among the station’s supporters that it might be taken over by a right-wing religious group. “That has been a trend across the country,” Mr. Smith said. “I don’t know if they think there are enough sinners in the East Hampton-Southampton area or not.”
Another possibility could be that a regional public broadcaster buys it simply to extend their signal to the East End, in the meantime eliminating local programming.
Mr. Bibb said that he has been in negotiations with Public Radio Capital on behalf of Peconic Public Broadcasting and hopes the company will accept a pre-emptive bid on behalf of the college that will take the station off the market.
On Saturday, Mr. Bibb said that prospective bidders including Peconic Public Broadcasting were sent information packets from the brokerage. Lawyers working on behalf of the group, including Tom Twomey, had advised against signing a nondisclosure agreement that was included in the package, which would bar the group from talking to the media or telling the public of their intentions to bid on the station. “That would put a muzzle on us, and this is a grassroots effort,” said Mr. Bibb.
Despite that, “we are hoping to put a bid on the table that will be a fair and full price that will more than compensate L.I.U. for what they think the station is worth.”
With heavy-hitting supporters including Jann Wenner, Billy Collins, Peter Beard, and KT McFarland committed to saving the station, “we’ve lined up a lot of potential funding sources,” Mr. Bibb said.
While he said he could not say exactly what the purchase price might be, “we’re not talking about an unknown amount in the multimillions. The station has an annual budget of $2.4 million and the purchase price is going to be somewhere between a half a million and a million dollars,” he said.
In the meanwhile, the clock is still ticking for Mr. Smith, Bonnie Grice, Brian Cosgrove, and the other D.J.s and employees who have kept the station running for years.
“The staff of the station are officially off the payroll on Oct. 3, so if there is not an alternative operator or an alternative circumstance, the station basically could go dark on Oct. 3,” Mr. Smith said.
While Peconic Public Broadcasting has not yet received official nonprofit status, Mr. Smith said that money raised by supporters could immediately be placed in an escrow account for eventual use toward the purchase.
In the event that the sale goes through for the group, the station manager said, he plans to expand upon the programs that already exist. “Basically, we would be able to build from where we are. The first thing is to really stabilize the station and secure the programs.”
With a listener-supported station run by a company specifically dedicated to public radio on the East End, “it would take away all the time I had to spend running up and down the Island to take care of Long Island University’s needs,” Mr. Smith said. “It changes the dynamic.”