Battle of the Bylaws

Pacifica is in peril because some stations do not have the programming necessary to attract enough listener-members to sustain them, which was the basis of founder Lew Hill's theory of listener sponsored radio.

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Lew Hill on listener sponsorship:

“Listener sponsorship is an answer to the practical problem of getting better radio programs and keeping them.”

“The fact that the subscription is voluntary merely enlarges the same point [that programming must attract sufficient listeners]. We make a considerable step forward, it seems to me, when we use a system of broadcasting which promises that the mediocre will not survive. But the significance of what does survive increases in ways of the profoundest import to our times when it proceeds from voluntary action. Anyone can listen to a listener-sponsored station.

Anyone can understand the rationale of listener sponsorship—that unless the station is supported by those who value it, no one can listen to it, including those who value it. This is common sense.”

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Lew Hill on programming:

Many people claim that they are upholding Lew Hill’s vision and fulfilling Pacifica’s mission.

Some say programming has to be progressive and radical.
Some say programming has to have diversity.
Someone said “[Lew Hill] founded this place particularly and specifically to broadcast wildly unpopular perspectives that could never get on the air anywhere else. “

What Lew Hill said about programming was more expansive and enlightened.

“The theory I want to discuss rests on two particular assumptions: first, that radio can and should be used for significant communication and art; and second, that since broadcasting is an act of communication, it ought to be subject to the same aesthetic and ethical principles as we apply to any communicative act, including the most personal.”

“The basic situation of broadcasting must be such that artists and thinkers have a place to work—with freedom. Short of this, the suffering listener has no out.
It may be clearer why I indicated at the outset that listener sponsorship involves some basic concerns. This is the first problem it sets out to solve—to give the genuine artist and thinker a possible, even a desirable, place to work in radio.”

“KPFA’s present [1951] air schedule is a modest example. It embraces four main categories— 1) music, 2) drama and literature, 3) public affairs, and 4) children’s programs.”

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Problems occur when we forget Lew Hill’s theory.

No matter what kind of programs stations produce, the programs have to attract enough listener sponsors to sustain the station. This is the critical and overriding criteria for programming.

Unfortunately, there are stations that run large deficits and drain the network of resources.

The Pacifica National Board (PNB) has been dealing with this problem by taking money from self-sustaining station. This is not sustainable in the long run.

Any efforts to address these precarious financial arrangements are typically denounced and dismissed as attacks on progressive and diversity programming.

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Why problem continues - the current Bylaws.

Jim Dingeman of WBAI recently summarized the problem.

“Rigid adherence to narrow visions of what “community” radio is have dominated the grids for decades
Each 168 hour weekly grid of analog radio has to be rethought
This is especially since payables and the ability to meet payroll for the staffs is always a weekly roller coaster
Shows that do not succeed in having enough people to listen to them over populate every grid of every radio station in the Pacifica system
Since 80 percent of more of our revenues come from listener members our audiences have given a strong collective signal with their credit cards for the past twenty years
If you cannot pay for basic expenses and that seems regrettably to be where we are at
Attachment to forms of organizing sound that in some cases may be right on but basically contribute nothing to weekly expenses has to be changed right now”

“Maintaining illusory tropes that just simply bringing the community in by more community oriented shows has simply not worked in terms of numbers for decades.”

The current Bylaws were put in place 20 years ago.

Each of the five stations have four directors, so station with few members has same vote as station with many members. The governance resembles the US Senate rather than House of Representatives. The board’s solution to stations with deficit is to take money from self-sustaining station, instead of addressing the problem.

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What is the solution?

Each station ultimately has to be self-sustaining, and a functional PNB has to be able to apply Lew Hill's theory and take appropriate remedial action when they're not.

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New Day Bylaws.

The New Day Bylaws might better address these problems.

Under the New Day Bylaws a majority (12 of 15) of Directors would be directly elected by the members, so the Board would be more responsive to the membership.

Pacifica members voted for the New Day Bylaws by a 6820 to 5471 margin in June of 2021

However, Pacifica’s General Counsel ruled that the Bylaws referendum lost, based on a questionable interpretation of California law. A court ruling to settle this issue is currently being sought by New Day.

The status-quo situation is neither tenable nor sustainable.

What can be more self-defeating than insolvency?