In a disturbing follow-up to Mike’s post on Friday about WGBH’s grand experiment in the virtual world, comes this post from Alex Beam at boston.com:
Home / Lifestyle Alex Beam
If people are going to take the trouble to leak us internal memos, we are going to take the trouble to print them. In an all-points bulletin issued last week, WGBH president Jon Abbott warned that the World’s Greatest Broadcast House may end its current fiscal year in deficit, and declared an immediate freeze on hiring.
A friend of mine hates the cliche “a perfect storm” – and so do I – but it looks like WGBH may have sailed into one. Abbott notes that the “recessionary climate” has chilled viewer and listener donations, as well as corporate underwriting. The station has had “increased debt service costs from the disruption in the bond markets,” he added.
In late February, Abbott informed his staff that the subprime credit crisis was affecting the price ‘GBH had to pay for bond insurance, and that the station was refinancing its variable and fixed rate bonds at an increased cost, and drawing on contingency funds to pay expenses. Those bonds were issued primarily to pay for the station’s new, $85 million headquarters in Brighton.
The 343,000-square-foot new building is Glam Central Station, with a state-of-the-art auditorium, a recording studio, and the signature 30-by-45-foot LED screen that looms over the Mass. Pike.
With 20-20 hindsight, I wonder: Maybe some warehouse space in Waltham or Watertown might have been a better choice? Will One Guest Street in Brighton become known as Becton’s Folly, in honor of Abbott’s predecessor, Henry Becton? Stay tuned.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com.
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
This is the third classical megastation I’ve heard about that seems to be cutting the budget. As I’ve reported before, NPR cut its classical music budget drastically just over a year ago when the company laid off nearly the entire classical music staff.
I’ve experienced personal budget rumblings from WQXR (NY) and WFMT (Chicago), but I haven’t seen any official financial statements yet. In a recession, the arts always suffer first because we are so dependent on donations. In the case of commercial stations like WQXR, there’s also a significant shift in advertising dollars away from traditional media to the web. I have no official knowledge that those factors are causing this current slowdown in classical radio, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
We’ll report more when we know more.
Subscribe Via Email
Enter your email address to subscribe to Scanning the Dial and receive notifications of new posts by email.
Thank you for subscribing.
Something went wrong.
I wonder where the decline in donations and underwriting is being felt more: TV, radio or both (and if the underwriting is down for online as well). I think that generally TV stations have been in a bigger slump for some time now. And if the balance is uneven, will any cuts be meted out accordingly?
I’ve heard from several radio g.m.’s that at joint TV/radio licensees the radio side of the operation typically ends up subsidizing the less successful TV side, much to their consternation.