WBAI iGM Robert Scott Adams'
Report to the PNB*

WBAI Fourth Quarter Report to the LSB:

The last report was all about doom and gloom, and while on the surface things still might appear bad, I'm going to talk about what's good and what we will improve on.

On the eve of yet another fund drive, we will strive to be like our sister stations in that we are making moves to encourage our listeners to keep this drive short by giving early and often as well as pay by credit card when they donate. Credit card pledging seems to be the easiest way for us to fulfill on our quarterly goals. So, in this case, we have carts running on both of the aforementioned ideas. For each person who uses a credit card, we will enclose a bumper sticker, or some other free incentive. By the time you read this, we might have some sort of report on how it's going.

In addition, we have a list of premiums we can post on our web site that folks can purchase all year long.

We applaud WPFW on its fundraising event in December and we would love to piggy back on it as previously suggested.

But after a few meetings with paid staff, we think the best way to take advantage of this event is to first of all show our support to WPFW by running congratulatory spots as well as promotional spots about the event.

In the meantime, we are going to produce our own event the first week in December where we have chosen 20-24 of our best producers to sell between 20-24 tickets to our own fundraising event where they will all sit at tables to meet, greet and otherwise entertain. Our paid staff of “celebrities” will be on hand to further sweeten the pot and with a bit a planning, prepromotion and a bit of luck, we will raise some much needed capital.

I have received a proposal from another producer interested in having us sponsor weekly dances in the Latino community and other locations around New York. He is convinced we can begin to really make serious inroads to the various communities as well as raise some much needed capital by sponsoring these dances. We have proposals in to various venue owners/ managers as well as promoters. This is a win/win for all concerned.

We had a reasonably successful book/cd sale the week of September 19th-23rd. The final figure is not in, but judging from the traffic, it appears as if the time spent was well worth it.

Our performance space has been in use a lot more regularly than usual which is good. I have a new music/interview show called “The Artist's Studio” where I do live interviews with musicians coupled with live, in-house performances. The initial show featured jazz drummer, Greg Bandy. We have two objectives with this show, to provide an outlet for nonmainstream artists looking for an avenue for exposure. There are many independent record companies who would pay for the opportunity to perform over our airwaves. This show presents a prime opportunity for that to happen. The hope is to gain the rights to these recordings and use them as well as many of the past recorded performances in the creation of our own record label.

Once we begin to build a reliable audience, we will become known as the station where you can gain exposure, develop and expand the audience and as a result, we will be able to attract local venues, as well as promoters who are interested in getting their artists heard. This is very important if we are going to attract the vaunted ‘younger' audience.

Along those same lines, there is also an opportunity to establish relationships with a few local Harlem jazz clubs in an effort to do partial or full live broadcasts from their venues. This will enable some of our producers to become more active and visible. We need to promote our producers more. As a result, our station will naturally reap the benefits from this exposure. In a perfect world, we can all make some money.

Here a few more new shows that are in the begging stages and, hopefully, will be launched by the end of the year.

One is a college student news forum show. We will have students from anywhere between four and six local colleges do a bi-weekly at first, then weekly forum discussing what their concerns, issues, and desires are; again, a way to invite as well as excite a younger audience. There are so many single mothers in our society; the reasons for single motherhood are varied. Our thought is to have a panel of possibly three single mothers who are single for different reasons for an hour long show discussing the benefits, liabilities, the opportunities, social services, societal concerns, etc. of single motherhood. This panel will be able to book their own guests, and discuss various topics that we think will open the eyes of our audience are as well as are not a segment of this society. Of course, the ultimate idea would be to have them travel to various communities around the metro area and conduct forums in the hopes of providing a communication and activist networking forum.

With the increasing number of small business that exist in addition to the number already existing we would do good to provide some sort of service to help people navigate through the maze of owning your own business. The idea is to use the group SCORE, volunteers who contribute their time free of charge to provide professional guidance and information to maximize the success of the existing and emerging small business. All of these volunteers have all been extremely successful in their various careers. The hope is they will produce a show and, ultimately, help us with marketing and promoting WBAI.

So, that's it for the last part of the year. Of course, we will still focus on raising more money so we can stay afloat. But this time rather than chant the mantra of despair, I figured it might be good to see how we are progressing, despite our problems.

*As of mid October this document hasn't been given to the LSB.


Back to the page about the September 2007, PNB meeting.

Back to the October 8, 2007, program page.