Congress has cut all federal funding for public media. As part of a $9 billion rescission package, lawmakers rescinded money already allocated by Congress to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So what does this mean for KNKX?
KNKX General Manager David Fischer and Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick talk through this unprecedented rescission.
Click “Listen” above to hear their conversation, or find the transcript below.
Transcript
Note: This transcript is provided for reference only and may contain typos. Please confirm accuracy before quoting.
KNKX Morning Edition host Kirsten Kendrick: David, thanks for being here.
KNKX General Manager David Fischer: Well, thanks for the invitation. Kirsten, it's great to be here.
Kendrick: Can you walk us through how much money KNKX was set to receive from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?
Fischer: You bet. KNKX will lose approximately $600,000 minimum. And I say minimum because there is a cost coverage that has been provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, for music rights. That's licensing to all of the creatives behind every piece of music we play, and that cost coverage is slated to go away in the next six months. We don't have the exact dollar figure for that number, but we are estimating an additional impact of between $150,000 to $250,000. So all told, probably around 10% of our budget.
Kendrick: And so what is KNKX doing to respond to this funding cut?
Fischer: We're going to tighten our belts, even though we've been operating with an exceptionally lean budget, we will find ways — other than cutting our small and efficient staff — to reduce our expenses. We just have to get creative and smart and really drill down on that.
But the other is sort of an energizing effort where we're going to focus on transformation. We're going to focus on trying to deepen our approach to meet our nonprofit mission and energize communities even more so. And becoming more relevant in the lives of our community, more regional news, more cultural engagement through music and arts, more in-person events to celebrate together and bring people together. We really want to take on a healing approach.
Kendrick: We are going to have a very targeted fund drive as well. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Fischer: Well, we need to kind of get on with it as quickly as possible. And so we are going to do what we're thinking is a really balanced fundraising approach with as little interference with our regular programming as possible, but also get the urgency across to everybody.
And I want to recognize with incredible gratitude that KNKX is here serving because of our listeners. So many of you stepped up almost 10 years ago to help save the station and relaunch us with complete independence. And that independence — not from corporations, not from university, not from government — it's complete independence, that's rare. And then you helped us build two new stations.
And so we've seen that many people working together, many hands making for light work. Well, it's made a huge difference. We have a new goal to help bridge this gap of 5000 new monthly Sustainers before the end of December, and that's where you would just give a little every month, according to your own capacity. If you're already giving maybe you have the capacity to increase that. Well, please do that too. Listeners can go to knkx.org, and sign up to become a monthly Sustainer at any time, and we hope they'll take us up on that.
Kendrick: And finally, David, what is your main message to listeners at this time, if they are concerned about our future.
Fischer: Our future is going to stay strong. We just have to get more creative, and we need more hands for more light work at the table. And when we get through those things, we're really going to be focusing on the transformation that I was mentioning. We're here to stay, and we're committed to meet our nonprofit mission of regional news and great music, great cultural uplift and bringing people together. So you can count on us for that.
Kendrick: All right, David, thank you so much for sharing all of this.
Fischer: Thank you, Kirsten
Kendrick: That's KNKX President and General Manager David Fischer.
