LGBT Asylum Seekers from Nigeria and Mexico on Out-FM

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Published: 09 January 2018

Tuesday, 1/9/18 at 9pm on WBAI/NY 99.5FM and streaming at http://wbai.org

Tonight's Out-FM focuses on the experiences of LGBTIQ asylum seekers in the USA. We feature Nigerian HIV activist Edafe Okporo and Mexican Trans activist Ishalaa Ortega describing their escapes from death threats in their own countries and their detentions at the US border.

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CONTEXT – THE FINANCIAL DECLINE OF WBAI

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Published: 29 December 2017

CONTEXT – THE FINANCIAL DECLINE OF WBAI
By John Riley, Out-FM producer and staff representative on WBAI’s Local Station Board

(Comments given at Manhattan Neighborhood Network in their El Bario Firehouse Studio on two occasions in December 2017 to dozens of WBAI Staff who had come to learn about MNN's proposal to Pacifica Radio for a partnership to preserve WBAI's signal, mission and infuse large amounts of money to rebuild the crisis plagued station.)

Thank you all for coming out for such a crucial conversation.

I’m hoping all of you saw the invitation to today’s meeting, signed onto by 29 producers. As we wrote, we organized this because we’re both terrified about both the crisis facing the station and the solution now being pushed hard by the Pacifica National Board – a WBAI signal swap to a much weaker frequency, which I’ll get to in a minute. But we’re also hopeful about the potential for a partnership with Manhattan Neighborhood Network to offer a path forward, which we think needs to be carefully investigated.

I’d like to give some of the financial background to the present situation. WBAI and Pacifica have been in a worsening financial downward spiral for the last 10 years, leading to the current crisis that poses a threat to the survival of both our station and our network. While all 5 stations have had various degrees of chronic shortfalls, WBAI has generated deficits of $500-600K every year for the last 6 years. In short, WBAI has a failing business model. Thus, at a national level WBAI is perceived of as a terrible threat to the other stations.
 
WBAI’s problems have partly been caused by the exorbitant Empire State transmitter rent and earlier, the huge rent on our former Wall Street studio, both far higher than those faced by any other station (in fact, 3 stations broadcast from buildings owned by Pacifica). These problems preceded Hurricane Sandy that drove us from Wall Street, which is often incorrectly blamed for our crisis.

In fact, our listenership has drastically declined. In parallel, our paid membership has also gone down -- from 18,000 in 2010 to 7,000 in 2017. So it’s no surprise that the per-day pledge rate has also cratered – in the current drive, down to about $8,000 a day versus an average of $20,000-$25,000 a decade ago. WBAI management has responded by constantly increasing the length of fund drives.
•    In 2009, we had 90-100days/year
•    By 2014 174 days (24 weeks)
•    Currently 135 (20 weeks

Surveys of public radio stations have found a fall-off of 50% of listeners, or more, during fund drives.

Management has blamed producers for failing to find premiums, but chronic, late premium delivery may be more of an issue. WBAI’s membership has dropped. Late premiums may not bother people who are long time supporters, but newer supporters may not be as understanding.

Because of this dramatic revenue decline, in 2013 Pacifica mandated the layoffs of three quarters

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