Tag: Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Telling West Virginia's Story, Despite a Reduction in State Funding

West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) is willing to do its part to help solve the West Virginia budget crisis. In the upcoming budget, state funding for WVPB will be reduced by almost $1 million, or 22% of our state appropriation.

This is not the first state budget cut for our station. Between 2009 and 2017, WVPB experienced another $1.2 million in state budget reductions. That’s a total $2 million reduction per year in state funding for WVPB, compared to a decade ago.

WVPB tightened its belt while it increased private fundraising and worked to become more technologically efficient. Despite the reduction in state funding, the station added two new TV channels and an online education service for teachers. Mountain Stage is more popular than ever, now carried on more than 200 radio stations nationwide (up from 120 stations in 2013) and it serves a large and growing audience online.

This is in no small part due to the hard work and creativity of the West Virginia Public Broadcasting staff. They deserve our thanks.

Over the next six months, there will be an in-depth review of our entire station. West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to hire a national consulting firm to work with the station in several areas, including potential governance options.

Through good management and with help from our friends, WVPB will continue to tell West Virginia’s story, despite these cuts. The station’s leadership is still determining how to best protect the high quality of services and programming you’ve come to expect from West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

They may have to cut back on some of our most expensive local productions, such as our Emmy Award-nominated children’s show “Abracadabra,” and may need to turn off TV translators in some rural areas. There may be a need to layoff an estimated 5 or 6 of our employees.

Fortunately, we’ve had a surge of support from our members, and that’s helped fill in part of the gap. We’ve seen a 15-percent increase in the number of members in the last six months, with a corresponding increase in donations.

We are in the final two weeks of our Protect WVPB membership campaign, and reaching our $500,000 goal will help alleviate some of these cuts.

We ask that all those who support our news, education and Mountain Stage to become a member, renew their membership or make an additional contribution today. Thanks to two of our Studio Society members, those donations will be matched dollar for dollar (up to $40,000) until the end of this month.

Thanks again to our supporters and staff for the outstanding work you’ve done to protect our station.

Susan Hogan of Wheeling is chairwoman of the Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, an independent 501c3 organization that supports West Virginia Public Broadcasting. 

WVPB Friends, Foundation Chairs on Proposal to Eliminate State's Public Broadcasting Funding

In his proposed budget, Governor Justice proposes the elimination of all state funding for West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

We believe this would be unwise and irresponsible. We understand the state needs to save money, but such a drastic and immediate cut threatens the very existence of our state’s PBS and NPR stations.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting (WVPB) is a state agency that receives about half its revenues from the state. For every $1 the state invests in it, WVPB matches it with $1.

Susan C. Hogan is the Chair of Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Ted Armbrecht is the Chair of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation

But if state funding is completely eliminated, West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the state of West Virginia stand to lose much of those matching funds – hurting our economy even more.

Many of our costs are fixed (programming, tower leases, electricity.) This state cut would translate into layoffs of up to 75 percent of our staff, which would endanger our ability to operate.

These proposed cuts are even more damaging because the Justice Administration did not consult anyone at West Virginia Public Broadcasting for advice. Currently, there is no transition plan for WVPB.

Eliminating all state funding endangers our ability to provide PBS Kids programming to low-income children who need it the most. WVPB’s main PBS channel provide 67 hours per week of educational children’s programming. And the station just launched a new 24/7 PBS Kids Channel.

The elimination of funding also hurts more than 6,000 educators and homeschoolers who depend on videos and curricula on our West Virginia Learning Media website.

This budget also eliminates all funding for WVPB’s Mountain Stage, West Virginia’s calling card to the world. More than 13,000 people attended a Mountain Stage concert in West Virginia last year, leading to more than $1 million in direct economic impact.

What does the Governor’s proposed elimination of all funding for Mountain Stage save? $300,000.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting operates a 27-tower network that reaches all corners of our state. These proposed cuts would force many of the towers to be turned off. Even that takes time and money to do — and not doing it properly will expose the state to multi-million dollar lawsuits.

It also could hurt the ability of our first responders to talk with one another. WVPB hosts Office of Emergency Services on 11 of its towers at no cost to the state.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting also provides the only secure broadcast link out of the state Capitol. During the 2016 June Floods, it provided a satellite feed and live webstream of an emergency press conference for all the media.

In fact, West Virginia Public Broadcasting is increasingly providing a pool feed of events for all the media to use. For example, it provided the only video feed of Gov. Justice’s inauguration, and his State of the State Address.

More than 10,000 people are active members of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, providing an annual donation that matches the state’s investment.

As leaders of the two non-profit organizations that support West Virginia Public Broadcasting, we and our 10,000-plus members plan to ask the Legislature to restore this crucial funding, and convince Governor Justice of the value of this service.

Sincerely,

Susan C. Hogan, Chair, Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Ted Armbrecht, Chair, West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation

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