April
2008
From
the Desk of Brian Sickora...
As we begin to wind down the current fiscal year,
I would like to take a moment to explain some
changes you may have noticed here at WSKG. The first change is
actually something that we are now not doing and that is not
interrupting regular programming as often as we have in the past
for our fundraising drives. We have reduced the number of on-air
Television and Radio pledge days by 10 and on-air Auction days
by an additional 8. That represents about a 23% reduction in
the number of fundraising days. Unfortunately our expenses have
not declined at a similar rate, so we have committed ourselves
to working as efficiently as possible to maximize the net revenue
of our fundraising initiatives.
This analysis of fundraising efficiency has also led to another
change in how we conduct Auction. You probably noticed that in
addition to reducing the number of Auction days (from 10 to 2)
and hours of programming (from 50 to 10), we have also moved
a significant portion of our Auction merchandise on-line. The
vast majority of the 58 Public Television stations that continue
to produce auction (down from over 100 stations in the ‘90s)
have also moved to an on-line format. The reason is that the
cost to produce the on-air auction often exceeds the gross revenue
generated, meaning that it generates net loss instead of net
revenue. Conversely, on-line is quite cost effective.
And why are these fundraising changes necessary? There’s
a very simple answer: to redirect our production staff to produce
more compelling local programming instead of pledge programming.
This fiscal year, we launched the new weekly television series
Expressions: The Art and Soul of the Southern Tier and we have
plans for more Television and Radio local programming for next
fiscal year.
As always, none of this would be possible without your continued
support, for which I would like to extend my most sincere thanks.
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