TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Behind calm veneer, PBS stations fight bitterly

Associated Press file photo

Dick Lobo, president and CEO of WEDU, was especially upset recently when his rival appeared to target a top show, Lawrence Welk. WUSF started selling a Welk promotional video during a fundraising drive – in the hours just before WEDU airs its Welk show.

ADVERTISEMENT

By RICHARD MULLINS | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 17, 2009

TAMPA - Public broadcasting TV shows like "Sesame Street" and "Arthur" may preach sharing and getting along.

But a glimpse behind the world of fuzzy Muppets and calm-toned news programs reveals the Tampa Bay area's two PBS-member TV stations increasingly fight over viewers, sponsors, programs and even their very existence on cable TV channel lineups.

In part because of the worsening economy, the fight between WEDU, Channel 3, and WUSF, Channel 16, is about to spill out into the public arena.

Lest anyone think the fight doesn't matter, Shelly Palmer, New York chapter president of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, said, "What you're seeing in Tampa is the first border skirmish in what will literally be a death match between cable companies and local stations across America."

Programmers as large as ESPN are fighting with cable companies over where they'll appear on lineups, and the TV landscape has turned into an every-man-for-himself "street fight," she said. "But with PBS stations, they get to have this 'doing-God's-work' kind of overlay."

Whether commercial or public, stations are battling over a shrinking pool of donors, sponsors and grants, and stakes are high for them.

It's a reason for the harsh tones sounded by both stations.

"WEDU has made it very clear to us many ways that they do not wish to collaborate, and it would be preferable for them to drive us out of existence," said JoAnn Urofsky, general manager of WUSF, the station associated with the University of South Florida.

Urofsky's counterpart at WEDU counters "I'd love to show them some sympathy about all this, but I can't," said Dick Lobo, president and CEO of WEDU. "I'm competing with a major university, and they have the benefit of someone else paying their rent, cleaning their toilets and getting their floors buffed by the university. I don't."

It wasn't always this way in local public broadcasting.

For decades, WEDU and WUSF collaborated as fellow nonprofit organizations, trying to survive in a market of well-funded commercial rivals like Fox, ABC and CBS.

Membership directors at both stations used to meet regularly so they could prevent on-air pledge drives from overlapping. Program directors used to trade ideas, schedules and plans so they didn't broadcast the same PBS programs from Washington.

Not anymore. Like any feud, who threw the first punch depends on whom you ask. Over the past few years, the relationship soured.

For example, Urofsky at WUSF recently received a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to produce a news show looking into the mortgage catastrophe in Florida. She asked WEDU whether it wanted to cooperate with production and maybe air the final product together.

"They turned us down," Urofsky said.

Lobo at WEDU counters that it already had a better partner on the topic with the radio station WMNF, 88.5 FM, and WUSF relies day-in-day-out on its radio station, WUSF, 89.7 FM, with all the reach and prestige of National Public Radio. "We don't have a wealthy radio station behind us," Lobo said.

He adds that WEDU must pay $100,000 or more to PBS for prepackaged fundraising videos like Suze Orman's "Women and Money," while WUSF receives the program at discount and can air it at the same time as WEDU.

Lobo was especially upset recently, when his rival appeared to target one of his highest-rated shows, the music program, "Lawrence Welk." Normally, WEDU pays to air the show each week. But then, WUSF started selling a "Lawrence Welk" promotional video during a fundraising drive – in the hours just before WEDU airs its "Welk" show.

"That has our staff really peeved," Lobo said.

PBS, for its part, is trying to mediate the fight between what they call "primary" members like WEDU that buy the full slate of PBS shows and "secondary" stations like WUSF that don't.

Recently, PBS set up a new national pricing formula that forces secondary stations to wait a full season to air the same fundraising video or pay the primary station money to even up their price difference.

That's only exacerbated tensions, as Urofsky says her station is being penalized with the "secondary" tag only because her station produces more local shows and doesn't buy the full slate of PBS shows.

The fight truly became acrimonious in recent months when Bright House Networks exercised a clause in its contract with PBS stations that lets Bright House pick just one PBS member station to keep on low-tier cable packages.

WEDU won out, and WUSF was kicked off the low tier of Bright House on Friday (but kept the station on its higher digital tier). A similar move happened to 24 other secondary PBS member stations nationally.

Because 30 to 40 percent of roughly 1 million local Bright House customers are on that low tier, WUSF could lose hundreds of thousands of viewers and potential donors. Already, some viewers have called WUSF to cancel their membership – since they can't see the station anymore.

Each station is strained financially, and corporate decisions such as Bright House's are financial and have a rippling effect.

WEDU recently laid off nine of its roughly 50 employees, froze salaries, ended contributions to retirement accounts and started forced furloughs – all to help keep the station financially afloat, Lobo said. The annual budget has fallen from $11 million in past years to $9 million.

WUSF, as part of the University of South Florida, suffered its own cutbacks, with furloughs starting last year. "Our staff has not gotten raises for three years," Urofsky said. Her organization does not break out TV budgets, as they're merged with radio, she said.

Individual member donations make up less than half of each station's revenue, meaning they must rely on dwindling federal funds, private grants and asking outside advertisers to buy "sponsorships" on air.

WUSF now sells sponsorship space on its Web site, newsletters, e-mail blasts to members and anything else it can.

That puts the station in competition with every other commercial TV station in the area, all of whom face tough times generating advertising revenue and keeping their spot on cable TV lineups. When programmers as large as ESPN or Lifetime want more spots in cable systems, every other channel faces pressure.

WUSF isn't taking the fight lying down and is about to produce announcements for radio, online and TV that castigate Bright House for dropping the station.

"We want to let viewers know that if they're not happy with losing us on Bright House, that Verizon is providing WUSF on all their package tiers," Urofsky said. "I think it's time for us to really let members and viewers know what's happening and we're going to take advantage of all our platforms to do that."

WUSF could hold off until its next pledge drive to make such appeals, but Urofsky said, "I'm not going to wait that long."

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT