KBIA Local
(2009-11-20)
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COLUMBIA, MO
(KBIA) -
Budget cuts to the Missouri Arts Council have affected a number of state agencies and organizations. Public broadcasting is no exception. The public broadcasting budget was sliced in half...meaning stations won't receive expected state funds for the rest of the fiscal year.
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The cuts were no surprise to a number of those working in public broadcasting. Missouri's public radio and television stations aren't strangers to budget restraints. KBIA's general manager Mike Dunn says the stations saw cuts in previous years. The state budget is worse this year, so he expected the cuts would carry over. Dunn says he doesn't build the state funds into KBIA's base budget.
"It is great money to have. We can use it to reinvest primarily in capital things that are really needed within the station. But as with capital improvements at a lot of organizations within our state, who are not-for-profits, those are things you do when you have available funds and you put them off when you don't have them."
KBIA lost about $15,000 in state money. That's money funneled through the Missouri Council to KBIA. It's the only direct money coming from the state. KBIA does receive money through the University of Missouri. It counts for 2% of the station's budget.
Larger Missouri public radio stations, like the ones St. Louis and Kansas City, are allocated more money, therefore, they lost more. But St. Louis Public Radio general manager Tim Eby says he too was prepared for the cuts. Both Eby and Dunn say the cuts don't financially affect public radio as much as public television.
KETC in St. Louis is the most watched public television station in the country. That's according to 2008 Nielsen rankings of PBS stations. KETC President Jack Galmiche says the station is now losing about $270,000. He says they'll make cuts across the entire budget.
"Cuts from the state will not allow us to continue to offer those services to the same level that we're currently offering them."
The services Galmiche is talking about are collaborations with community organizations. "Facing the Mortgage Crisis" is a nationwide public media effort to help people affected by the housing crisis...with KETC's focused on St. Louis. KETC also has a resource website dealing with the flu. Galmiche says they'll have to scale back on some efforts in those programs.
With last year's budget cuts, KETC had to downsize its staff. Galmiche says KETC has the lowest number of staff in ten years...that's on top of more programming than ever with four digital channels.
"We will try not to make any further cuts in personnel, but again we will cut back in services we had planned on offering this year."
Galmiche says he'll continue to find ways to offer services in the most cost effective way.
Like Galmiche, and those in public radio, Dr. Donald Peterson was also prepared for the budget cuts. He's the director of KMOS, the PBS station in Warrensburg. KMOS will lose about $112,000 in state dollars. Peterson says there will be fewer local programs.
"And I had been doing a fishing program with Jerry Adams and that's a local program where he'll take out Branson stars take them fishing, or other celebrities. That's a program we're not doing now."
Peterson says a number of other programs it produces are important to the community.
"The local programming for public media is the most important asset of local public media. And as the budgets are reduced and we're not able to do as much local news or as much local programming, then that hurts the individual Missouri citizens."
Peterson says as far as the budget goes, he's most worried about next year. He predicts there won't be as much federal stimulus money coming in then.
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