Rick
Best acknowledges that public television isn't the unique presence
that it was in the 1970s and '80s - virtually the only place on
the television spectrum to find educational programming and serious
shows on science, history, public affairs, and high culture.
"The landscape has changed a lot," said Best, the general manager of the Quad Cities' PBS station, WQPT. "PBS used to use the phrase, ‘If PBS doesn't do it, who will?' You don't hear that phrase being used so much anymore, because it got to the point where there were other answers out there."
Created in 1969, PBS started when television choices were limited to CBS, NBC, and ABC. Now, of course, a vast majority of consumers have access to dozens of choices on their televisions, and many of us are living in a hundreds-of-channels reality. While no network matches PBS's relatively noncommercial purity, dozens have mimicked its education-first attitude.
"All of the PBS formats have been appropriated," said Jerold M. Starr, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting. (The organization advocates for the increased decentralization of public television.) "You just can't get by on those kinds of shows."
Starr's message is particularly relevant in the Quad Cities now, as WQPT comes to terms with a wake-up call. Last month, the Black Hawk College board approved a $100,000 cut to its contribution to WQPT for the current fiscal year, which runs through June 30. Black Hawk will now contribute $309,000 this fiscal year to the station, in addition to its in-kind contributions of facilities and utilities.
That leaves WQPT and its board, the Greater Quad Cities Telecommunications Corporation, with an operating deficit of approximately $200,000 and anticipated expenses of approximately $2 million, Best said. Beyond the Black Hawk cut, the deficit comes from increased programming and health-care costs, he said. The requirement to broadcast both digital and analog signals adds roughly $40,000 to the station's annual operating costs compared to using a single transmitter.
One response to the deficit would look only at the short term. WQPT could raise more money. It could trim staff or local programming. Or it could dip into reserves of roughly $1 million to make up for the shortfall. All of those things will be discussed at the board's October 16 meeting, when WQPT staff is supposed to present options for dealing with the deficit.
"We're not going to make it up on bake sales," Best said.
The longer view would acknowledge ever-increasing competition from specialty television networks on cable and satellite services, the Internet, and the oncoming revolution of on-demand content. The funding cut from Black Hawk College affords WQPT the opportunity to re-make itself, and to ensure its future viability.
The Conundrum
The quickest - and in many ways least-desirable solution - for WQPT is to dip into its operating reserves.
That idea gets different reactions from different WQPT leaders. Best advocates using the reserves, even though they were meant to cover equipment and other major capital expenditures. "That's what those were intended for," he said. "A rainy-day fund, basically. Well, it's raining now. So we will be using some portion of those funds throughout the remainder of this fiscal year."
Ed Slivken, chairperson of the Greater Quad Cities Telecommunications Corporation and an accountant with Twin Bridges Leasing, sounded more cautious. "Ideally, what we'd be able to do is raise more money," he said. The least preferable option, he added, would be "to use up our reserves and not change anything" in terms of operations. And if the reserves are used, he said, the goal will be to replenish them to their previous level as soon as possible.
Another option is to cut costs. Yet that idea gets a cool reception.
WQPT subscribes to the full PBS feed, so it can't trim costs by eliminating a program or two, Best said. "You buy the programming from PBS as a big package," he said. "You can't drop Masterpiece Theatre, and say, ‘Okay, we're going to save $5,000.'" The PBS package costs roughly half a million dollars each year - approximately a quarter of the station's budget.
From Best's perspective, staff doesn't seem like a viable place to cut, either. WQPT employs 18 people full-time, he said, and their compensation and benefits account for about half the station's budget. The staff, he said, is "very small, even by public-television standards. And there's not much there that one would consider non-essential to the operation of a television station."
Slivken agreed that the station's staffing is lean already.
But with about three-quarters of the station's budget tied up in programming and personnel, what's left to cut? Ironically, the very things that distinguish WQPT from any other public-television station, including Johnston-based Iowa Public Television: local educational outreach and local programs.
Of course, WQPT could also try to make up the $200,000 shortfall through fundraising.
And Best said there's potential there. For example, while some PBS broadcast licenses are "community" licenses - meaning that they aren't associated with any educational institution and don't get the associated benefits - WQPT has the luxury of having its space and utilities provided by Black Hawk College. That means that while raising an additional $200,000 might be a challenge, it's hardly unheard of. Organizations tend to raise what they need.
"It is a bit of a different mindset when you're a community licensee versus a university licensee," Best said. "And we're starting to make that transition. Even if we don't become a community licensee, we have to start thinking more like one."
Best said, for instance, that WQPT hasn't put much energy into securing underwriting for programming. "Because of the size of our staff, we've never fully taken advantage of the fundraising potential in the Quad Cities," he said. "There's more there than what we've tapped into, particularly in terms of program underwriting."
Best predicted that WQPT could, if it devoted resources to it, double the amount of underwriting it currently receives. The station now gets between $40,000 and $50,000 a year in underwriting, he said.
"Public television ... over the years has been very good at soliciting $35 ... donors through our pledge drives ... ," Best said. "And that used to sustain what we needed. ... Those days are gone."
WQPT has begun participating in The Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Major Giving Initiative, which gives smaller stations guidance on asking for bigger gifts. Corporations and foundations will give money, Best said. "They have to be asked."
Yet all those options ignore a larger issue: What is the role of public broadcasting, and local PBS affiliates, in the current entertainment universe, and what might it be in the future?
You Can't Cut Your Way to Prosperity
"Broadcasting is changing," Best said, "and what it's going to look like in 10 to 15 years in anyone's guess."
That's true, but it's an educated guess that local content is the only way public-broadcasting outlets are going to survive.
In a 2004 address, the Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting's Starr noted that PBS and its affiliates are hemorrhaging viewers and consequently money: "Between fiscal years 1993 and 2002, public TV-memberships declined by 20 percent, from 5 million to 4 million," he said. "The loss in memberships reflects a loss in viewers. In 1987, PBS had a rating of 2.7. This dropped to ... 1.7 by 2002; 37 percent over 15 years and 15 percent in just the last two. While all broadcasters have lost viewers to cable, the commercial networks own their own competition and have been able to increase advertising and raise rates to maintain their revenue base."
Best said he didn't have ratings for WQPT - purchasing the ratings is too expensive, he said - but estimates that the station is watched by 50,000 households per week. For 2004, Griffin Media Research calculated that the station had 51,000 adult viewers each month - representing 20.4 percent of the market.
What's missing in public broadcasting, Starr said, is local programming: "At present, less than 5 percent of all public-TV program production is local. Only 15 of some 350 member stations have a daily news or public-affairs program."
In an interview this week, Starr said that public-television stations ought to be "a kaleidoscope of the whole community. That really is what public broadcasting is supposed to be about." The target, he said, is "programming that's irreplaceable" in the local media market.
The challenge for WQPT right now is entertaining the idea of increasing local programming when logic says that it should be cutting. Local programming, after all, is more expensive than simply broadcasting the PBS feed.
The station's leaders, at least, are talking a good game. "I'm very much in favor of expanding our local activity presence," Slivken said, referring to programming, educational outreach, and fundraising efforts. WQPT needs to be "more than just an alternative spot on the dial."
"That would be my desire, absolutely, ... not to cut back on local programming but to do even more," Best said.
Additional local programming would result in more viewers, as it would differentiate WQPT from Iowa Public Television, as well as from the local commercial broadcast stations.
Best said that WQPT's membership numbers are probably hurt by the overlap between it and Iowa Public Television; WQPT has roughly 3,800 members. "It's pretty much the same core programming," Best said. That would change with more shows specifically about the Quad Cities.
Yet Best is sending mixed messages about programming. WQPT presently offers two weekly local programs - Susan McPeters' Perspective and the prime-time magazine Life & Times - and Best called their future "very much up in the air. It certainly would not be my first choice to cut local programming, because that's really a main reason for the existence of a local public TV station."
The counterintuitive idea would be to increase local programming in the face of the deficit. "‘Counterintuitive' is a good word," Slivken said. He added that the board understands that in terms of programming and fundraising, sometimes it's necessary to spend money to bring in additional money.
Although more local programming is on the wish list, to this point the station hasn't pursued it. "I guess it's been a matter of priorities," Best said. "We haven't aggressively gone out and looked for funding to do more of those local programs. I think the time is right to do that now."
Best said that a weekly in-the-studio program - a talking-heads show such as a local version of Washington Week - might cost in the neighborhood of $20,000 to $25,000 a year.
Starr said the cost of local programming is "not as much as they [stations] tend to think. People will tolerate a lot less than the finished PBS look."
He also said that corporate and foundation underwriting isn't the only place to go for money. PBS stations, he said, can approach churches, labor unions, and ethnic groups, for instance, about financing programs that might speak to them and their interests. "You try to involve people up-front," he said. That sometimes also means generating viewer pledges for programming that doesn't yet exist to minimize risk.
The Bigger Picture
The short-term issue of a $100,000 cut from Black Hawk will eventually give way to the reality that in the long run, Black Hawk College does not plan to support WQPT financially.
"They've made it clear that further cuts are likely," Best said. "The implication seems to be that we should be making plans to make ourselves financially independent at some point from the college."
On the issue of the station's financial self-sufficiency, Black Hawk President Keith Miller said, "I do see that as a goal." While WQPT does fit in the college's mission of instructional services - to some students in the studio, but also to children through its programming and outreach - it will not be a funding priority, he said.
He added that WQPT has not been singled out for cuts. Every department at Black Hawk, he said, has been cut in recent years. Higher-education funding, generally, he said, "doesn't have a bright future" in Illinois.
So WQPT is considering a future in which Black Hawk College doesn't hold its broadcast license. Miller said that the college would consider partnership offers from other educational institutions or a community group with an interest in the license. "Would we be open to discussions? Yes we would."
Both Miller and Best said that there have been preliminary discussions about a partnership with or transfer to Western Illinois University, which plans to build a four-year riverfront campus in Moline.
Best also mentioned working with St. Ambrose University, which has a broadcast studio. In addition, he said he'd like to start a program focusing on the local business community.
Although WQPT and public broadcasting in general face a difficult future with increasing competition, fundamentally Best still sees an inherent value in what PBS does. While networks such as Bravo and A&E started out aping public broadcasting's seriousness, they've eventually given way to entertainment over education and enlightenment.
"If you look at what A&E is doing nowadays, and even Bravo for that matter, it's nothing close to what they had originally hoped those networks would be," he said. "It hasn't lived up to their expectations, primarily because of cost, and because they realize that it makes their audience smaller. ...
"Nobody is doing the children's programming quite the way PBS does it," he added. "PBS still is seen particularly by parents as the place to be for children's programming."
The History Channel, he said, is the only specialty network that looks anything like PBS, he said. Other cable networks "are not a substitute for PBS. ... If somebody could do Masterpiece Theatre on a weekly basis, and make money at it, trust me, they'd be doing it."
