How are WQED’s finances faring in the pandemic?
Q: Is WQED in horrible financial shape? It seems that they are having fundraisers nearly every night. — FRANK VIA FACEBOOK
Rob: Hmmm, I wonder if Frank is watching WQED’s Showcase channel, which is always in pledge, rather than the primary WQED channel.
Last month PBS president Paula Kerger confirmed my suspicion that PBS member stations have fared better than commercial outlets during the pandemic because commercial outlets are dependent on advertisers, who pulled their commercials when everyone was staying home.
“I know that a lot of organizations have seen special pressures, particularly media organizations that rely heavily on advertising revenue, and that’s not our model,” Ms. Kerger said last week during a PBS panel at the virtual TV critics press tour. “We do get a little bit of sponsorship revenue, some corporate support, but the lion’s share of money comes from viewers like you. As we look across the country, we see that many of our stations have done reasonably well with membership this year. People are home and watching more PBS than any other time. So that’s very good news.”
WQED spokesman George Hazimanolis confirmed that what Ms. Kerger said does apply to WQED: “WQED’s finances are holding steady so far during the pandemic. Although there has been a decline in corporate support since March, individual giving has stayed strong and has enabled WQED to bridge the revenue gap. We thank our loyal supporters.
“Additionally, we are giving exposure to local arts organizations on WQED-FM during the pandemic. WQED Education is providing a wide array of educational instruction and support for kids and families while schools are closed.”
Over the past two years, WQED has decreased pledge on WQED-TV by more than 20%. On WQED FM, pledge has been decreased by 50% over the past eight years. The viewer may have been watching the WQED Showcase Channel, a digital channel that airs fundraising programming 24 hours a day.
“WQED board meetings are open to the public via Zoom, and the schedule is on our website at https://wqed.org/about/ board. Our annual audit is posted on our website at https://wqed.org/legal. The annual meeting of the board is scheduled for October 1 at 6 p.m., and a Zoom link will be posted to our website,” Mr. Hazimanolis said.
I tried to get a count of pledge days in 2020 vs. 2019 but was told, “We don’t count ‘days’ anymore, since it is not a good measure, and we don’t always pledge all day. For example, WQED only pledges from 8 to 11 p.m. on weekdays during a typical pledge period, with more hours pledged on weekends. Sometimes only one program is pledged in a whole day. We count pledge programs and within those programs, the minutes of pledge breaks. WQED has pledged 20% less in 2020 than in 2019 and is planning to maintain that decrease in 2021. Most of the decrease has been in the 8-11 p.m. weekday period.”
Q: Why is there no traffic report on the KDKA morning news? This started during the lockdown. Channel 4 and 11 have had traffic reports the whole time.
— DIANE VIA EMAIL
Rob: “We hit ‘pause’ on traffic in the mornings because of the shutdowns and significant reduction in morning commutes,” explained KDKA-TV news director Kathy Hostetter. “It seemed counterproductive and redundant to go on every morning to tell viewers there’s no traffic on which to report. We plan to bring traffic back once commutes start to pick up again, and that will likely tie in with how schools roll out their busing and back to school plans. Meantime, Celina [Pompeani has] been doing feature reporting in our morning newscasts.”
Q: With sports, maybe, possibly, coming back, at some point, I was curious if you know if there have been any developments regarding Comcast getting the ACC Network? I really don’t feel like switching providers.
— MATTHEW VIA EMAIL
Rob: Alas, nothing new to report. There’s still no deal for Comcast to carry ACC Network.