WQPT looks at funding options
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By David Burke | Tuesday, April 17, 2007 |
WQPT officials are looking at a variety of solutions to make up for the funds that are scheduled to be cut from the Quad-Cities’ PBS station in the next fiscal year.
That’s what members of the Greater Quad-Cities Telecommunications Corp., the board overseeing the station, were told at their meeting Monday at Augustana College, Rock Island.
At last month’s meeting, the board was told that WQPT would lose its $335,000 in funding from Black Hawk College, where it has been housed since it signed on in November 1983.
A combination of corporate contributions and underwriting and increased membership donations may make up for that deficit, board members were told.
Last month, a consultant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting worked with the station and urged it to “invest” in its future, WQPT general manager Rick Best said. Those investments would come from the station’s reserve funds, Best said.
“What would be a good use of these funds that would ensure WQPT its future?” Best told the board.
Corporate underwriting for programs — where sponsors receive a short message before and after each program — is responsible for about $60,000 this year, with a projected budget of $75,000 for the next fiscal year.
Pitches for underwriting will be increased, said Lora Adams, development director.
“We are trying some things we’ve not done in the past,” she said.
Adams said the station has nearly 3,800 members, an increase of 11 percent from last year.
Staff members, including Best and Adams, have increased contact with community organizations to state the case for additional funding for WQPT.
Black Hawk’s contribution to the budget for the PBS station was cut by 25 percent for the current fiscal year. College President Keith Miller said with the current and upcoming budgets that WQPT did not fit into Black Hawk’s mission of education and workforce training.
Edward Slivken, Rock Island, chairman of the board of directors for the station, questioned Jay Turney, Black Hawk’s vice president for finance, about cuts to the athletic department.
“I have trouble figuring out, in a junior college, what the mission of the athletic department is,” Slivken said.
David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.
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