News From WXPI

Our radio station, WXPI FM 88.5 in Williamsport, PA, has successfully dragged itself along without any steady source of funding for close to 4 years.  But to our horror, we learned that we owed the owner of the radio tower that we use, arrears of around $7000, for which they are holding our transmitting equipment as guarantee.  So it looks very likely that we will have to sell off our broadcasting license, and become an Internet-Only radio station.

The steering committee of WXPI and its governing Board has long preferred being an actual on-air station to a mere Internet station, even if our on-air signal has been laughably weak.  Some of the people we succeeded in reaching via radio did not have Internet access, and we were determined to continue to reach these people.  But now, finances are raising their ugly head.

There are steady expenses: licenses, electricity for the transmitter (our Studio power is contributed through the generosity of the Pajama Factory, as is the rent for the Studio), and Internet costs.  Because the service we provide does not fall into the top three categories of Food, Clothing or Shelter, nor into the next level of Security, Health or Childcare, but (rather uncomfortably) somewhere between Education and Entertainment, sponsors rank us very low on their scale of importance of charities.  During Election Years, we can reach an audience that is often left out of mainline radio, but that audience is principally blacks and minorities, a sector of the population that Sponsors, who tend to be mostly businesses, are not interested in.  Liberal organizations, be they businesses or other, do not have the discretionary funds to support a radio station.  30 years of Conservative-dominated Washington has systematically eroded the ability of Liberal radio to reach its audience (due in large part to Deregulation during Bill Clinton's presidency).  Archie's Archives is arguably non-political, though my own views might have leaked through on the air.

A new Program Manager was appointed recently, and he called for a roster of show hosts at WXPI who were willing to continue, to retire, or to change their format, and I volunteered to retire.  After less than two years on the air I am running out of ideas and time, and as you can hear, I'm recycling material rather heavily.  Not knowing whether I have very much of an audience, it is tempting to believe that hardly anyone has heard more than three consecutive weekly shows, and so that repeating shows does no harm.  But every time some listener hears a show repeated for the third time, we probably lose a listener!

This might explain some of the strange shows that have been coming out on Archie's Archives.  Though I have offered to retire, there's really nothing to prevent the Station from recycling my old shows indefinitely, and if people enjoy these shows recycled, please feel free to do so!

Archie