PROVIDENCE – WBRU 95.5 FM – the modern rock radio station based in Providence and run primarily by Brown University students – is moving ahead with plans to sell its broadcast license after years of declining revenue, according to Art Norwalk, a spokesperson for the station.
Negotiations over the future of the station have been ongoing since at least December, when student staffers at WBRU began to debate the financial challenges the station was facing in earnest. Citing a declining radio ad market in Providence, a lowered relevance of alt rock and radio to students, and years of falling revenue, student leaders at the station posited that some action was needed to reverse the outlook of WBRU.
It wasn’t immediately clear that a sale would be the ultimate resolution of the station’s woes, and it seemed at least initially that it was possible to reverse WBRU’s fate. Months later, though, the fate of the station seems clear.
Before selling its FM license, WBRU will establish dual online streams of its alt-rock format, traditionally run Monday-Saturday, and the hip-hop and R&B 360 Degree Experience broadcast on Sundays. There’s also interest in expanding news and long-form informational programming, Norwalk said, primarily focused on the area’s music scene.
As the station moves online, Norwalk said it would expand its offerings in a number of new ways. A student research & development department will be established to consider new technologies and means of distribution of content, Norwalk said. Additionally, talks are underway to collaborate with Brown’s Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship and engage students studying computer science & engineering to develop media technology for the station.
Turnaround controversy
Despite ambitious plans for expansion on an online platform, the plan to sell the broadcast license was opposed by several WBRU alumni and student staffers, according to Patti Galluzzi, a staffer at WBRU in the early 1980s. As a former senior vice-president for music & talent at MTV, Galluzzi was reached out to by some students and alumni to help save the station as a broadcast entity.
The task wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to Galluzzi, who helped save the station once before in 1992 when it was in similarly dire financial straits. Then, Galluzzi and some other alumni helped return WBRU to profitability by securing a loan from Brown, investing in sales and programming consultants and “rebooting” programming at the station.
“I absolutely believe the station could be returned to profitability,” Galluzzi said. “This has happened many times over the years, and selling it without trying one more time seems ridiculous.”
Galluzzi and other alumni presented staff at the station with a 7-year business plan similar to the one that saved the station in 1992. According to the projections of a consultant hired by station management to evaluate the plan, the alumni turnaround alternative would see a return to solvency by 2019, with a net cash flow of $16,000, Galluzzi said. For context, the projection also noted a net negative cash flow of more than $200,000 for 2017.
Peter Litman, president of Brown Broadcasting Service Inc. – the nonprofit entity that oversees WBRU and holds its license – admitted that the committee tasked with considering the station’s options evaluated the proposal with financial estimates from a consultant, but he declined to name that consultant or verify the content of his evaluation.
The plan was ultimately rejected, Norwalk said, by students, members of the board and alumni who considered the plan to be unrealistic. Originally, a vote on the sale taken April 24 failed to reach the two-third majority required by the station’s by-laws by a single vote. After failing to obtain the majority needed to approve a sale, general manager of WBRU, Kishanee Haththotuwegama, and members of the student executive board agreed to hold a second vote three days later, a decision that would prove controversial and divisive.
Emails obtained by PBN reveal acrimonious internal debate between staffers supportive of the decision to hold another vote and those opposed to it. In email chains including the entire student staff of the station, members argued both in favor and against the second vote, with many criticizing students with prominent positions for trying to sway voters one way or another, often in a personal manner. By the time the second vote was held April 27, enough students supported the sale to authorize it.
Radio relevance
It is Galluzzi’s opinion that a lack of faith in radio as a platform led to the sale’s authorization. She added that a move to an online platform might not even ensure profitability.
“There’s an exponential difference between royalties with an online station,” Galluzzi said, explaining that royalties paid to music publishers are lower for broadcast radio stations. “The actual economics [of the sale] are very questionable.”
Norwalk said sale of the station would take some number of weeks. While he declined to name either the purchaser of the station or the terms of the sale, he said that funds from the agreement will be moved to an endowment which supports the station’s online platform and its “new advanced media workshop.”
“As the final days of FM broadcasting approach, WBRU will be actively inviting its many listeners to join us online,” Norwalk said. “WBRU has been an innovator in media since 1936. Moving from the declining world of radio to the dynamically expanding online world is a logical and necessary step to continue that tradition.”
Kyle Borowski is a PBN contributing writer.
