Reducing the pledge
WBEZ-FM finished its spring pledge drive March 31 with 7,160 individuals donating $806,821 to the cause of Chicago's public radio. And, listeners will note, that there will be only one other on-air pledge drive this year as the station reduces its yearly fund-raising calls from four to two. But don't be fooled -- it doesn't mean they need less money. The decision, says WBEZ President and General Manager, Torey Malatia, is simply designed to improve the station's offerings. "Just about everyone said it was the single most horrible thing in broadcasting," Malatia says. With the ten-day March drive, WBEZ managed to hit their goal, which was $800,000, though Deborah Bukovy, vice president of marketing notes that they did it with "minutes to spare." "It's time consuming for us, too," she says. "We wouldn't ask for the money if we didn't need it." "But it's still irritating," Malatia says. "It's like saying you finally find a place that treats you with respect and you get yelled at with this number saying 'Call us. Send us money.' It's really out of character for what we do." With 49 percent of WBEZ operating revenues coming from membership (government contributions account for only 10 percent), there's only so much cutting back to be done. "Everyone thought we should cut back, and I think it's worked," Malatia says. "We've also cut the number of actual pledge days from forty days per year to twenty, which is pretty substantial in the sound of the radio station." One way in which WBEZ is working on limiting their on-air pledges is through the Internet, with a pledge link that's always running on their site, www.wbez.org. By running short announcements and encouraging people to pledge online, thus keeping more programming on the station, Malatia says they managed to raise more needed funds. "I think our goal was $100,000 in a week and we raised $130,000," he says. "I don't think we could do that with $800,000. We had ten days and I don't think we could do that solely online, but it's not as intrusive and it's a way for us to raise some funds." (04/05/2001)


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