[to be filled in when Paci, one of the PacificaWorld g-ds, permits]

[pretty graph or three: line graphs with # superscripted, & others]

~

• staff-members, 2004-2021

Pacifica started as a membership-based operation. Just after World War Two. Different world now. But same operation.

The record, 2004 to present, shows a dramatic decline in membership, by 54.5% (31Aug2004 ⭢ 2Jan2020 = 43484 / 95581). This largely explains the income drop: gross ‘listener support & donations’ (the accounting category), FY2005-FY2016, fell 48.3% in real terms; & total gross income, FY2006-FY2016, fell 49.1% in real terms – https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/auditor-s-reports/auditor-s-reports-from-fy2005/ (notes #6 & #5).

Can the membership model be made viable? Or is a different revenue mode needed? Why hasn’t the PNB, & LSB’s, discussed this? It’s as if they’re all afraid of fundamentals, of thinking them thru, yes?

Each Pacifica National Board has failed in its duty: busying itself with the inessential, refusing to make essential decisions. No Board has adequately overseen the work of the executive director & the chief financial officer. No director has presented a vision for Pacifica. A remedy, more than ever, is urgent – which is why, regrettably, the breakers exist, & continue to exist.

(FY2016 is used for pecuniary data because they’re the most recent Pacifica audited financial statements judged fair by the auditors (albeit with a specific caveat that year), their jargon for materially accurate – the auditors effectively rejected the three later annual sets, refusing to offer an opinion on their material accuracy, politely expressed in their issuing of a disclaimer of opinion. FY2005 & FY2006 are the comparatives because they’re the highest value of their kind in the period starting 2004. UPDATE: the auditors on 30June2021 found themselves able to vouch for the material accuracy of the FY2020 financial statements offered to them by NETA, Pacifica’s accountant; the auditor not only didn’t give a disclaimer of opinion they also didn’t make a scope limitation (a caveat) upon the statements: the statements received an unmodified opinion from the auditor, the first time since FY2015 (the FY2016 had a scope limitation, the only time it’s happened to Pacifica). The jargon is explained in note #3, https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/auditor-s-reports/auditor-s-reports-from-fy2005/.)

~

On this blog, the stations are always sequenced as on the map, from the north-west, down the West Coast, thru Texas, & up the East Coast. (This contrasts with Pacificans’ habit of ordering them alphabetically, thereby messing up the road trip. Any surprise?)

~

[intro on pre-2003 membership]

~

Using the imperfect metric of Pacifica membership, with very few temporal data points, one sees not just the decay 2003-present but something else: a marked acceleration, 2012-2016 – twice as fast. ED Arlene Engelhardt left at this time, replaced by Summer Reese. Then Margy Wilkinson. In late 2015, Lydia Brazon was in post for 1⅓yrs. After this, from Feb2017, Bill Crozier led Pacifica towards the FJC loan, although personally preferring protected bankruptcy.

Reese-Wilkinson-Brazon. But it was the current beneath them that did the main work, sweeping them along: the die was already cast.

In the blogpost, ‘The auditor speaks! The A-Files: audiofiles, 2004-2020’, just by doing descriptive analysis, nothing fundamental, it became apparent that FY2011 was decisive: “[w]hat happened during the fiscal year thru 30Sep2011 seems to have been Pacifica’s tipping point, this being so defining that even by 2021 the Foundation has yet to overcome the dynamic of forces it unleashed” – https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/auditor-s-reports/the-auditor-speaks-audiofiles-2004-20/.

The analytic task is to try to adequately explain what led up to late 2011, three years after the financial crash. That work remains.

Notable stats, Nov2004 ⭢ Jan2020

• station split (b): West Coast lead on East Coast grew by +9 percentages points (52.4% ⭢ 61.4%)

Notable stat, Sep2012 ⭢ June2016

The membership fall 2Nov2004 ⭢ 13Sep2012 was 23 102 (95581 − 72479). 8yrs. The next 23k was wiped out in less than half the time, in 3¾yrs: the fall 13Sep2012 ⭢ 30June2016 was 22 569 (72479 − 49910).

And then taking the record up to 2Jan2020, membership was 43 484, a fall in those 3½yrs of 6 426 (49910 − 43484).

For 2004-2020, the accelerating decay is shown in the percentages: the 1st 8yrs, −24.2%; the 2nd, −40.0%. But within the last 8yrs, splitting it into halves, the process has slowed down, from −31.1% to −12.9%. This may be flattening the curve, but, with not just an ageing membership but a certain age distribution, the slope will transition . . . into the abyss.

~

The 12 time points, 2004-present

[the best avail. data are of 3 kinds: elector rolls at record date, as per by-law; ballots distributed; estimated date (sic), given the info provided]

31Aug2004 (record date per NES’ final report, p. 24) [ballots distributed 28Oct-2Nov, pp. 38-9]

[also, below are totals from the two auditor’s reports that seem to have them: the membership at 30Sep2004 & 30Sep2006. (FY2005 a’s r repeated the previous year’s disclosure) – CHECK. Given each is merely a single number they don’t count as time points in this series]

1Sep2006 (record date per NES’ final report, p. 89)

2007: this denotation has to be used coz not even the NES’ final report disclosed the record date of the 2007 LSB elections (ditto his summary report – undated, but p. 1 of the two-page Word doc says time of writing is “January 21, 2008”) – c’est la vie

[2009: is NES’ final report online?CHECK. In its absence this isn’t a time point in this series]

30June2010 (2July for KPFK – why was this deemed acceptable?) – record date per NES’ final report, p. 8

13Sep2012 (record date per NES’ final report, p. 2)

c. 23Aug-7Sep2015: the 8-page NES’ final report has no quantitative info, & not even mention of a particular month, let alone a particular day: the most precise we get is “2015” (sic) – in the title & the opening sentence; however, an appendix to the 3Mar2016 PNB draft agenda gives “the final membership numbers from the last elections” (for WPFW, not having elections, their “[n]umbers are from [a] NES report in August [2015]”) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/pnb160303/pnb160303_4124_agenda.pdf (p. 16). And identifying the record date? Ballots were distributed 22Oct2015 (for example, https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/15-Dec-15-KPFA-Listener-Results-Certification-Letter-Simply-Voting.pdf – p. 1); & “[t]he record date […] shall be […] 45 to 60 days before the day on which the first written ballot is distributed or made available to the Members” (https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art3sec10.html), so 9+30+21 & 24+21

30June2016 (record date per 2016 Pacifica Delegates Elections Ballots Recount Report, by Terry L Goodman, Recount Teller, 22July2017, no pagination (pp. 4, 5, 6, etc. of the PDF) – https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/2016PacificaDelegatesElectionsRecountReport.pdf)

19Nov2018 (record date per the 2nd NES’ final report, p. 1; p. 2 of the PDF – this report was by NES Penaloza. No membership data were in the 1st final report, written by NES Graeme Drew – and never published. He had to cancel the elections coz the membership lists were so corrupt (that is, incomplete & inaccurate) that they couldn’t be the basis of elector rolls, causing him to declare, “I am unable to reliably verify any of the applicants for candidacy due to the poor quality of elector lists” (his 30Oct2018 letter to the PNB, p. 2, emphasis added) – https://mega.nz/file/QRsBmKDZ#08vJfqQcRaOyhwnCrP_po1Yd8TiW7Sl_umf5zU9Knt4. Of course, it has never been explained, to the punters, the lowly plebs, how the inadequacy of these membership lists was rectified)

30June2019: NES Penaloza never gave record date data, only “# electors” in her last quantitative progress report (no date; but URL gives “08.28.19”) – linked from https://pacificaradiowatch.home.blog/2019/09/04/pacifica-membership-30june2016-c-30june2019/ . . . in her 1Nov2019 publication of the election company’s tabulation results, she promised “[p]lease note the round by round results, raw votes and final voter turnout #s will be posted together with the final report by November 15th, 2019” – https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/2019-election-results/ . . . not surprisingly, turned into another Pacifican Godot moment . . . then way & behold, the NES finally published her final report, undated but with “05/13/21” at the top of almost half the pages, so 18mths late, on the Pacifica elections site, https://elections.pacifica.org, linking to https://drive.google.com/file/d/1opQsjVEZmWm8W0Sc977XAwLSUl0m_oQx/view (elector rolls disclosed on p. 12; p. 14 of the PDF; record date is 30June2019 (p. 10)) . . . and, of course, she lacked the grace to apologise for the 18mth delay

2Jan2020 (by-laws referenda; date per California court order – NES final report, p. 3; station figures are estimated coz NES, in her wisdom, & never challenged publicly, only disclosed whole number percentages – p. 10);

7Apr2021 (by-laws referenda; record date has never been disclosed by NES [UPDATE: it finally was, in her final report, p. 5; p. 6 of the PDF]; even with the ballots sent out 7June, NES hadn’t published the 10 elector roll totals at the record date – or at any date; notice period started 8Mar, & NES published not even one interim report, having worked over 7mths before the polls closed – only a 7Apr voter guide, https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/voter-guide/);

30June2021 (record date per NES’ timeline – https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/delegate-election-2021/; [NES’?] voter turnout report W22Sep F1Oct late Oct (no date given but denoted “FINAL”) – https://elections.pacifica.org/wordpress/voter-turnout-report/ & LINK to screenshot)

~

Total members, 2004-2021

Pacifica: graph KPFA: graph KPFK: graph KPFT: graph WPFW: graph WBAI: graph

31Aug2004: 95 581 … 28 539, 21 503, 10 472, 13 942, 21 125

30Sep2004: “approximately 95,555” (FY2004 auditor’s report, p. 17; p. 19 of the PDF – https://pacifica.org/finance/audit_2004.pdf)

1Sep2006: 88 828 … 26 651, 21 467, 9 877, 13 765, 17 068

30Sep2006: “approximately 87,070” (FY2006 auditor’s report, p. 15; p. 18 of the PDF – https://pacifica.org/finance/audit_2006.pdf [this seems to be the last auditor’s report giving membership figures])

2007: WPFW, ~13 688; WBAI, 15 575 (references given below; NES’ final report gave only one figure, the WBAI listener-members total)

2009: [is NES’ final report online?CHECK]

30June2010 (2July for KPFK): 75 321 … 22 079, 17 805, 7 703, 10 651, 17 083 (the 2010 NES couldn’t establish a WBAI staff elector roll, so used the 2009 one – her final report, p. 7)

13Sep2012: 72 479 … 19 737, 18 894, 6 953, 10 779, 16 116

c. 23Aug-7Sep2015: 53 608 … 16 539, 15 689, 6 171, 6 856, 8 353 . . . as noted, NES’ final rpt. has no quantitative data. Zilch. However, soon after being in post, Joy Williams thought membership was “56 405” (so best-stab-at-reality + 5.2%), with staff-members being “about a thousand” (10Mar2015 PNB Elections Cttee, 1:04:54). This was Joy’s Pacifica public debut, & ED Margy Wilkinson introduced her as saying she had started in January (58:10) – https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/elections/150310/elections150310a.mp3 (appalling sound quality)

30June2016: 49 910 … 16 087, 14 874, 5 909, 5 219, 7 821 (quorum report – results certification by TrueBallot, Inc., 20Oct2016 letter to NES Serpe, no pagination (p. 2 of the PDF) – signed by VP for Western US Operations, who happened to be Kenneth Mostern . . . Pacifica’s NES in 2004)

19Nov2018: more than 42 029 … 15 829, 14 649, 4 435, ? (x + 133), 6 983 [WPFW didn’t have a listener-members LSB election; they were 5 089 at 30June2016]

30June2019: 46 655 … 14 569, 13 537, 3 708, 6 402, 8 439 [these are per the NES’ final report, published 18mths late (NES Penaloza said, c. 1Nov2019, it “will be posted […] by November 15th, 2019” – only to come out c. 13May2021 (sic)). Evidence of the (material?) inaccuracy of the elector rolls, but of their corrigibility, is found when comparing three data sets: the NES’ c. 28Aug2019 progress report (total 46 463); the election firm’s 1Nov2019 tabulation (total 46 660, so +197); & the NES’ final report (total 46 655, so −5). (Breakdown of the +197: +170 listeners, +27 staff. Breakdown of the listeners: KPFA +34, KPFK +51, KPFT +20, WPFW +6, WBAI +59. And of the staff: KPFA +4, KPFK +21, KPFT −1, WPFW +2, WBAI +1.)

2Jan2020 (stations estimated): 43 484 … 12 714, 13 997, 4 537, 6 205, 6 031

[the KPFT total is 3 774; yet 3mths later, the station’s Membership Lead, Robin Lewis, publicly reported that “right now, today, it’s at 2 900” – 6July2021 KPFT Development Cttee, 57:54, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/kpftdev/210706/kpftdev210706a.mp3. Oh; & 10wks after that, following the failed August fund-drive ($51k pledged for a $150k goal), she said the membership “today is 2 807” (so −25.6% in the 5½mths since 7Apr), although the drive recruited “84 new members” – 21Sep KPFT Finance Cttee, 5:30, https://kpftx.org/archives/pnb/kpft_finance/210921/kpft_finance210921a.mp3 ]

more than 42 543 … 14 161, 11 940, 3 501, ? (6385 + x), 6 556 (derived from NES’ final report, p. 23; remember, WPFW didn’t have a staff-members election, & they numbered 120 at 7Apr for the staff referendum, so total membership is ~42 663)

Listener-members, 2004-2021

Pacifica: graph KPFA: graph KPFK: graph KPFT: graph WPFW: graph WBAI: graph

31Aug2004: 94 557 … 28 308, 21 276, 10 262, 13 838, 20 873

1Sep2006: 87 747 … 26 375, 21 263, 9 692, 13 618, 16 799

2007: WPFW, ~13 500 (NES’ summary report, unpag.; p. 2 of the Word doc); WBAI, 15 319 (NES’ final report, p. 17)

2009: [is NES’ final report online?CHECK]

30June2010 (2July for KPFK): 74 316 … 21 882, 17 561, 7 530, 10 468, 16 875

13Sep2012: 71 363 … 19 453, 18 651, 6 775, 10 622, 15 862

c. 23Aug-7Sep2015: 52 582 … 16 261, 15 450, 6 012, 6 681, 8 178

30June2016: 48 836 … 15 815, 14 569, 5 736, 5 089, 7 627

19Nov2018: more than 41 051 … 15 585, 14 366, 4 294, ?, 6 806 [WPFW didn’t have a listener-members LSB election]

30June2019: 45 686 … 14 332, 13 253, 3 569, 6 292, 8 240

2Jan2020 (stations estimated): 42 491 … 12 496, 13 729, 4 368, 6 085, 5 813

7Apr2021: 44 018 … 14 936, 11 451, 3 647, 7 218, 6 766

41 613 … 13 912, 11 655, 3 367, 6 385, 6 294 (per NES’ final report, p. 23 – an additional +16, making +129 since the 22Sep report)

Staff-members, 2004-2021

Pacifica: graph KPFA: graph KPFK: graph KPFT: graph WPFW: graph WBAI: graph

Notes: (1) the Pacifica Radio Archives figures haven’t been disclosed by the NES or a Pacifica bod, nor where they’re buried – except, inadvertently, at 7Apr2021; (2) what about the workers running the Pacifica affiliate programme, are they electors?; (3), speaking generally, is there any other specialist group of electors satisfying the condition that ‘Foundation staff employees who are employed at a Foundation radio station shall qualify as staff-members’? – https://pacifica.org/indexed_bylaws/art3sec1.html; so (4), is it because Archives workers sit in the KPFK building (unless an epidemic makes it unsafe) that they’re considered to be “employed at a Foundation radio station”, whereas the affiliate programme workers sit in Ursula’s front room in Iowa? – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq1AKkWEzns (the YT channel, Pacifica Network, unleashed by Ursula Ruedenberg, the longstanding director of the affiliate programme, on 20Sep2019, just as the 1st breaker referenda cranked into public motion; comme chorégraphie, on 24Sep, then Pacifica director Robin ‘Harpo’ Collier quietly applied to register in New Mexico his Association of Affiliates as the means to appoint a director under the breakers’ proposed new Pacifica constitution; the YT initiative provoked Michael Novick (then Chair of KPFK Local Station Board) to ask, in Dec2020, “[w]ho owns this channel and is it connected at all to the Pacifica Radio Network?” . . . no reply as of 30Sep2021 (sic) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO5oZIsjrXBzctSjTK1c-FA/discussion. Yes, Pacifica as an aggregation of fiefdoms keeps on thriving – facilitated by a succession of passive executive directors, that passivity knowingly condoned by a succession of passive directors).

31Aug2004: 1 024 … 231, 227, 210, 104, 252

1Sep2006: 1 081 … 276, 204, 185, 147, 269

2007: WPFW, 188; WBAI, 256 (both per NES’ summary report, unpag.; p. 2 of the Word doc)

2009: WBAI, 208 (2010 NES’ final report, p. 7) [is 2009 NES’ final report online?CHECK]

30June2010 (2July for KPFK): c. 1 005 … 197, 244, 173, 183, c. 208 (the 2010 NES couldn’t establish a WBAI staff elector roll (sic), so used the 2009 one – her final report, p. 7; this warrants c., not ~)

13Sep2012: 1 116 … 284, 243, 178, 157, 254

c. 23Aug-7Sep2015: 1 026 … 278, 239, 159, 175, 175

30June2016: 1 074 … 272, 305, 173, 130, 194

19Nov2018: 978 … 244, 283, 141, 133, 177

30June2019: 969 … 237, 284, 139, 110, 199

2Jan2020 (stations estimated): 993 … 218, 268, 169, 120, 218

[even though NES Penaloza said in her final report, “Pacifica Radio Archives staff excluded from this table due to small numbers and privacy issues” (p. 29; p. 30 of the PDF)]

more than 930 … 249, 285, 134, ?, 262 (per NES’ final report, p. 23 – an additional +2, making +20 since the 22Sep report; with WPFW not having a staff-members election, & they numbered 120 at 7Apr for the staff referendum, this makes total staff membership ~1 050)

~~~

templates: 2004; 2006; 2007; 2010; 2012; 2015; 2016; 2018; 2019; 2020 (by-laws referenda); 2021 (by-laws referenda); 2021 (LSB elections) … Pacifica: graph KPFA: graph KPFK: graph KPFT: graph WPFW: graph WBAI: graph … + − =