Jane Christo Resigns from WBUR

[snarkyman]

Jane Christo resigned from WBUR today.

When Christo fired Christopher Lydon, I promised to never donate to WBUR until one of two things happened:

1) Christopher Lydon returned to WBUR to host The Connection.
2) Jane Christo resigns.

I gave up on this after 9/11 when I realized exactly how much I relied on news from NPR.

Amazing.

Comments

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I used to find the Connection to be the most annoyingly useless two hours in WBUR's portfolio. I later realized that it was Christopher Lydon that I couldn't stand, and the show was okay since he was gone. Alas, they then ruined two hours in the evening, with On Point. I don't know if it's the two hosts, or the writing, but it's an inane waste of airtime.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Strangely, I decided not to donate until they stopped buying new radio stations and ran the one they had. I just don't think a non-profit community station needs to own a network.

I wonder why Christo resigned - did the latest fundraiser suck?

[snarkyman.livejournal.com]

Financial mis-management.

WBUR is selling both the RI stations which caused a scandal Providence. Now the station's financial situation comes to light: WBUR is more than $10M in debt.

[sapphorlando.livejournal.com]

I loved Christopher Lydon, and I was very disappointed when he was let go. Then I found myself rolling my eyes when I noticed that he was replaced with a string of hosts who were obviously chosen because they could do a vague imitation of Lydon, and I stopped listening.

Here in La Prov, WBUR is on everyone's shitlist. They basically swindled us, on several levels. Three years ago, I was unable to get funding for my own community radio product -- which is genuinely independent and locally-oriented -- because the State's leading donors had all put money into WRNI and its South County sister station (run as a repeater, of course, not as an separate station). Over the intervening time, nearly a million dollars has been poured directly into WBUR's RI public radio venture, and now they've got the brass balls to invite us to buy the stations from them at market rate! (Current estimate is around $2.2 M. Yeah, we've got that laying around, sure.) In essence we paid for it once, and now we're being asked to pay for it again! It's no wonder everyone here is furious about it.

What I'm trying to figure out is how we might be able to turn this to our own advantage, since we've always had a much better proposal, at a fraction of the cost.

And by the way, I've got radio operations and management experience, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone can possibly spend (never mind lose) that much money over that short a time.