Questions WGBH should answer about WCAI -- for Cape Cod

Community trust builds financial support. Opaque finances do not build community trust.

Radio silence has descended regarding prospects for public radio on the Cape and Islands, whether WCAI will be able to stay in the historic Captain Davis house in Woods Hole. There’s hope for more clarity soon.

WCAI’s parent, WGBH in Boston, has options:

• It can sell the station’s home to someone interested in using the building in other ways, and move CAI somewhere yet to be determined. This is their announced intention, with no indication whether GBH would return hundreds of thousands of dollars in public support donated to help renovate the station’s headquarters.

• It could sell to a Woods Hole non-profit that has offered to buy the building, and keep CAI in place. GBH would need to agree and then, as CAI’s fiscal parent, negotiate a tenant relationship with the non-profit.

• It could accomplish a private sale and if the new owner wants to keep CAI as a tenant, again GBH would need to agree and negotiate.

How this will impact CAI’s profile, staffing, and local news commitment remains (in a phrase befitting broadcast) up in the air.

The dramatic scenario, reported in November (WGBH pulls the building out from under WCAI) has raised attention well beyond Cape Cod, to GBH’s concern (WGBH insists there was no 'gag order' on CAI staff), which included an apology.

Regardless, there remains an opaque financial relationship between CAI and its controlling non-profit.

As a flagship in national public television and radio, WGBH should want to answer questions that (again to use a radio expression) would clear the air.

Best practice aside, this would in all likelihood also improve fundraising.

Financial transparency builds community trust, therefore support. The Cape and Islands is a community with serious giving capacity relatively untapped — immediate proof is that it took just days for the Woods Hole Community Association to garner private commitments to fund a property purchase, reportedly for around $1.9 million.

This has the makings of a national case study highlighting what engaged communities have a right to know about how non-profits spend money solicited from listeners, businesses, donors, and taxpayers.

The following is an email sent to WGBH’s Director of Marketing Tina Cassidy on Tuesday, December 10, the person GBH identified for contact.

No answers were forthcoming, not even acknowledgement of receipt. The same email was sent again on December 29. Cassidy then indicated GBH would not comment or respond in any way “at this time.”

Even so, these questions frame a broader conversation. The list seems long but as noted, most answers would be apparent in a straightforward revenue and expense statement, with a standard balance sheet attached:

December 10, 2024

Greetings Tina Cassidy,

Here’s hoping a positive resolution to WCAI’s home and future operation is forthcoming.

There remains little community understanding about CAI’s financial relationship to GBH, how that impacts decisions about the Woods Hole property and the future of local public radio.

Answers to basic questions would allay (or at least define) concerns, strengthening GBH’s community relationships which no doubt would also strengthen fundraising.

Please see my attempt to ask those questions — with apologies for length. Almost all of this would be covered by an itemized income-expense statement with balance sheet.

Thanks in advance for responses, and glad to join a supplemental conversation with President Goldberg or anyone at the station.

Please acknowledge receipt.

Best regards,

Seth Rolbein

• In WGBH’s IRS “990” non-profit reporting, and annual report, I find no financial accounting specific to WCAI. My apologies if I have missed that, please direct me if so. If not, why is no CAI financial information released?

• Is there an annual budget for CAI? If so, please share. If not, why not?

• WGBH CEO Susan Goldberg has stated that CAI “lost” more than $2 million in the past five years. Please itemize.

• What is GBH’s annual cost to own and maintain the Captain Davis property?

• Does CAI pay rent to its parent organization, GBH? If so, how much?

• Does CAI pay other overhead/costs of operation in Woods Hole, for example utilities and maintenance? If so, how much?

• Does CAI pay for rights, licensing and other fees associated with broadcast and/or use of National Public Radio programming and other materials? If so, how much?

• Does CAI pay for engineering, IT, computers and other equipment (purchase or rent), broadcasting fees, and other support to GBH? If so, how much?

• Is CAI responsible for costs associated with three transmitters? If so, how much?

• Are any or all of the items above factored into CAI’s operating loss?

• Does CAI revenue defray other costs of GBH operation, and therefore add to a CAI loss? If so, how and how much?

• What are combined annual salaries and other personnel costs at CAI?

• GBH promises that a strong local news organization will maintain on the Cape. Will GBH commit to staffing CAI at status quo levels regardless of location?

  On the revenue side:

• How much fundraising did CAI generate last year, for example donor gifts, underwriting, and on-air fund drives? Please itemize by broad categories.

• Does CAI have fundraising goals? If so, how are they set and have they been met?

• For accounting purposes, are CAI’s revenues sequestered?

• For operational purposes, are revenues generated from CAI allocated to CAI?

• Public radio stations receive operating grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. According to CPB, WGBH received about $14.3 million in F/Y 2023, of which $1.04 million was for radio community service and another $1.65 million for other system support, the rest dedicated to television. How much of that is allocated to CAI?

• Is there any assurance for CAI listeners, donors and underwriters that their revenue supports the Cape station directly?

• Announced plans call for GBH to move CAI to a new home, presumably rented. How does renting space and constructing an expensive new broadcast studio improve GBH’s long-term position?

• A Woods Hole non-profit has offered to purchase CAI’s home at market rate, and might consider offering CAI-GBH rent-free space for a significant period of time. Why would relocation, with a new long-term lease, be preferable?

  

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