THE MAYOR DECIDES TO SELL Following Mastro’s terse message to Schneiderman at the end of January 1994, the city and the foundation followed very different paths in planning for WNYC’s future. The foundation continued to focus on self-sufficiency and urged Mayor Giuliani to reappoint WNYC President Tom Morgan, citing the Dinkins directive to support its role in the selection process. A board committee was formed to explore the implications of self-sufficiency on future relations with the city. And, as a part of its effort to cultivate an image as a cultural institution, WNYC began to lobby to be transferred from the Department of General Services to the Department of Cultural Affairs, and, in time, both commissioners acquiesced. Morgan also became the public voice of WNYC, arguing in The New York Times of February 23, 1994, that the sale of the licenses was “unthinkable,” the equivalent of taking the wrecking ball to the old Pennsylvania Station. Five days later, The Times took up the theme in an editorial urging that the stations be transferred to the foundation. The city owns WNYC-AM, WNYC-FM and WNYC-TV. In distinctly different ways, they serve an audience of millions with non-commercial, high-quality news, culture and public service broadcasts that would surely cease if the stations were “privatized.” Instead, they should be “not-for-profitized”—an arrangement for smart lawyers to devise, where the stations would be self-supporting under the control of the not-for-profit WNYC Foundation that does the fund-raising now, or a reconstituted version. At the end of February, WNYC transformed its semi-annual on-air fundraising drive into a mandate for self-sufficiency. The pitch of the frequent interruptions of regular programming was “Send a Message to City Hall.” The results exceeded all expectations by raising over $1.5 million, three times the proceeds of the prior drive in October. But the success of the drive showed City Hall not only that WNYC’s listeners supported the stations, but also that the foundation had the capacity to pay for its future, whatever form it might take. In the meantime, the mayor’s privatization team had assumed responsibility for the future of WNYC and had a very different future in mind. By early February, a plan had been developed internally to sell both WNYC-FM and Channel 31. WNYC-AM, with a non-commercial license, was recognized to be of no commercial value. Even during the earliest stages of the Giuliani administration’s planning for WNYC, however, the foundation had an impact. Contrary to the recommendation of the transition team that the stations be shut down and sold for the value of the licenses, the mayor’s privatization staff recommended selling the FM and TV licenses to commercial buyers, but replacing them with non-commercial licenses. Thus, the plan was to “unlock” the value of WNYC’s two commercial licenses, which were being used non-commercially, by selling them at their commercial value, but substituting non-commercial licenses “in recognition of the value of WNYC’s programming to a significant number of New Yorkers.”
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