Sacramento’s public radio and television stations are in a cold war. Who’s to blame? | Opinion

The Sacramento region’s two venerable public media outlets, KVIE television and CapRadio, are in a modern-day cold war. KVIE has managed to get control of the radio station’s tower property in nearby Elverta. And the television station didn’t bother to tell CapRadio about this unusual “donation” until after it happened.

This is the latest development following a scathing audit of the radio station last October that prompted the holder of the radio license, California State University, Sacramento, to take greater administrative control from CapRadio. What began as a CapRadio problem has now managed to entangle KVIE as well. The television station has made an ill-advised decision to take ownership of the CapRadio tower without first knowing what it was getting into.

What happened? One answer is clear: These local titans of communication simply aren’t communicating.

Opinion

“All communications with KVIE are now legal communications disputing tower ownership,” CapRadio said in a recent statement.

There aren’t two sides to this story. There are actually four — the university’s side, CapRadio’s, KVIE’s and that of yet another nonprofit, an endowment that has long supported the radio station.

This is not a quadrangle of collaboration. Relations have devolved into a series of silent treatments, non-disclosure pledges and competing public relations salvos.

The audit of CapRadio by the headquarters of the CSU system found a radio station in financial shambles. Its leadership once believed that moving downtown into two fancy new offices would somehow lead to greater station revenues to cover the rent. The bad idea collapsed under the weight of the COVID-19 crisis and crushing five-figure monthly lease payments.

‘Unauthorized’

The auditors also took exception to the fact that the independent Capital Public Radio Endowment is structurally disconnected from the state university’s own nonprofit entity. It has been so since its inception.

The audit called the endowment “unauthorized.” It was a curious term, given that the university under its authority has collaborated with this organization for years. Regardless, all sides talked after the audit about the endowment formally merging with the university’s own foundation. The endowment said no. And things began to go downhill from there.

“The university had basically cut off discussions with us by saying we’re going to terminate the agreement with the endowment,” said Dan Brunner, chair of the endowment board, a retired attorney and long-time radio supporter.

Despite no clear path forward with the university and the station, the endowment still had about $2 million in assets and ownership of the station’s radio tower, Brunner said. The endowment’s title to the land happened some years ago with all sides’ blessing at the time.

Brunner said that an endowment consultant last fall found the tower in “a horrible state of disrepair” and determined that CapRadio and Sacramento State had not been adequately maintaining it. So the endowment began looking for a new owner for the tower that would consistently maintain it. CapRadio and the university were privately ruled out.

“They had not kept up their end of the bargain,” Brunner said.

CapRadio disputes that radio tower maintenance was a burning problem that suddenly demanded an ownership change. The claim “conveniently fits a narrative to justify the actions of the Endowment,” the station said in a statement.

Enter KVIE

Meanwhile, CapRadio and KVIE held a series of meetings about a potential merger of their respective public media operations. On Feb. 27, according to CapRadio, then-station interim general manager Tom Karlo broke off discussions about the merger.

The endowment, which had written in support of a merger, soon launched a public relations campaign to promote KVIE taking over the radio station from the university. It hired local public relations consultant Doug Elmets. And because the radio station handles the finances for the endowment, CapRadio began processing payments to Elmets. In March, $7,500 in endowment reserves that could have gone to supporting public radio went to Elmets instead. Talk about a public relations problem.

Separately, the endowment approached KVIE about donating the radio station tower to the television station. And they held these conversations completely behind the backs of CapRadio and the university.

Why?

“KVIE was asked to keep the transfer confidential until it had concluded,” said its general manager, David Lowe. “It is common and typical to have confidential conversations with donors until the donations are finalized.”

But this was no standard donation. This was the public television station secretly plotting to take control of the local public radio station’s tower. For KVIE management and its board of directors, this situation demanded an act of journalism and due diligence. They needed to get the university’s side of the story.

But they did not. They accepted the donation. CapRadio said KVIE informed the station of the transaction on April 1 and requested rent.

“The endowment could have offered it for sale on the open market, which might have resulted in the tower site being sold into the commercial marketplace,” Lowe said in an email. “The CapRadio representatives agreed it was better that KVIE received it rather than for it to be sold into the commercial marketplace.”

CapRadio seems to view things differently.

“It is also shocking and disappointing that KVIE — part of this community’s public media family — has worked with the Endowment to the detriment of local public radio,” CapRadio said on April 5 in a public statement.

The latest plot twist is the claim by the university and CapRadio that they continue to own the tower, but not the land. KVIE, which learned this only after the donation of the land, is reviewing the matter. The consequences of this communication failure only grow by the day.

The olive branch

That Brunner and some of the town’s old guard have soured on the university is understandable given that the CSU system now considers the endowment “unauthorized.” But CSU Sacramento and its new president, Luke Wood, aren’t going anywhere. The university and CapRadio don’t need outside pressure or advice on how to manage itself. CapRadio needs support from its listeners.

Wood inherited a radio station in financial disarray and an audit from headquarters requiring him to clean things up. CapRadio may not exist today had the university failed to rescue the station from financial insolvency.

The solution? KVIE would do itself a huge favor by giving the radio station the land underneath the tower. The land has become an albatross of a donation. Such a donation by KVIE to CapRadio would be the Sacramento thing to do. It is the one olive branch that could begin to restore order in the local public media universe.

We need public television and radio to focus on covering the news, not being the news.