Below is a transcript of our conversation with Rick Westover, General Manager and Executive Director for WCMU Public Media
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas, and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. WCMU Public Media is the network of radio and television stations affiliated with NPR and PBS and licensed to Central Michigan University. For over 50 years, WCMU has served Central and Northern Michigan in its mission to educate, inspire, and entertain an audience of over 1.3 million. The elimination of federal funding, effective October 1st, 2025, presents perhaps the biggest challenge for WCMU moving forward. Rick Westover, WCMU's general manager and executive director, sat down with me to talk about a difficult year and his optimism about how the challenges will be met…
What is the role right now of listeners and viewers to their role in funding what we currently know as WCMU?
Rick Westover:
So, since something called rescission that many of us never had heard of until this summer, because of that rescission, the loss of federal funding for WCMU $1.6 million, roughly 19 to 20% of our operating budget, we rely on our donors more than we ever have before. Now, that's a key phrase that we've often used during our fundraisers, but this year, it's in all caps with exclamation marks. Like literally, we cannot do what we do without our donors. We do still have generous support from Central Michigan University in appropriation of $1.2 million. But with the $1.6 million gone from the federal funding piece and then realizing that last year our donors came forward with $3.2 million, you see the large share that donors have been picking up even before rescission. And now, again, we need you more than we ever have before.
DN:
What are the efforts to address all this moving forward into 2026?
RW:
So robust fundraising, as many of you have recognized, and the support is coming through. We can't thank you enough for all the generous support and all the wonderful comments, too, of encouragement, because it's been a difficult year for this staff that works so hard for you every single day. And we appreciate that encouragement. We appreciate the support, but we're also looking for places where we can save. We're a small staff, 30 people. I don't want to lose anybody. It takes everybody here to make this product possible. The only position that we haven't filled is one when somebody chose to take on a new role and left the organization. So, a little attrition is helping, looking at renegotiation of contracts. We've spoken with our friends at NPR, PBS, APTS, PRX, APM, all these monograms that may not mean something to you specifically, but they're all sources for programming on WCMU. And the negotiations have helped us save 1/4 of $1,000,000 right there. I mentioned all of the different transmitters that we utilize to cover central and northern Michigan. And our engineering department is looking at ways that maybe some of those hops that connect sites aren't necessary if you have fiber, for example, to connect locations. And just looking at new technology to help us create some savings. So, everything's on the table. Looking at savings efficiencies and of course encouraging greater support and expanding the membership of WCMU.
DN:
Where do you think you would see the operation? There's the popular question is, where are you going to be five years from now, 10 years from now? Perhaps we need to look at it in a little narrower focus, maybe one to two to three years as this continues to play out. How do you see the overall place of where the organization may end up at that time.
RW:
We're actually going through some strategic planning right now. And what we've experienced in the last few years since 2020, you have had COVID that's disrupted the organization completely. We've made our way through that. But then we experienced a fire in February of 2024 that took out one of our transmitter towers that offered up both radio and television out of the Alpena area. And then you have rescission that we've dealt with. There is no normal anymore. So, A five-year plan is really almost laughable. You can sit down and talk about it and project and think about that, but really you have to sit down every year and recalibrate and look at what the world has provided you and dodge and weave as necessary. So, it's always going to be something that's under revision. That's the new normal.
DN:
Rick Westover is the general manager and director of WCMU Public Media, and he is optimistic along with the team that he leads here at WCMU looking into the future. Rick, thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us.
RW:
Definitely, happy to do it.
