Valley public radio station leaders threaten to cut services

HARLINGEN — KMBH/KHID FM’s latest pledge drive ended early after receiving only six pledges in three days.

The station’s owner, RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc., responded to the lack of listener response by pulling the plug on the rest of the pledge drive. It was scheduled to run Feb. 11-17.

RGV Educational Broadcasting posted the announcement on www.kmbh.org, as well as a notice about drastic changes to the station if donations do not increase.

The news was also broadcast on the station.

“We understand the reasons for some listeners to hold up their support in the middle of so many technical problems and challenges through our digital transition.

“But this lack of financial support only aggravates our situation and may force us to make drastic changes on our service to the Rio Grande Valley,” the announcement stated.

The canceled campaign is the third fund-raising event out of four in the station’s current fiscal year (July 2007-June 2008).

So far, during eight months of the present fiscal year, KMBH has collected only 15 percent of its needed income from local support, according to the statement on the station’s Web site. The station’s announcement says the guidelines established by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting indicate that this support should be $200,000 per year.

According to the announcement, KMBH-FM receives the majority of its funding from the public broadcasting corporation, underwriters, the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville and the University of Texas-Brownsville-Texas Southmost College.

However, the announcement said “the lack of money from listeners represents for Public Radio 88 FM-HD a painful decision to re-design our station in a direction that will ensure revenues, but it will not necessarily be what some of our listeners want.

“Remember: those who have not given their financial support will not have any right to complain when their favorite radio station changes or even vanishes from the air.”

When contacted Monday, Monsignor Pedro Briseño, president, CEO and general manager of RGV Educational Broadcasting, declined to answer any questions on the matter.