At WFMU we've always prided ourselves on being able to support ourselves on one pledge drive a year, plus whatever we can scrape together by selling roses outside the Holland Tunnel.
But that was before the great recession. Before we fell over $100,000 short of our goal during our March fundraiser. Before we lost our lease on our main transmitter site and set out to put an antenna in midtown Manhattan.
That's why we're setting aside our pride for 24 hours for our first, and hopefully last, day-long marathon. Starting Tuesday, November 17th at 7pm and continuing for 24 hours, we'll be trying to raise enough money to keep WFMU's heart pumping and turntables spinning until next Spring.
This is only the third time in WFMU's 51 years on the air that we've taken the drastic measure of interrupting our programming, even briefly, outside of our annual March Marathon. The first two times happened when our old owner, Upsala College, went down the financial tubes. Our 24-hour Marathon is meant to ensure that WFMU doesn't meet that same fate.
But rest assured that our 24-hour Marathon will still contain that unique mix of shameless grovelling, prizes, and DJ tag teams that make WFMU marathons the fun listening experience that they always are. We also have a brand new T-shirt and a special edition of our program guide LCD.
As of this writing, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to secure a new lease for our 91.1 FM transmitter site, and I'm working hard to resolve some final issues with our New York City booster antenna. On the online front, we're still making great progress, having just launched two additional channels of online programming (a Rock & Soul stream and an Ubuweb/avant-weirdness channel), not to mention a WFMU iPhone app which makes it easier than ever to listen to WFMU live from anywhere.
WFMU has been in financial hot water before, and the support of our listeners has always bailed us out. I'm confident that you'll come through for us again this time, either by calling 800-989-9368 between 7pm November 17th and 7pm November 18th, or by pledging online.
Thanks. I hope to hear from you.
Ken Freedman
