Madison community television station WYOU would have lost all its public funding under an unsuccessful city budget amendment proposed Tuesday by Ald. Zachary Brandon, District 7, and supported by five other council members.
WYOU must now raise $10,000 in private donations before it will have access to the last $20,000 of its $126,230 funding. The public funding comes out of cable television fees.
Madison residents may air programs on the station for free and use its equipment with a paid membership. Students receive a discount, and many UW-Madison students use the facilities as part of communications or drama classes, according to WYOU Executive Director Jason Kwiatkowski.
\You could be a regular person and get your views or your art out to the community,"" he said. ""Madison wants us to be here.""
Ald. Cindy Thomas, District 20, one of the six who voted for the original amendment to eliminate WYOU's funding, said the station should have used its community support to raise more money on its own.
But private donations to the station usually total around $14,000 yearly, Kwiatkowski said, and funding is slim enough it has ""people volunteering just to run the place.""
Many supporters of the channel have called alders to say they would contribute money but have not been asked, according to Ald. Linda Bellman, District 1, who voted to cut WYOU's public funding but also supports the compromise of forcing it to raise $10,000.
""It's really putting some teeth into what we've been telling them for some time,"" she said, referring to expectations for years the station would raise more of its own money.
""Had they done a fundraiser, they could easily meet the burden of coming up with more funding,"" Thomas said. ""They didn't do it.""
Kwiatkowski said the station will be able to raise enough money in donations, but the requirement is making it ""jump through hoops.""
""We're worried this might be a thing they try to do every year,"" he said. ""If anything, I think we've been very fiscally conservative to run a station on $126,000.""
""A lot of people take the things we have in this city for granted,"" he said.
