Sound FM Will Live On

Programming will not cease at 6:30pm today, as originally planned

Instead of attending this week's production night, I was assigned to get the inside scoop (or should I say, InsideR Scoop?) on how Sound FM plans to survive after being denied their fees yet again.

After a sob story about the station losing 22,000 members after the failure of the first referendum, the Sound FM Board of Directors announced that, as of Friday at 6:30pm, they will switch to a pre-recorded broadcast schedule as they move from the Bauer Warehouse to their new home at Maxwell's Music House (King and University), and will return to live programming around mid-January. To finance the station, they will be asking all volunteers who run a show to contribute $50 per month, which can be out-of-pocket, sponsorship or fundraising.

They showed their 2009-2010 budget, and I'm not sure that the maths quite work. For one, they say that they need at least 100 radio shows to make this sustainable. Presently, there are not enough shows to make this target, and it is likely that some will leave the station for being unable to raise this fee. The other issue is that they plan to raise $12,000 per year in fundraising, though this past year only showed $2,500 in fundraising revenues. President Steve Krysak said that they will look more towards the community if this funding model fails, and would not rule out increasing the $50 contribution.

So long story short, 100.3 Sound FM will continue as a radio station despite the lack of student funding.

InsideR