Democracy May Prove the Doom of WBAI

WBAI likes to call itself “radio for the 99 percent.” But most of the time the station — a listener-supported and proudly scrappy mainstay of the left since 1960 — is lucky to be heard by 0.1 percent of the New York radio audience. That disparity, and the teetering finances of the station and its owner, the nonprofit Pacifica Foundation, became apparent with a tearful on-air announcement by Summer Reese, Pacifica’s interim executive director, that the station was laying off 19 of its 29 employees just to cover basic expenses like the rent for its transmitter atop the Empire State Building.

The layoffs, which included the entire news department, have put a spotlight on a station that has played a major role in American public broadcasting. WBAI, at 99.5 FM, was one of the leaders of the free-form radio movement in the 1960s, with early appearances by Bob Dylan and the on-air premiere of Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Restaurant.” In the 1970s the station became a free-speech martyr when the Supreme Court upheld a Federal Communications Commission indecency citation for running George Carlin’s seven “filthy words.” But huge debt and a dwindling membership have left both WBAI and Pacifica starved for cash.