- WSRE supporters meet at 4:15 p.m. today to discuss how to save the station.
A Sept. 11 phone call changed everything for Pensacola’s beloved public television station, WSRE. Amy Day thought she was having a routine phone conversation with Pensacola State College President Ed Meadows on WSRE’s 58th anniversary. Instead, she shared that Meadows blindsided her. The PSC president planned to recommend that the PSC Board of Trustees sever ties with PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) and decertify the WSRE Foundation in its entirety.
- “We wondered why?” Day, the Foundation vice chair, said. “First off, we were funded through June (2026), and second, we have $5.5 million in the bank.”
No Reason for Concern to Crisis Mode
The about-face was as dramatic as it was swift. When WSRE lost $1.5 million in state and federal funding in May, Meadows initially assured the Foundation board there was “no reason for concern.” When pressed for updates over subsequent months, his response was consistent: there was “nothing to talk about yet.”
That suddenly changed as the Meadows prepared for his Sept. 16 board meeting.
- The math is stark: PBS affiliation alone costs $880,000 annually, while the college contributes roughly $1.4 million to station operations. The PSC president told the board the college couldn’t cover the $1.5 million loss of state and federal funding and continue allocating funds for station operations. The college simply didn’t have $2.9 million for WSRE.
- Trustees Gordon Sprague, Troy Tippett and Zack Smith approved the recommendation. Trustee Andy Hobbs voted against it, while Trustee Ed Fleming was absent from the meeting.
Meadows acknowledged to Inweekly that some community backlash has occurred over the decision. “There are people who understand the financial constraints by cutting the budget, and then there are others who are on the emotional side of losing something that’s been a service of the college for decades.”
But here’s where the story gets complicated: the WSRE Foundation isn’t broke.
The $5.5 Million Question
The WSRE Foundation’s $5.5 million has become the elephant in the room. Meadows has recommended the Foundation donate the money to the college’s general foundation if WSRE folds—a request that’s gone over about as well as you’d expect.
- “As of right now, I don’t believe the WSRE Foundation is open to that idea,” Day said.
The Foundation’s recent fundraising success only adds fuel to the fire. In August alone, the “I Heart WSRE” campaign raised $300,000—a figure that caught the attention of Trustee Hobbs.
- “My question was if they could run, raise $300,000 a month, that would be $3.6 million, which should be more than what we need to fund the WSRE with PBS,” Hobbs argued. “I thought that with the hard work WSRE Foundation had been doing… that 58 years of history deserved a little longer, a little more chance to survive.”
Enter the Robots
What comes next might be even more controversial than the PBS divorce itself. The college administration is exploring ECHO (Education Community Health Opportunity), an artificial intelligence-based broadcast service that offers some PBS programming as a potential replacement.
Meadows admits the administration’s knowledge of ECHO is “minimal at this point.”
“As we learn more about it, we’ll know if it can be a consideration for broadcast over WSRE.” Meadows said, “As far as options to remain on the air, there are other things out there that we have to explore. The college administration has just begun to look at what else is out there that we can recommend to the Board of Trustees.”
For Day, the prospect of replacing beloved PBS content with AI-generated programming feels like sacrilege.
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- “We’re all PBS kids,” Day said passionately. “It’s why we’re all on the board—because I care about public broadcasting and the impact it’s had on my life and my children’s lives. Do I think PBS can be duplicated through AI? No.”
WSRE is in the same position as stations across the nation. Congress cut $1.1 billion allocated to public broadcasting, such as PBS and NPR.
- “It’s just a matter of the loss of grants that prevents us from continuing our affiliation with PBS,” Meadows said. “And, of course, WSRE is licensed to the college, so it’s up to the trustees and administration to evaluate what’s affordable in terms of this community service.”
The WSRE Foundation Board began a series of meetings last week in search of options to keep the station on the air and decided to retain counsel.
What’s Next?
The WSRE Foundation continues to meet, searching for creative solutions to keep the station alive. The next public meeting is scheduled for 4:15 p.m. today in the WSRE Windham Community Room, where supporters will gather once again to advocate for the future of public television on the Gulf Coast.
- Will the PSC Board of Trustees permit the WSRE Foundation to assume control of the station and its programming? If this is solely a budget decision, then the Foundation is a solution. But if there is another agenda at play, then it won’t be allowed to happen.
- Where will Sprague, Tippett, Hobbs and Fleming side?
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Very well written.