WALLY SMITH CRAFTS A SWEET DEAL WITH WNET-TV • DAN MULSHALKO SETENCED

Dr. Wally Smith

Wally Smith, the President, General Manager and Program Director of WPPB in Southampton, NY, is probably smiling today. 

Peconic Public Broad Broadcasting [link], and WNET-TV, the PBS station for NYC, have reached an agreement to sell the FCC License of WPPB to WNIT for $944,834. 

WNET will own WPPB once the FCC approves the transition. Smith and Peconic will continue to operate the station on day-to-day basis.

Smith and WNET have agreed to a Public Service Operating Agreement (PSOA) that will allow Smith and his team to keep WPPB humming. Most importantly, eastern Long Island will have a vibrant local NPR member station.

The sweet part of the arrangement is that WPPB will now have the resources of WNET to tap and have the stability needed to run a NPR member station. Smith could not comment on the transaction because of a contractual “silence period.”

Southampton is thought of as a place where the rich and famous hang out. Many of the areas that WPPB covers are remote. it is  WPPB serves a small year-round population near the eastern tip of Long Island. 

WPPB is closer to Old Saybrook, Connecticut, than it is to Manhattan.

According to WPPB’s FY 2018 audited financial report, WPPB had a loss of $223,000 during the year. Revenue for the year was around $531,000. Major sources of cash were members (36%), underwriters (34%) and CPB (26%).

The deal was reached on October 17^th and announced on October 24^th when the paperwork was accepted for filing by the FCC.

The 2015 Spark News produced a video podcast featuring Smith. It it tells the true history of how Smith helped found American Public Radio and then saved the founders from a fiery demise. You can see the video here.

DAN MUSHALKO PLEADS GUILTY TO FALSIFYING DOCUMENTS

Dan Mushalko

The mystery of why Dan Mushalko, the former GM of NPR News/Adult alt WCBE, continued this week. Mushalko hid around $900,000 of past due invoices, mainly from NPR, for reasons that are still unknown. 

It was anticipated that Mushalko would plead pled guilty at a hearing on Wednesday (10/23). It is a felony offense.

In the plea he admits he falsified invoices to conceal the station's true debt in documents he provided to Columbus City Schools.

According to a report in the Columbus Daily Dispatch [link], written before the court proceeding, Mushalko planned to plead guilty to one count of telecommunications fraud. Mushalko was expected to ne placed on probation.

KEN SAYS: Why did Mushalko continue this crazy scheme? He didn’t do it to pocket the money. For some reason he couldn’t admit that WCBE was so far in debt.

We occasionally spoke with Mushalko over the years, particularly when we were marketing nationally syndicated programs to noncom stations. Mushalko impressed us with his encyclopedic knowledge of the Columbus media scene.

Many times when we talked with Mushalko he hinted that “some bigger deal” was in the works that involved WCBE and the two Ohio State stations.

We would like to hear from Mushalko and get his first hand account of what happened.