Brookline Interactive Group, Brookline’s nonprofit public-access television station and community media center, is furloughing three of its eight employees.
The decision comes as BIG faces a financial crunch caused by sharply decreasing funding to the town from cable companies, which are required by law to share 5% of their local revenue with communities like Brookline in the form of a cable franchise fee. Those funds are in turn shared with local media centers like BIG. A long-term trend of cord-cutting has damaged local community media stations around the state and country.
“Our current financial circumstances just did not allow for any other options,” BIG executive director Jessica Smyser said of the furloughs in an email to members on Monday.
In addition to the plummeting revenue from cable companies, which came into sharp relief during the town’s latest negotiations with Comcast, BIG has for several years been taking advantage of a large grant from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), but those funds are expiring soon.
The organization has also not been able to meet ambitious fundraising goals over the past few months, Smyser told Brookline.News.
“Having to furlough half the staff impacts the areas of growth we were seeing,” Smyser said. “Our education programs, our membership growth and our productions-for-hire will be affected because we’ll be a smaller staff. We’ll necessarily have to say “no” to things now when in the past we didn’t say no to anything.”
BIG, which was founded in 1982 as part of a wave of new public access TV stations, gives its members access to high-tech video equipment, training and more. It also broadcasts, live-streams and records meetings of town bodies including the Select Board, Town Meeting and School Committee. This service took on added importance when the pandemic forced those sesions to go remote.
BIG staff also lead youth and adult education programs, as well as working on other initiatives such as podcasting and civic-focused artificial intelligence.
In her message, Smyser wrote that the three employees were furloughed and not laid off because there are several “outside elements” at play. One is that BIG and the town are currently negotiating a new memorandum of understanding, which will dictate how much the town pays for BIG’s services.
Under the existing agreement, Comcast and RCN, the companies that serve Brookline, send 5% of their local revenue to the town, of which 2% goes to BIG.
Some in town government are calling for change, noting that some nearby communities like Newton and Lexington transfer the full 5% fee to their public access organizations.
Writing on a town listserv, Carlos Riduejo, a member of Town Meeting and the Advisory Committee, argued that the town should transfer the entire cable fee to BIG to support its “essential role in meeting the town’s legal and civic obligations.”
“I respectfully urge the Select Board to increase the share of the franchise fee allocated to BIG so that it more accurately reflects the true cost and value of the services it provides. Ideally, the full 5% should be directed to BIG, consistent with the original intent of this fee as charged to cable subscribers,” Ridruejo wrote.
According to Charlie Young, assistant town administrator for finance, increasing that share is not a subject of the current negotiations.
“Given the Town’s financial situation, increased funding has not been considered,” he wrote in an email to Brookline.News.
He pointed to the ARPA money, which were federal funds but allocated by the town, as another way the town has supported BIG.
BIG also has a few outstanding grant applications that could help it bring back the furloughed employees, Smyser said.
And membership revenue, fees from production services and individual donations are all up, she told members.
“We know this means we need to reorganize around this new revenue reality, and this painful step of furloughs is one movement in this direction,” she wrote.
Disclosure: Brookline.News publishes a podcast in partnership with Brookline Interactive Group.