WEIU-TV recently changed how programming costs are allocated.

In the Board of Trustees’ summary of purchases from the Nov. 9 meeting report said WEIU-TV received a funding increase from $165,000 to $225,000 because of programming costs from the Public Broadcasting Service.

However, Brenda Good, Director of Administration and Finance of WEIU-TV, said the increase reported to the Board of Trustees was slightly misleading.

PBS used to break up the fees of membership, programming, PBS Plus and interconnect separately, but has since moved to lump the fees together.

“We pay one lump sum now,” she said. “Instead of having a bunch of separate fees, it’s one whole fee and looks different than it used too.”

Good said there have been things that have happened to other stations that have dropped, so the fee has gone up as well.

“There might look like there’s a bigger jump (in cost) than before, but the jump between last year and this year was not as great as it was the previous year,” she said. “The way they’re figuring, it just looks more dramatic than it really is.”

The formula was not the only thing that changed, because the programming costs did go up as well.

“The cost of doing business is just going up,” Good said.

Jack Neal, the WEIU-TV station manager, said there are many variations in costs from year to year.

“This new formula came together and sort of created more confusion than anything else,” he said.

Neal said the station was at risk in the past presidential election as well because of PBS cuts that have been taking place.

“We really don’t know what will happen still, looking at the fiscal cliff,” he said. “If it would have been zeroed out, obviously that would have been a big problem for us.”

Neal said funding is supported from around the country and also in Congress.

“A lot of people rallied after the election,” he said. “I imagine there will be some sort of cuts, but part of our budget is to make sure we can get by with less.”

WEIU-TV has been operating efficiently and on a strict budget for years, Neal said.

“Technology allows us to get more and more efficient,” he said. “We’re planning on lesser funding, but we don’t know just how much yet.”

Good said funding for the station comes in many different forms including grants, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Illinois Arts Council and allocations from Eastern itself.

“We also have our own production company that is incoming-producing,” she said. “We’re working towards maintaining the program without being a burden on any-one source for our existence.”

She said that by spreading funding around to different sources, WEIU-TV does not have to depend on just one organization for funding.

“We’re trying very hard to make other income sources,” she said.

Neal said the staff of the station knows that some of the funding will dry up eventually.

“We need to make sure that we’re doing everything we can do be as self-sustaining as possible,” he said.

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].