WYOU has been spared. This year.
After Mayor Dave Cieslewicz met with WYOU's board recently, he dropped his proposal to eliminate all funding for the public access channel in the city's 2009 budget ("Mayor Dave Takes Aim at WYOU," 9/26/08).
"The board was very helpful, and we were able to work out a compromise," says Rachel Strauch-Nelson, the mayor's spokeswoman.
Cieslewicz will not take away $140,000 in PEG fees - which are paid monthly by cable subscribers - and give it all to Madison's City Channel, as he'd planned. Instead, WYOU will keep the money in 2009, but the mayor will cut it in half in 2010. In 2011, under a new state law, all PEG fees will end completely.
Meantime, WYOU is seeking a new executive director, after the departure earlier this year of Charles Uphoff. The main job requirement: Must be good at fund-raising.