Dear Daily Wildcat readers,
Without you, the organizations that comprise Arizona Student Media — the Arizona Daily Wildcat, KAMP Student Radio and UATV — would not be half as successful. Your continued support is essential to our survival.
That’s why we are asking you to vote yes on the Arizona Student Media fee this Tuesday and Wednesday.
The fee’s background and its benefits are outlined below. For more information on why your vote matters, refer to editor-in-chief Kristina Bui’s letter from the editor or a statement by reader’s representative Lynley Price. Questions and comments can be submitted to the “Vote YES on the Arizona Student Media Fee” Facebook event page.
Thanks again for your support, and please vote yes in the ASUA general elections this week!
Item:
This is a proposal to expand the refundable $1 per semester KAMP Student Radio Fee to a refundable $3 per semester Student Media Fee renewable in 5 years. The purpose of this fee is to provide support for the university’s student-run media, including KAMP, the Daily Wildcat and UATV-3, to be administered by the Arizona Student Media department.
Background:
The $1 KAMP fee was first approved in 1998 for 5 years, and renewed by the Arizona Board of Regents in 2003 and 2008. It is up for renewal in 2013. Student-run media have been part of the UA campus since the first Sage Green and Silver newspaper appeared on campus in January 1899. After more than 100 years student media now face the largest transformation of all — into the digital age of mobile audiences enticed by unlimited options for news and entertainment.
Arizona Student Media is already undergoing significant adaptation. KAMP streams over the internet and has its own smartphone apps. UATV broadcasts on the web and through its YouTube channel, as well as the ResLife cable system. The Daily Wildcat is a 24/7 online presence and provides both an email and an iPad edition. In 2012 the Wildcat reached 1.3 million readers in print (more than 70% of UA students surveyed in 2011 said they read the print paper at least 1x week) and 1.5 million more online and via mobile device. One million pieces of Wildcat content were viewed via Facebook.
Student Media has long been financially self-sustaining, largely on advertising revenue generated by the Daily Wildcat. Those annual revenues have dropped from $1.4 million in 2008 to just over $1 million in 2012. Student Media has responded by cutting payroll and operating costs, and by pulling in new revenue from niche magazines and special issues, selling space on newsstands, and offering digital and print bundles. Reduced print frequency and establishing a new downtown entertainment paper are also being considered.
Benefits:
• Creating new digital-age opportunities and jobs for students and being competitive in recruiting quality staff. More than 300 students a year participate in Arizona Student Media. Nearly 200 of these substantive positions are paid, but payrolls have declined by more than $50,000 per year.
• Continuous improvement of media content on all platforms, and improved converged facilities where
students can adapt and collaborate. Work space and flow will be updated for a new media age.
• Support for development of summer radio and TV programming, expansion of revenue-generating mobile DJ unit; and creation of revenue-generating creative video production service.
• Expanded digital publishing (product development — phone, tablet, apps), equipment and training essential for the Wildcat, and campus journalism, to meet its mission, including development of new digital revenue streams.
• Development of revenue-generating print niche products, such as an entertainment paper, that create new partnerships and serve the UA’s expanding downtown community.
• Fee is refundable with a 5-year renewable sunset clause.
