Two years after Arlington Independent Media’s implosion, the organization’s FM radio station is seeking a second life with a focus on education, news and the arts.
Despite AIM laying off its entire staff in March 2024 and losing its entire broadcast studio at a county auction following a blistering financial audit, the organization’s remaining legal and technical representatives have petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to transfer the license to WERA 96.7.
Arlington Independent Media’s website and flagship radio station are down, but the bedraggled nonprofit’s leadership has few answers about what happened.
Multiple tipsters informed ARLnow that WERA, AIM’s low-power FM radio station, stopped broadcasting its lo-fi beats earlier this month. Additionally, AIM’s website now directs to a page reading “bandwidth limit exceeded.”
Tough times are ahead for WETA, the Shirlington-based producer of the “PBS News Hour” and other public programming, following millions of dollars in federal funding cuts.
Congress’s decision to withdraw $1.1 billion from public broadcasting nationwide will cost WETA $9 million in previously allocated funds during both of the next two fiscal years — a roughly 7% cut to the station’s budget.
Arlington Independent Media’s flagship FM station is back on the airwaves — but beyond that, the troubled nonprofit has effectively gone radio silent.
Arlington listeners tuning into 96.7 FM can once again catch lo-fi beats on AIM’s public radio station, WERA. Every now and then, they’ll hear a message inviting them to listen online at WERA.fm.
Arlington Independent Media has paid a visit to the county’s radio room, but the organization’s FM station isn’t back on the air just yet.
The county allowed the struggling nonprofit to access its transmission room — with supervision — today (Thursday), county spokesperson David Barrera told ARLnow this afternoon.
An impending deadline for Arlington Independent Media’s broadcasting license is reinvigorating the nonprofit’s requests for county help.
AIM — which has been attempting to reboot after laying off its entire staff last March amid significant debt and a pending county audit — has until March 21 to resume broadcasting at WERA 96.7.
Arlington Independent Media now has new board of directors and the outlines of a battle plan to bring itself back from the brink of extinction.
“We’re not giving up the ghost,” the organization’s outgoing secretary, Claire Seaton, said at the end of AIM’s annual membership meeting, held Sunday (Oct. 27).
Arlington Independent Media’s floundering finances have left a former employee with significant personal debt.
Linda Lawson, AIM’s former head of production, obtained a credit card to help cover operating funds at the struggling nonprofit in the second half of 2023, AIM Treasurer Amanda MacKaye said in an email to members last week. At the encouragement of AIM’s former executive leadership, according to the email, Lawson racked up a debt of about $15,000.
A radio show that got its start at Arlington Independent Media has received recognition at the national level.
“Choose to be Curious,” run by former AIM president and producer Lynn Borton, won the Alliance for Community Media Foundation‘s Hometown Media Award for best audio programming by an independent producer. The award will be formally presented in June at a conference in San Jose, Calif.
Updated 3/27 After an intense several weeks involving a county audit, a board president’s resignation and a mass layoff of all staff members, Arlington Independent Media is attempting to turn a new leaf.
The beleaguered nonprofit’s board members, now the only operational staff of the longstanding public access television and radio broadcaster, sketched out a tentative path forward yesterday (Monday) while fielding questions — and occasional accusations — from members of the public.
(Updated at 10:15 a.m.) Arlington Independent Media has laid off all staff members while electing new leaders amid a county audit of the group’s finances.
AIM’s board, now under the leadership of President Rhonda Snipe and Treasurer Amanda MacKaye, will be “taking over operations of the organization for the time being,” the organization announced Monday following a closed special meeting.
Amid its stalled move from Clarendon to Courthouse, Arlington Independent Media is being audited by the county, according to the nonprofit’s leadership.
Meantime, simmering divides among the organization’s leadership, AIM members and people currently or formerly on AIM’s Board of Directors boiled over this week.
