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Committee examines Monona Go use and WVMO operating budget; staff to return with metrics
Summary
At its Aug. 11 meeting the Community Media Committee reviewed draft operating revenue and discussed whether to continue the Monona Go app after staff reported low usage metrics; staff will provide a more detailed cross-channel comparison and cost breakout at the next meeting.
The Community Media Committee conducted a first read of the community media operating budget on Aug. 11, 2025, and questioned the value of continuing the Monona Go app after staff reported low usage figures.
Staff member Will summarized revenue trends for the WVMO station: franchise-fee revenue has declined from earlier highs, currently showing roughly $112,000 in franchise-fee receipts in the packet; other revenue for 2026 was shown as about $93,000, which Will said comes from a partnership with the Monona Grove School District to support staff time for high-school and district meeting coverage.
Will said underwriting and sponsorship income from the Friends group had not been consistently itemized in the draft budget; he told the committee the Friends group provided roughly $6,000 in underwriting in 2025 and that current-year fundraising could approach $10,000. He also said the Monona Eastside Business Alliance had brought in about $10,000 this year.
The committee focused much of its discussion on the Monona Go app — a third-party app that aggregates the station’s videos and live streams — because the draft budget did not explicitly show the app subscription line. Will said the recurring cost for Monona Go is about $3,200 per year and that the station also pays for streaming infrastructure tied to the vendor (CableCast) at about $1,400 annually; the committee also learned that Adobe Creative Cloud licenses increased the studio-maintenance line to about $3,500 per year for three licenses (up from roughly $2,200 previously).
Will shared on-screen usage metrics: for a recent month, the platform showed a total of 52 views (15 on-demand plays and one live-stream view reported during the meeting). "Total of 15 views on demand, 1 live stream viewed, 52 views altogether," Will said while sharing the metric display. Committee members contrasted those numbers with YouTube statistics, which staff said show significantly higher view counts for the same meetings.
Members said they wanted a clearer cross-channel comparison before deciding whether to keep the Monona Go subscription. Amanda asked that the Friends group's sponsorship efforts be itemized and invited a return presentation from Stacy Harvey (Friends of WVMO) or another Friends representative to explain underwriting and sponsorship plans. Will agreed to gather more complete metrics and a clearer itemized revenue breakdown for the committee’s next meeting.
On staffing and wages, Will said the draft reflected no new positions and a 3% across-the-board pay recommendation; the station’s paid positions listed in the packet included station director, music director, three part-time high-school student positions, and a multimedia content producer funded in part by the school-district partnership.
No final vote was taken on the operating budget — the item is a first read and will return for action at a future meeting. Staff was directed to provide a cross-platform usage comparison (Monona Go versus YouTube and the station’s direct stream), a clearer breakdown of Friends underwriting/sponsorship revenues, and a studio-maintenance cost explanation at the committee’s next meeting on Sept. 11, 2025.
