The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 76

8C THE PALM BEACH POST SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 13,2005 FAU will play still-unknown role in WXEL TMGLEWGDD WXELh 1C Barry promises to involve FAU in some way. Details of the sale were included in documents ol Courting WXEL Five entities submitted proposals in late 2004 to take over the WXEL public broadcasting stations. Transformations, a consulting group that WXEL owner I Barry University hired, ranked ACTIVE AFFORDABLE RETIREMENT 5 STAR COMMUMITy Beautiful wooded setting Gated entrances North end of Sebring right off of U.S. 27. Away from Coastal Storms, Congestion and High Prices! the suitors on a scale of 1 to 100 If 4 Entity Offer Score Comment 1.

Educational 'Makes the strong 1 Broadcasting $5 million 72.5 case for enhancercr.t parent of of educational servteeira MNET-NewYork the 1 2. Community 'Limited creativity and Broadcast $7 million 56.75 Foundation 3. Florida Atlantic $3 million 'Not financially or 1 University to $8 million 45.25 operationally 4. Nova t1 Proposal incomplete Southeastern 5L 17 University to $5 million 17.25 DWPBT-TV, Miami $2.5 million NA Confidentiality 1 agreement Note: Barry announced April 1 It would sell WXEL to a partnership of WNET and Community Broadcasting Foundation. MARK HEMPHILLStaf Aitfst Dec.

15 report to Barry said FAU "focuses almost exclusively on the university's vision of service to the community, and it must be said that this vision is not consistent with successful models of service within the public broadcasting system. "Their proposal emphasizes their belief that more members will be attracted to join WXEL simply by association with the university. It does not consider engaging the local community to provide input, or establishing a dialogue with the current audience or donors." Transformations said FAU expected to pay up to $8 million, securing the money from the legislature. It said FAU's biggest strengths were its position as a major state university, presence in the area and ability to offer employees and students as staff. But it said FAU's overall plan was vague.

"Overall, FAU's proposal was not financially or operationally realistic, Transformations managing partner Patti Dodgen concluded. Brogan especially challenged the consultants' conclusion that the university was not a practical fit because it did not have the money in hand. He said the college had verbal and written promises of support from high-ranking legislators such as state Sens. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, and Ken Pruitt, R-Port St Lucie. Early on, the consultants had urged Barry in blunt terms to reject the option of keeping the stations.

"There is no clearly shared commonality of mission between Barry and WXEL," Transformations wrote. On March 16, Barry board minutes show, the university voted to strike the deal with the WNET group. But Bevilacqua told the board, "for political reasons we decided to find a way to engage the Community Broadcast Foundation." Barry was under pressure to ensure some local control of the stations. Bevilacqua also told the board the sale price would fall far short of the consultants' early estimates. "We are not going to be able to achieve anything near what we thought" elioLWeinbergpbpostcom Beach, Post from the Department of Education.

Winn and other department officials familiar with the WXEL sale were not available for comment last week. Brogan and the new buyers met recently, and both said FAU will play a role in the new WXEL, but neither provided details. Barry had already had to seek state approval of the sale because the state built WX-EL's Congress Avenue studios for $5 million and leases it to the stations for $1 a year. It also provides WXEL $600,000 a year. But Brogan said last week that because the additional leverage created by the budget language ends once the state Board of Education approves the sale, Winn needs to move slowly and get as large a role for FAU as possible.

Winn, Brogan said, "needs to move at his own Kace. Until he's comfortable shouldn't expedite the process. The problem is the process was expedited without him." If the idea of Winn's stall was to chafe Barry, it worked. 'Four months of silence' Barry announced April 1 it would sell WXEL-FM 90.7 and WXEL-TV Channel 42 to a partnership of New York public broadcasting giant WNET and the Community Broadcast Foundation of Palm Beach and the Treasure Coast, a group of current and retired broadcasters as well as local executives and longtime WXEL supporters. WNETs parent, Educational Broadcasting would Eay $5 million plus other enefits.

It would be months before Winn's office arranged a meeting with Barry to discuss approval of the sale. The meeting was scheduled for July 7. It was canceled July 6. About two weeks later, a testy Sister Linda Bevilacqua, resident of Barry, wrote she ad contacted Winn several times by both e-mail and certified mail to discuss the process "and have not received 15 ACRE RECREATION COMPLEX 14 Area Golf Courses 36 Holes Right Next Door 8 Nearby Fishing Lakes Grand Ballroom and Concert Stage Fitness Center Lighted Tennis and Shuffleboard Courts Lap Pool, Swimming Pool and Whirlpool net value of $354,573 and were on the brink of financial collapse. By the time Barry announced in the summer of 2004 that the stations were on the block, their assets were worth more than $6 million.

Questions arose about whether and how much the Miami Shores-based Catholic college should profit from the sale. Barry pointed out it had poured millions of dollars, and many hours of labor, into pulling the stations out of a black hole. It said it deserved at least its initial investment and at most a fair amount that could be used for scholarships. In its March 2004 report to Barry, Transformations Consulting Group wrote that the station's value to a potential buyer ranged from $7.7 million to $17.2 million, depending on whether the buyer was a commercial, religious or public broadcaster and whether Barry sold just the broadcast license or the entire operation and its assets. FAU's plan called vague In FAU's initial inquiry about buying WXEL, William A Covino, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, argued that FAU's Department of Communication already had broadcasting veterans to operate the stations.

But Transformations' the courtesy of an acknowledgment-She said Barry had complied with all the state's requests for information and, "given four months of silence from your office and the potential negative impact to WXEL, its employees and thousands of loyal viewers and listeners who are Florida citizens, I find I will have no choice but to consider other alternatives." A Barry spokesman said this week that an "other alternative" was to hire as a lobbyist former St Petersburg-area state Sen. Curt Kiser. Winn and Barry representatives finally met Aug. 3. Winn later asked Barry for more documents related to the sale and said a WNET leader would meet four days later, on Oct 17, with Brogan, to explore "his suggestions on what FAU's involvement may be with the station if ownership is transferred, in light of the legislative proviso language." He also told Bevilacqua that, before he made a recommendation to the Board of Education, he wanted to dis-, cuss with Barry "to what extent" the state, having invested millions of dollars into this station, has an interest in any remuneration from the transfer." Barry took over WXEL in 1997, when the stations had a in HOMES STARTING AT ff if Live Oak, 2 BR Orange Blossom, 3 BR.

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