Shuttered New York radio station WBAI FM 99.5 is expected to go back on the air at midnight Thursday following a judge’s ruling in a lawsuit brought by its employees after it was abruptly shut down last month.
“I think it’s time to get WBAI back on the air and back to fundraising,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Melissa Crane said after ruling from the bench Wednesday in a lawsuit that laid-off station employees brought against non-profit parent company Pacifica Foundation last month.
WBAI — which had been on the air since 1955 — went silent during an Oct🐟. 7 fundraising drive, and the local programming was switched to a national feed.
California-based Pacifica cited mounting financial problems — including WBAI’s operating at a loss — to justify the closure.
Station employees filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court the same day, claiming that the executive director violated the bylaws when he “seized control of the station in the middle of the night, padlocked the doors, and took the WBAI programming off the air,” the suit alleged.
Since ♉then, WBAI and Pacifica have been waging a bitter ꩲlegal battle that has gone to an appellate court, then to a federal court and finally back to state Supreme court.
Crane’s decision specifically hinged on two Pacifica board votes. One was taken on Oct. 12 upholding the closure, but four board members were barred from voting due to an alleged conflict of interest.
In a separate, Oct. 20 vote, the board annulled the decision to shutter WBAཧI.
Crane upheld the latter vote and said that the earlier one was invalid because three of the four blocked members didn’t actually have a conflict of interest. Crane said she was “disturbed” by those members being “disenfranchised.”
“There simply was no conflict to prevent non-staff directors from voting,” Crane said, adding the Oct. 12 vote “was conducted in violation of the bylaws. Therefore that vote must be set aside.”
The judge did not specify when the station must go back on the air, but Arthur Schwartz, a lawyer for the employees, said the executive director 🌺told employees the🐻 station would go live at midnight.
“My hope is that they [Pacifica] comply. The station is ready to go, and all they have to do is switch the feed back for the studio at the antenna at 4 Times Square. There is a crew ready to go tonight if it happens then,” Schwartz said.
Mimi Rosenberg, a WBAI host and producer, told The Post after, “I’m extremely happy that this important, precious, local, community broadcast venue will go back on the air.”
B﷽ut another station producer, Linda Perry, was more reticent about the outcome.
“This has been an extremely grueling experience for the management and staff,” Perry said. “I will believe that we are back on the air when the switch is pulled.”
Later Wednesday, , “.@WBAI will be back on the air with local control at midnight tonight following Judge Melissa Crane’s order. Come on back!”
A l𝓀awyer for Pacifica, Kara Steger, said that the company plans to appeal the ruling.