Broadcasters Put Out Holiday Call For Funding Colleagues in Need

Broadcasters Foundation's Guardian Fund seeking donations

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 12/18/2009 3:23:09 PM

Avoiding the equivalent of calling at dinner time or interrupting American Idol for a pledge drive, broadcasters have issued what they call their "only petition and final pleading" for funds to help out their colleagues in need.

In a letter being circulated Friday, Phil Lombardo and Stu Olds, Broadcasters Foundation chair and vice chair, respectively, asked those colleagues to help broadcasters who have "run afoul of the turbulent cyclical winds of today's economic climate."

The Foundation's Guardian Fund has dispensed more than $3 million over the years to broadcasters in financial straights, according to the pair, including those with catastrophic illness and victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Ike and the California wildfires.

"It is a very worthy cause," said National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton. "NAB has always been a very strong supporter of the Foundation. We believe that folks who have been successful in the business have an obligation to help those who might have fallen on hard times."

Donations can be made out and sent to: The Broadcasters Foundation of America Guardian Fund, 125 W. 55th St., 20th Fl. New York, NY, 10019.