High-stakes fundraising appeal for Long Island's WLIU

Peconic Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that mounted a successful bid to purchase WLIU from Long Island University last fall, is struggling to meet its payments. The New York Daily News reports that the new licensee must raise $500,000 by the end of August. If deep-pocketed donors don't step forward soon, the station will drop all local programming, PPB President Wally Smith tells the Daily News. Under a sales contract announced in October 2009, PPB bought WLIU for $2.425 million in cash and in-kind services and agreed to absorb the cost of moving its studio and transmitter.