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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The founder of "Marketplace" says public radio is beholden to no one and more popular than ever.
Jul 2, 2001 | I am sick to death of prophets of doom proclaiming that public radio (or, as Lorenzo Milam dismisses it, "National Private Radio") has lost its soul.
This is the same kind of elitist baloney I have heard for years, and I feel sorry for the glass-half-empty crowd that has taken on the supposed spiritual demise of public radio.
The truth is that public radio is alive and very well, serving more than 22 million Americans every week, with programming ranging from alternative rock to bluegrass, from classical to Latin, from news and talk to world music.
Public radio programs "All Things Considered," "Morning Edition," "A Prairie Home Companion," "Car Talk," "Fresh Air" and "Marketplace" have become household words. Public radio's audience growth rate has been phenomenal, nearly doubling in the past decade. In the era of segmented and targeted audiences, there isn't a newspaper, magazine or broadcaster around that wouldn't kill to have the size and quality of the public radio audience. Indeed, public radio's only sin in the eyes of those who embrace the "failure is good for the soul" school of thought seems to be its success!
So, what's the problem? Well, it seems to stem from public radio's need to pay its bills. When the Carnegie Commission "invented" public broadcasting in the mid-1960s, it created a wonderful gift to the American people, but with one nearly fatal flaw: no mechanism to pay for this gift.
Federal financing, voted by Congress, has been unstable and subject to political battles. According to one report, annual federal funding for public broadcasting in the U.S. amounts to $1.18 per American -- compared with $31 in Canada and $38 in Japan. Given the politics of federal funding, thankfully it has represented a smaller and smaller part of station budgets, most of which consist of voluntary subscriptions by listeners. But still, fewer than 1 in 10 listeners actually subscribes. So this leaves a gap, and we still have to pay the bills for lights, transmitter power and staff.
It was actually in the 1980s when then President Reagan told us and other nonprofits to get out there and earn our own way. So we did. By and large, we sought support from foundations and corporations that wanted to demonstrate their public-spiritedness to our influential listeners. Most public broadcasters have been absolutely scrupulous about whom they accept money from, and very limited and prudent in what they say about them on the air. Assertions such as Lorenzo Milam's that we "don't mess with sponsors" or that we have turned public radio over to people who "have a distaste for controversy and challenge and complicated issues" simply don't hold water and do not coincide with reality.
At "Marketplace," we insist on continuing to cover our major underwriter, General Electric, as we do any other major American corporation. The only difference is that every time we cover a story about GE, we feel compelled to go the extra mile and remind listeners that GE is a funder. We don't tell people to run out and buy toasters or refrigerators. We don't mention prices of products on the air. We don't broadcast false or unprovable, undocumented assertions. We do comply with FCC and industry standards. We don't think anyone in our audience, the best-educated one in the entire country, is confused about our underwriters and their brief messages.
