Any NPR member stations ready to jump ship?

[MattParker]

PBS' Los Angeles member station has announced it is dropping out of the public television network at the end of the year. The stated reason is PBS' high program fees.

NPR member stations sometimes complain about the high or ever-increasing fees they are charged for NPR programs. Might some of them decide they can do without NPR? Lower cost alternative programs are available from PRI (including BBC "programmes") and APM. Some alternative programs are directly competitive (The Takeaway v. Morning Edition). Yes, some listeners might not be happy but the desire to save money can be powerful. KCET's action has to have some public radio station managers thinking.

Most likely to secede are public stations doing the most local programming (and distributing their own shows to other stations). These would include:

Minnesota Public Radio (which owns American Public Media)
KPCC, Los Angeles (owned by Minnesota Public Radio)
WNYC, WNYC-FM and WQXR with heavy schedules of local programs and programs produced for national distribution.
WHYY-FM
WAMU
WBUR

In addition to WNYC, other stations which are partners in PRI include WBEZ, Chicago and WGBH, Boston.

These stations all operate in markets with multiple public radio stations, so another station in the market could well pick up any NPR programs these stations drop. The biggest hit would come if these stations switched their own national shows (such as WHYY's Fresh Air, WAMU's Diane Rhem, WBUR's On Point and Car Talk) from distribution by NPR to distribution by PRI or APM. This would cut NPR out completely.

 

[Talk_Dude]

The public stations I'm familiar with pick and choose the shows they carry from all of the public radio content providers.

 

[aaronread]

I would expect that, if anything, it'd be the SMALLER stations...not the big ones...that would drop NPR affiliation to save money. Most of the big stations you mention are (AFAIK) doing well financially, and remember that most of them are producing shows that are distributed by NPR and thus they are very unlikely to sever that relationship. (WBUR and On Point, Only a Game...WHYY and Fresh Air...WAMU and Diane Rehm, etc)

Worth noting, a lot of the alternative programming you mention is not necessarily all that much cheaper than the corresponding NPR shows; depends a lot on your market and who else is an affiliate in said market. That said, it IS technically possible these days to drop NPR affiliation and still have a full slate of quality programming. You'd have to run something like:

The Takeaway
To the Point
Democracy Now
Q
Here & Now
The Story
The World
Marketplace
Free Speech Radio News
Plus a healthy leavening of the BBC World Service here and there, and on overnights.

...and probably a local call-in talk show or something like that; that's one thing neither PRI nor APM have really been able to come up with; an alternative to the stranglehold that Diane Rehm and OnPoint have on the 10am-12n block. If you want to add in music, you have options with Classical24, Echoes, various Jazz shows, etc etc etc. Plus whatever you want to air yourself. Personally I'd recommend a solid Triple-A offering; that seems to be the popular option for pubradio audiences.

FWIW, I believe WMOT in Murfeesboro/Nashville is just a PRI affiliate; no NPR or APM programming. They also air a lot of jazz, though. Off the top of my head, I don't know any other "public radio" stations that air no NPR programming whatsoever.

 

[w9wi]

FWIW, I believe WMOT in Murfeesboro/Nashville is just a PRI affiliate; no NPR or APM programming. They also air a lot of jazz, though. Off the top of my head, I don't know any other "public radio" stations that air no NPR programming whatsoever.

To my knowledge you're right, about WMOT. They're pretty new to running any talk programming at all though. Until a few months ago, they were essentially all jazz, except for Middle Tennessee State University sports. They ran hourly newscasts from one of the commercial nets (sans spots), AP Radio I think.

Most of the programming on Wisconsin Public Radio's "Ideas" network is generated within the state. They do run NPR News and a bit of other NPR programming. Their "News & Classical Music" network would probably have a harder time living without NPR though. (and I don't think either network would consider trying it)

 

[uncamark]

FWIW, I believe WMOT in Murfeesboro/Nashville is just a PRI affiliate; no NPR or APM programming. They also air a lot of jazz, though. Off the top of my head, I don't know any other "public radio" stations that air no NPR programming whatsoever.

WDCB in suburban Chicago is not an NPR member. They're primarily a music station, mostly jazz with some folk and other specialty programs and the long-running (longer than the so-called "Golden Age of Radio") OTR show "Those Were the Days" and they run AP Radio newscasts. The only frontline public radio show they carry is "Marketplace Morning Report" (which WBEZ now inserts at :51 on "Morning Edition"). They do run "Mountain Stage" and "American Routes" from contracts with PRI before the shows moved to NPR.

It seems to me that KCSM out in southern California is not an NPR member station, but in their recent changes to automated AAA, I don't know if they carry any PRI or APM programming in a crowded market for public radio stations.

 

[TheBigA]

FWIW, I believe WMOT in Murfeesboro/Nashville is just a PRI affiliate; no NPR or APM programming.

I remember reading they dropped it several years ago. There were funding issues there.

Keep in mind that NPR membership is a two-way street. NPR has membership criteria. You must have a certain number of paid full time employees, you must be on the air at least 18 hours a day, you must achieve a certain size audience (I forget the minimums), and a certain percentage of your budget must come from listeners (again, I can't recall the percentage). There are a lot of stations that don't meet these criteria. There is an associate member status for those who only partially fulfill membership.

But you can be a public station and not be a member of NPR.

 

[aaronread]

I should clarify...I was talking about stations that air at least some news/talk. There are undoubtedly several public radio stations out there that are all-classical or all-jazz or some other music format and don't carry any NPR content. I think both WCNY and WRTI fit that bill, as do KEXP and "The Current" in Minnesota. No doubt many others.

I know you are correct about the minimum staffing rules and minimum-time rules (it's actually 24/7, excepting AM daytimer stations) to be an NPR member station. There are a handful of exceptions, called "auxiliary member" stations, that NPR used to accept as members in very rural areas that couldn't support a station as a full member. NPR stopped accepting new members under those criteria some 15 years ago, though, and grandfathered in the rest. Until recently WEOS was one, and I think there's barely a half-dozen others across the USA. But I think the funding and audience criteria are from CPB, not NPR.

 

[Ai4i]

XMPR manages a complete lineup of APM, PRI, BBC(news), a bunch of WNYC stuff, and their own Bob Edwards show, so it can be done. As was mentioned earlier, Pacific also produces content.