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Eagan and Braude land at WGBH radio

E&B may be appearing with Michael Graham this next hour (1-2 pm ) on 830, 1120, 1390 and 970. He was saying he hoped they'd land back on _commercial_ radio instead of "WEBT"--the station with a huge billboard saying 'ha ha this is your tax money being spent' etc
 
Dighton Rockhead said:
SixtiesGuy said:
Another example of public radio's idea of providing balanced, non-biased discourse. A local show hosted by a couple of liberal Democrats followed by another local show hosted by a liberal Democrat... both sharing a schedule that includes other shows hosted by, and produced for, liberal Democrats. There's always one side to every story on WGBH.
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I don't think the argument holds up. These are programs of OPINION. It's not the same as listening or watching a straight-ahead newscast.

Are J & M doing a bit of preaching to the choir on WGBH?....Yeah!. BUT.....the same holds true for folks like Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and the like.
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Do J&M say they are liberal? Does anybody say they're liberal on NPR or public broadcasting? Rush et. al tell you they are right wing, and Schultz et.al. tell you they are from the left. That is more honest IMHO.
 
I'm not sure why the talk show hosts have to tell the audience what "label" they identify with most. I'm assuming the WGBH audience is intelligent enough to take Eagan and Braude's opinions and views as stated, without needing the political spectrum disclaimer.
 
As a station that is supposed to be be public, relying on taxpayer money (however limited) and receiving favored status from the FCC (how many other broadcasters get to run at 100kw these days?).
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"Public radio" is a format, not a legal requirement. Nowhere on the FCC regulations does it say "public radio".

Anyone who whines about taxpayer dollars going to public radio doesn't know what they're talking about. Far, far, FAR more taxpayer dollars are subsidizing commercial media through the tax deduction for advertising.

WGBH does not receive any favored station from the FCC. They're grandfathered in because they're that old. So is WHOM with 50,000 watts from nearly TEN TIMES the reference height. There's also KPFK in LA (110kW @ 863m HAAT), KVYB in Santa Barbara (105kW @ 905m HAAT...biggest in the US, I think), and several other grandfathered "Super B's" that have ERP/HAAT combinations waaaaay above the reference (50kW @ 150m HAAT), mostly because they built mountaintop facilities before the FCC created the current FM Class system in 1965, IIRC.
 
people everywhere started falling asleep as of noon yesterday while there radios were tuned to 89.7!!
 
>>people everywhere started falling asleep as of noon yesterday while there radios were tuned to 89.7!!

RadioDiscussions needs a "like" button ::)
 
I listened for a couple of minutes yesterday while they were interviewing Stephen Lynch. I agree, it was extremely boring. I don't think NPR is the right outlet for E&B. They are going to sorely miss the presence of Hank Morse adding his humorous takes on events.
 
I listened yesterday and today and thought the program was informative and entertaining. The interview with the Rev. Eugene Rivers( who took Ed Markey to task for his recent comments about the Citizens United) during which Ed Markey called in unannounced made for good radio.

It is nice to listen to them without the constant interruptions for traffic, commercials and promos. If you miss them in the afternoon, the show is re-racked ( that is a term they use a lot around GBH) and re airs evenings from 9p-11p. That makes for a nice alternative to the nut job on RKO and Dan Rea.
 
aaronread said:
Anyone who whines about taxpayer dollars going to public radio doesn't know what they're talking about. Far, far, FAR more taxpayer dollars are subsidizing commercial media through the tax deduction for advertising.
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What does that mean?
 
The IRS allows businesses to take deductions for advertising. So every dollar that a business spends on commercial radio is a dollar they've reduced their taxable income. The resulting loss of taxes in the aggregate dollar amount is a whole HELL of a lot bigger than what funding CPB gets.

It's a conveniently-overlooked case of corporate welfare, to not put too fine a point on it, that a lot of conservatives...especially radio conservatives...like to overlook when they attack the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
 
jstone said:
I listened for a couple of minutes yesterday while they were interviewing Stephen Lynch. I agree, it was extremely boring.
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O&A's interviews with Stephen Lynch are far more entertaining. :D
 
aaronread said:
The IRS allows businesses to take deductions for advertising. So every dollar that a business spends on commercial radio is a dollar they've reduced their taxable income. The resulting loss of taxes in the aggregate dollar amount is a whole HELL of a lot bigger than what funding CPB gets.

It's a conveniently-overlooked case of corporate welfare, to not put too fine a point on it, that a lot of conservatives...especially radio conservatives...like to overlook when they attack the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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If true, why isn't WCRB/WGBH Classical advertising and raking in all that corporate welfare? Why haven't all the NPR talk stations relocated above 92.1 to do the same?
 
NPR is a Frankenstein monster threatening the long term viability of local public radio. Why listen to local radio when you can get the same content in an NPR podcast?

It's time for the local stations to be given control over their destinies. Kill NPR now.
 
aaronread said:
The IRS allows businesses to take deductions for advertising. So every dollar that a business spends on commercial radio is a dollar they've reduced their taxable income. The resulting loss of taxes in the aggregate dollar amount is a whole HELL of a lot bigger than what funding CPB gets.

It's a conveniently-overlooked case of corporate welfare, to not put too fine a point on it, that a lot of conservatives...especially radio conservatives...like to overlook when they attack the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
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That's silly. Those are not some tax break handed out as a tax subsidy; it's how business profits are calculated. Businesses don't pay taxes on the cost of doing business, just their profit. They don't pay taxes on employees' salaries, the cost of their product, R&D, the paper in the printer. Are all those things products of corporate welfare? It's how taxes are calculated.

Advertising is no more a subsidized than your salary is.
 
Well, salaries ARE taxed, actually. ::) It's called the payroll tax, and yes it affects companies as much as employees; that's where funding for unemployment insurance comes from, after all.

Also, it's not just companies. Individuals can deduct advertising costs, too.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch11.html#en_US_2011_publink1000209177

For that matter, explain to me why taxing only on profit and not on revenue is any different than a tax subsidy? Wouldn't it be nice if it worked that way for individuals? It also doesn't change the fact that the theoretically taxable revenue spent on advertising would dwarf the Congressional appropriation for CPB.

If true, why isn't WCRB/WGBH Classical advertising and raking in all that corporate welfare? Why haven't all the NPR talk stations relocated above 92.1 to do the same?
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Well, first of all because it's not the STATION getting the welfare. It's the companies doing the advertising. Any NCE that magically turned for-profit and had a non-reserved-band (aka "Commercial radio") license would be competing for the same ad dollars that all the existing commercial radio stations would.

Second, by not being a non-commercial licensee, donations to the station would no longer be tax-deductible, removing a major driver of donations to the station.

Third, because you can't just magically move to the commercial band. It requires an allocation to be created (and said allocation has to be technically possible to fit in a given area) and then the license is awarded via auction. Let's pretend for a moment that WGBH could minor-change I.F. hop up 10.6MHz to 100.3MHz. They can't, but we'll pretend they can. Even though they're not in the reserved band (87.9 to 91.9MHz), they're still a non-commercial license. If they were to attempt to become commercial, they'd have to petition the FCC for a new allocation, surrender their existing license, wait for the auction to happen, attempt to outbid (yeah right!) the hordes of other entities that would kill for a new Class B in the middle of Boston, and then file a CP.
 
aaronread said:
Well, salaries ARE taxed, actually. ::) It's called the payroll tax, and yes it affects companies as much as employees; that's where funding for unemployment insurance comes from, after all.

Also, it's not just companies. Individuals can deduct advertising costs, too.
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/ch11.html#en_US_2011_publink1000209177

For that matter, explain to me why taxing only on profit and not on revenue is any different than a tax subsidy? Wouldn't it be nice if it worked that way for individuals? It also doesn't change the fact that the theoretically taxable revenue spent on advertising would dwarf the Congressional appropriation for CPB.
Click to expand...

Payroll taxes are separate from income taxes. And the issue is whether payroll is an expense just like advertising.
A taxpayer, a person or a company, can deduct business expenses. Of course.
Revenue is not taxed for a lot of reasons. It harms low margin businesses. Revenue does not reflect what a business actually earned like salary reflects what a person earned. If a business operated at a loss, it would still be liable for taxes? Businesses cannot operate like that when a loss or low profit in a single year would expose them to an unfulfillable tax obligation. Think of start ups or any company that decides to make large non-deprecialble investments. Finally, it wouldn't make much of a difference. If revenue was taxed instead of profit, the tax rates would be lower to reflect the increased funds being taxed.
A radio advertiser would have the same amount of money to spend on advertising.

Another thing to think of is money a company spends is usually money some other company earns, which it then spends on its costs. If you tax spending, you are creating double taxation of the both income and expenses. With double taxation the rates would be much lower. A radio advertiser would have the same amount of cash to spend on advertising.

And advertising is not "theoretically taxable revenue" in any meaningful sense. Well before radio advertising came along, businesses were taxed on income, and not revenue. The corporate income tax is not some ruse by the federal and state governments to subsidy business advertising on the radio as you originally implied.
 
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