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MPB to eliminate NPR and PBS programming

Pacmannion

Pacmannion

She said that by July 1, MPB plans to eliminate programming from PBS, NPR, the Create television channel, the PBS Kids television channel, PBS Kids app and the streaming service Passport.

MPB will still air emergency weather alerts and local programming like “The Gestalt Gardener” on the radio and “Mississippi Roads” on TV, and it will continue to produce all local news, including “Mississippi Edition,” Neel said.

mississippitoday.org

How Mississippi Public Broadcasting is navigating budget cuts - Mississippi Today

By next July 1, Mississippi Public Broadcasting plans to eliminate programming from PBS, NPR, the Create television channel, the PBS Kids television channel, PBS Kids app and the streaming service Passport.
mississippitoday.org mississippitoday.org
 
This could be very interesting...first of all, how would MPB Television fill the void? I expect them to reduce their broadcasting hours during the day due to the lack of programming. Perhaps there are some streaming-exclusive educational programs they could air instead during the day with state/local funding. Or old repeats of Tomes & Talismans and Between the Lions, both of which were produced by MPB (the latter was with WGBH, too). I think the ship has sailed, but MPB could also become a clearing house for instructional programming, targeting public schools in the state, especially in the higher-poverty areas like the Delta.
The rest of the broadcast day may just resemble a statewide version of those cable "public access" channels. Probably with some Mississippi legislature coverage and hearings mixed in. They might be able to air some repeats of family-friendly shows, much like what KBYU used to do when they were a secondary PBS station for Utah.

I assume PRX and APM programming would replace many current radio programs, also Classical 24, and PubJazz (Scott Hanley's syndicated service).
 
crainbebo said:
The rest of the broadcast day may just resemble a statewide version of those cable "public access" channels.
Click to expand...

You may remember this. Many years ago, KCET Los Angeles, one of the primo PBS affiliates, decided to drop PBS and go all indie. It proved to be devastating to its funding base. I don't think they ever recovered.

KCET drops PBS, risks viewer loyalty to avoid $6.8M yearly dues

KCET, one of the largest public television stations in the nation, officially announced its decision to cease broadcasting PBS programming.
laist.com laist.com

My take is that NPR will be open to negotiating member fees in order to retain affiliates. Unless the issue isn't fees, but politics.
 
Pacmannion said:
MPB will still air emergency weather alerts and local programming like “The Gestalt Gardener” on the radio and “Mississippi Roads” on TV, and it will continue to produce all local news, including “Mississippi Edition,” Neel said.
Click to expand...
Remember, emergency alerts... the ones that come with the alert tone... don't come from any form of public radio. They come from various government local, state and national entities that can activate EAS alerts and messages.
 
The issue is program providers charge stations. Classical 24 charges sations as do the others. You are going to pay somebody even if you do it yourself.
 
I'm perplexed too about how they plan to fill the hours, at least on the TV side. I'm imagining something like my city's cable access channel, which is an endless loop of city meetings, slides with upcoming city events, and the occasional tourism video. I don't know how you solicit donations with that.
 
b-turner said:
The issue is program providers charge stations. Classical 24 charges sations as do the others.
Click to expand...
You're assuming the problem is money. A 15% budget cut doesn't seem like it should imply cutting 90% of programming.
The article doesn't explicitly say it, but this sounds more like a decision made under political pressure from the Mississippi state government, who controls the purse strings at MPB.
 
TheBigA said:
You may remember this. Many years ago, KCET Los Angeles, one of the primo PBS affiliates, decided to drop PBS and go all indie. It proved to be devastating to its funding base. I don't think they ever recovered.

KCET drops PBS, risks viewer loyalty to avoid $6.8M yearly dues

KCET, one of the largest public television stations in the nation, officially announced its decision to cease broadcasting PBS programming.
laist.com laist.com
Click to expand...
Not only was it self-destructive for KCET, they wound up as a junior sister station to KOCE, sold off their spectrum and now channel share with KLCS, and sold off their studio building to the Scientologists.
 
Perhaps they should scrap it all and go Misissippi Blues.

One thing public radio should do is selling online (it's not regulated by the FCC). Perhaps a business directory, a banner ad or two. It sure won't wipe out the loss in funding but anything helps.
 
In the various threads about this cut of federal funding, it seems that some people think public broadcasting lives on the government dole. That's pretty much the case in Mississippi, except it's not as much the federal government, as it is the state:

For the fiscal year that began last month, Mississippi lawmakers put $8.3 million of state money into public broadcasting, listed in budget documents as the Educational Television Authority.
Click to expand...

So if the state legislature says you drop NPR and PBS, that's what you do. A similar thing happened in South Carolina. In fact, this entire thing could have been handled at the state level. Georgia and Louisiana have state systems just like Mississippi. Tell them to drop NPR and PBS. Why was there this need to defund everybody? It makes no sense unless you're a big government bureaucracy and see everything as one size fits all. Public broadcasting doesn't work that way.

One more thing: Mississippi Public Broadcasting doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, so we don't really know if anyone watches or listens.
 
TheBigA said:
In the various threads about this cut of federal funding, it seems that some people think public broadcasting lives on the government dole. That's pretty much the case in Mississippi, except it's not as much the federal government, as it is the state:



So if the state legislature says you drop NPR and PBS, that's what you do. A similar thing happened in South Carolina. In fact, this entire thing could have been handled at the state level. Georgia and Louisiana have state systems just like Mississippi. Tell them to drop NPR and PBS. Why was there this need to defund everybody? It makes no sense unless you're a big government bureaucracy and see everything as one size fits all. Public broadcasting doesn't work that way.

One more thing: Mississippi Public Broadcasting doesn't subscribe to Nielsen, so we don't really know if anyone watches or listens.
Click to expand...
The stations carrying NPR programming in neighboring Arkansas (Little Rock) and Alabama (Birmingham) ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, in the latest Nielsens, with shares in the mid/low 2's. I'd expect Mississippi Public Radio to be putting up similar numbers. Someone is listening.
 
CTListener said:
The stations carrying NPR programming in neighboring Arkansas (Little Rock) and Alabama (Birmingham) ranked 12th and 13th, respectively, in the latest Nielsens, with shares in the mid/low 2's. I'd expect Mississippi Public Radio to be putting up similar numbers. Someone is listening.
Click to expand...

The reason a lot of these state-owned stations ran NPR and PBS is because the programming attracted an audience and subscribers. The question is will shows that only promote Mississippi attract the same number. I guess it doesn't matter, since the state is basically paying the bill.
 
davideduardo said:
Remember, emergency alerts... the ones that come with the alert tone... don't come from any form of public radio. They come from various government local, state and national entities that can activate EAS alerts and messages.
Click to expand...
I remember emergency alerts. Weren't there a few just last week (in Alaska and Hawaii and the West Coast states), tsunami warnings after that 8.8 EQ in far eastern Russia? Why doesn't Mississippi "play the oldies", a format of all old EAS and EBS warnings? Instead of the duck farts (which would be illegal to re-air anyway), they can run updated Drake-style liners: "On this day in 1964..." (followed by the EBS of the big Anchorage 9.0 quake). "Remembering 1991..." (followed by the EBS's of Hurricane Andrew). "Here's a memory from Katrina..." "Good times, great tornados..." There have to be thousands of them out there from disasters of all kinds.

They're going to need big chunks of free programming to fill their hole. I propose a Top 1000 EBS/EAS Oldies station, all of which will be in the public domain. Use bumper music from 1929 and earlier, since that's now in the public domain. No ASCAP or BMI royalties, and the music is as modern as the thinking in the Mississippi State government.

(Need I say it? /sarcasm off)
 


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