Syndicators are by definition block program providers. We all know that each NPR affiliate mixes and matches the shows with local content or content from other providers.
And that is my point. It is not a format. It provides block programming.
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Musk Calls for NPR and PBS Defunding
- Thread starter sdwulfdawg
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Ahem. Please use a capital “W” if you capitalize every other group.🧐
I think NPR’s attempts to not sound so “boring” and hip it up have been put more towards their podcasts. Though I can’t stand the podcast “Jordan Jesse Go” and have no idea why Jesse Thorn needs his own NPR podcast, called “Bullseye”.
This is a hard subject to keep relevant to radio rather than veering totally political.
I must have hit my unpaid quota. Could not read. But funding is the "ratings" of public radio, so the topic is very interesting.Loyal NPR subscriber here with the tote bag to prove it.. All true NPR subscribers have a closet of tote bags.
Here is an article from the L.A. Times about 12 days ago, written by Steve Oney, who has a new book out, ‘’On Air ‘’ about the history of funding battles of CPB and NPR. These funding issues have been going on awhile. There does not appear to be a pay wall, so I am linking it below.
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Contributor: NPR faces a real threat in defunding fight that's coming
Over its 55-year history, defunding scares have come like clockwork at National Public Radio, timed to GOP power. Will 2025 be the end?www.latimes.com
There was a recent thread here about the largest market without an NPR affiliate being the Lower Río Grande Valley (Brownsville/McAllen/Harlingen). It was remarked that the area is over 90% Hispanic (although the percentage that are Spanish Dominant is well under 50%) and that, somehow, is why there is no such station. Nobody analyzed why Hispanics would not help fund an NPR affiliate, while other groups might.
I think I mentioned this on another thread ages ago that an acquaintance of mine used to wear a t-shirt that was printed in BIG letters: "I'm Mexican, not Hispanic!
"Hispanic" is really only a language origin, as "Hispanics" can be of any race even ethnicity. A friend of mine was born and raised in Buenos Aires. His grand parents happened to be Jews from Russia. He doesn't really like to label himself, but when it comes down to it he just says he's "Argentinian".
The media tends to label anyone with a Spanish surname as "Hispanic". Presumably it would be incorrect to call the President of México Hispanic because her name is Claudia Sheinbaum!
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So then you want variety within their programs? Have you ever actually listened? In one hour, they can go from a story about politics to a native American museum in Ohio to an exhibit about Anne Frank to a story about feral hogs (I'm not kidding) to some tips about home gardening.
Listen to this:
That was tonight's show. Enough variety for you?
This is why I say these politicians have never listened. They want everything to sound the same. That's not NPR.
The style manuals I have indicate that Black is capitalized but "white" is no. The others bear names of territories or regions that are traditionally capitalized.
I don't have the most recent AP manual, but the one that is from "the tens" shows "white" to be un-capitalized.
If anyone has access to a more recent style manual, it would be interesting to know if this has changed.
I have listened, but find little that appeals to my interests. Remember, I am culturally Hispanic and lived most of my life outside the U.S. so am more like an immigrant than a "native".
Like some I have talked to, I find the overall style... maybe "mood" is a better word... to not be appealing.
Sidebar: I have had some incredibly successful stations across a number of countries. I have always tried to focus on the mood of both the market and the audience as the core value of each format, nearly none of which have been the same formats in each location. It's a lot easier to appeal to the feel of a city than a whole country, so that is a challenge to NPR.
In fact, when I did stations in Ecuador, the equivalent of the "country" format for the coast was entirely different from that for the sierra. Even language usage was different, with the intimate "tu" being used by the jocks on the coast and the formal "usted" used on the sierra. Pacing, contest ´prizes, the playlist, were all slightly different and all within a country slightly smaller than Arizona where half the area was nearly unpopulated rain forest.
I am talking about style as much as variety.
I agree that the Politicians, particularly the lady from Georgia, are magnificently unqualified to discuss this. They are using personal tastes and, more so, prejudices, to evaluate all content.
Commercial stations do both music research and content research. I don't know if NPR does any research and would love to know about that subject.
Once again, it doesn't matter. There is no radio format that appeals to everyone. They are not required to appeal to everyone. The federal money isn't contingent on that. How else can I explain this?
Same thing. They have a style. That's their style, but other non-com program providers such as PRX and APM have basically copied their style and presentation. Right down to the interlude music between stories. So when all of their shows are played on a station, it flows like one continuous program. But if you don't like the style, you change the station. I don't see why I have to explain this to you. This is radio 101.
Correct. They don't have to like it. Just as I don't have to like them or their politics. We all live and let live. That's what the founding fathers intended. Because they came from a place where that wasn't the way it was. They then use their personal bias to prevent other people from listening.
They do lots of research and I have in the past posted links to it. They not only do their own research, but they commission research for their stations.
NPR never endorsed using that term, but hasn't explicitly banned people from using it on-air, either. Just like they don't stop and correct a Republican every time they use the term "Democrat party" as a subtle slur, despite pushback from their listeners to do so.
And many Latinos, including Cubans, consider themselves to be white, and can be just as racist against darker-skinned people -- including other Latinos -- as WASPs historically have been.
But, again, NPR is a program provide. It has no "format". But my point is that a federal government administered service of its kind should have something for everyone... within limits, of course. In fact, it would be appropriate to have more offerings than hours in the day and week, so that each local station could select its own best fits and combine them with material from other sources.
No, this is not Radio 101. I've been involved with block programmed stations that, for example, have large news blocks in breakfast and afternoon time periods, panels in other hours, telephone talk in others and sports in evenings. But even with the variety, there is consistency in filling the biggest listener needs. When I have done such stations, I knew that each show might drive away some listeners and attract others, so we had an ongoing need to bring listeners back for the things they liked.
But the "founding fathers" were mostly the descendants of people seeking religious freedom, as in the Pilgrims. Today, and for the last roughly 200 years, most immigrants have come for economic reasons. They fled the potato famine in Ireland in the earlier eighteen hundreds, the instability of nation states in Germany and Italy after our own Civil War, and from the newly socialist counties of Europe 75 years ago. And now, from the poverty, famine and unrest in Latin America as well as the lesser developed places in the rest of the world.
So what we have is a nation that began based on religious freedom but which has been for two centuries one built by the desire for upward mobility and security. That means that there is a fundamental difference between the foundation and the walls of the nation. That creates divisions based on wealth, race and culture. My point is that a national radio service... or, if you will, audio service, has to have as many facets as a well cut gemstone. I don't expect anyone to listen all day long, but I would want everyone to find something that is appealing enough to be appointment listening.
Unfortunately, we associate appointment listening with streams and podcasts. I don't know if "real time" over the air radio can deal with that today.
The things you have posted that I have noted or noticed seem to be with research companies not known for doing radio research. Please correct me if I have a wrong impression. But if that is the case, that is a major failing as there are companies like Larry Rosen's that understand both the medium and the ways of recruiting and interviewing listeners that are necessary to guide radio program creation.
BTW this phenomenon still exists to this day in a different form, in India. It's called the Caste system, supposedly illegal, but still practiced.
That is completely false. NPR programming is in NO WAY administered by the federal government. They have no role at all. In fact the specific reason why CPB exists is to provide a buffer between the government and the programming. There was a lot of discussion about this in congress when the system was being created. There is a chapter in the book "A Public Trust" about this. There were first amendment issues involved. For the same reason, there is a firewall between the government and VOA.
CPB follows federal guidelines in the administration and distribution of government funding. But that's where it ends. If you go through the list of all the grants they make, you will see something for everyone...within limits. That's what they do. The wrong people testified today.
Open Grants and RFPs | CPB
Click through all of the sub-groups under grants and you will find what you're looking for.
There is an entire private company that was founded by NPR's former director of research that provides public radio research for anyone who wants it. But they also commission studies from Larry Rosen, and they also utilize the Nielsen information.
If the firewall ever existed between the govt and the VOA, it certainly doesn't exist now as the "reason" it's being shut down, even though it was already transitioning from SW where it started many, many decades go to new/modern media, is because Mr. M says all it is: is left-wing lunatics talking to themselves. Funny, I grew up listening to the VOA and don't remember hearing anything that I would call bias in either direction. I was fascinated particularly be the newscasts in "Special English". It presented what was happening in plain simple English in a slow deliberate tone so that worldwide learners of the language could truly understant.
That's what Kari Lake was complaining about. She didn't like the firewall. She thinks the president should run VOA. That's how you get propaganda. So yes, she shut it all down, and it's all illegal. She doesn't have any right to shut it down. That's what the lawsuit is about.
Google “Should White be capitalized when referring to race” and the overwhelming number of answers that come up support doing so. The AP style guide appears to be a holdout, and the overall change in thinking on this seems to have occurred over the past decade. “White” is now considered a proper noun in this context, thus the capitalization.
While I haven't read that thread yet (I'll have to go and find it sometime), I think the problems in the Brownsville-McAllen-Harlingen area were two:
1) The stations providing the NPR programming there were owned by a Roman Catholic parish, and while the bishop who presided over the setting up of these stations was an NPR supporter, his successors weren't, especially after the church's sex scandals came to light.
2) There were, and are, very few, if any, unavailable radio frequencies in the area. All are either already allocated to existing U.S. stations or to existing Mexican stations, which, by statue, NPR cannot use.
I was hoping that with the attempted purchase of the Univision stations in the area by another group last year, KGBT-AM 1530 would be donated to Texas Public Radio for handling English public radio broadcasts in the area but I guess that was never going to be.
CPB funds many other things besides NPR. They fund the programming from PRX, American Public Media, local programming that is syndicated by NPR satellite services, and local programming that just airs locally. If you put together all of the programming CPB funds, you get that variety you're looking for. Each local station selects its own best fits from the multiplicity of programming services. NPR is just one of them. But the only one that has attracted the attention of the maga republican party.
Just for you, here's a CPB funded show for Latinos:
American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos
John Leguizamo travels off the beaten path of history, along with his celebrity friends, to unearth the Latino stories missing from American textbooks that are relevant today.
Here is the link to all of the programs CPB funds. A lot of them are TV:
Programs and Projects | CPB
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Robert Douglas
Banned
Congress will change.Yes, and the congress voted to continue funding it for the rest of the year. Enjoy!
CPB Statement on Congress’ Approval of Continued Funding for Public Media
WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 14, 2025) — Patricia Harrison, President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), issued the following statement today after the House and Senate approved a Continuing Resolution (CR) for Fiscal Year 2025, extending funding for public media. The...cpb.org
My bad. I should have said "financed" as part of their budget does come from the government. I know most of the funding is private, but my concern is that your and my tax dollars are helping in part.
But government money goes there. Thus, ever taxpayer is helping support it. Again, my mistake for attributing it to total government support.
Nielsen ratings are not "program research". They are a measure of the effectiveness of a station programming.
I have not seen an Edison study of NPR done for quite a while. I am cautious of any research done by a former staff member who is not known in the broader radio research field.
If you know more about the kind of research they have done, that would be an interesting subject.
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