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NPR axes religious programs

I'm not sure I see what the big problem is. Was anyone complaining about these few stations to NPR?
Surely, with any other network, viewers/listeners are capable of knowing what is a network show and what isn't. As long as those stations didn't try to claim that the "sectarian" programming was from or by NPR, what's the issue?
 
There goes a form of localism not to mention freedom being harmed. Another example of the attempts being made to erase religion from the public square. You want to talk about diversity. Well, these programs are examples of diversity in programming in action. The whole rule thing is an anti-freedom of speech thing. What's next, on issues oriented programs, you can only have guests who are sanctioned by, or agree with the positions taken by the national Network heads?
???
 
When I read the thread subject, my instinctive reaction was that this was a fake story that only has legs because it feeds into the perception that NPR and people that support it are anti-religion. And honestly, I wouldn't put it past the local station management to use that common assumption to blow smoke away from a potentially uncomfortable local decision. "Sorry ... we're not canceling your religious show because we have any issue with it -- you know, its the 'corporate office' that decided, so it's out of our hands". That's one of the oldest management tricks in the book.

Think about this -- NPR is seriously hurting for money right now. That's no secret at all. And they don't own any of these affiliates, which happen to pay them good money to carry NPR programming. Do any of you honestly think they're going to anger and possibly lose these paying affiliates with a bone-headed policy like this? Makes absolutely, positively no sense whatsoever.

Look around at the program guides for local NPR affiliates. You'll see every kind of program imaginable, including religious shows. The locals don't give up the right to air what they want just because they agree to pay NPR to be an affiliate and thus carry their programming.
 
As someone who spent time in the system, I can tell you from my experience that the power is at the stations, not in DC. The stations have the money, and NPR needs it. So Walt is exactly correct.
 
TheBigA said:
As someone who spent time in the system, I can tell you from my experience that the power is at the stations, not in DC. The stations have the money, and NPR needs it. So Walt is exactly correct.
Click to expand...

Even though this is a radio board, you know when NBC had to pretty much beg their local affiliate in Boston to carry the new Jay Leno TV show (and mind you, he's a hometown boy) that the bargaining positions are not what they used to be when the nationals are selling programming.

Too many alternatives, too little cash.
 
***Think about this -- NPR is seriously hurting for money right now. That's no secret at all. And they don't own any of these affiliates, which happen to pay them good money to carry NPR programming. Do any of you honestly think they're going to anger and possibly lose these paying affiliates with a bone-headed policy like this? Makes absolutely, positively no sense whatsoever.***

Walt79 hit the nail on the head. The power arrows in public radio point from local to NPR.

Local affiliate stations pay dearly for the NPR programs they carry, and the amounts are determined by the "potential" audience in your market -- not the "actual" audience as measured by whatever measuring system we're using this week.

My station -- KUHF FM in Houston -- pays more than a million a year for all the NPR programs we carry, and about two thirds of that is for Morning Edition and All Things Considered. AND -- as a classical music station, we also carry religiously oriented music programs.

WE raise 92 percent of our six and a half million dollar annual budget. Eight percent comes from CPB.

There is no way NPR could tell us -- or even suggest -- what we can or should carry. That decision is just not theirs to make. We don't work for them. They work for us.

This sounds like an unpopular local decision someone tried to explain by blaming it on the network, and one of those ultra-sensitive conservative websites picking it up, pointing to it as just one more example of taking religion off the air.

Now having said all that, I do agree that the Christian religion is under attack in this country. More than ever before. I never thought I would live long enough to see as much open antagonism and attacks on religious beliefs as we now see every day. But the example we're talking about here isn't one of them.
 
There's also the matter of what is considered religious programming. For instance, I would not consider the fairly recent PBS series on the history of Jews in America to be religious programming, but I'm sure some people would. I hope this kind of programming is not prohibited by the new rule. I want their to be programming about religion and it's impact on society, but I would agree that sectarian preaching does not belong on public radio or TV.
 
Re: NPR Axes Religious Programs

When Madelyn Murray O'Hare was alive, thousands of emails circulated claiming she wanted to stop religious programming, though it wasn't true. Along comes NPR very happy to put Madelyn's supposed plan into effect.

As for NPR being "opposed to rigidly to any single political or religious point of view", when was the last time you heard a regularly scheduled program hosted by a Conservative? NPR, PBS, and PRI lean Left, despite what they proclaim to the contrary.
 
In NPR's defense though, I've heard many good interviews that were not filled with loaded questions (you know the you stopped beating your wife when questions), sarcasim, or snide remarks like you'd hear on left leaning MSNBC and CNN to conservative guests or like you'd heard on right leaning Fox to liberal guests. Sure NPR leans left politically, but in their reporting of the actual news, both NPR and PBS (Jim Leher News Hour) seem to do a better job than the others in simply reporting the news with as little bias as possible. Now commentary is different and they do lean left then, but still without rancour and vile that seems to be a staple of commerical talk radio and cable TV.
 
We would like to see greater diversity within the realm of religious radio.
Here is where some sort of fairness doctrine might come in handily.
Where one station in a market proclaims that God is the ruler of the universe, another should preach that power actually trickles upward.
Where one preaches that the Lord created the universe, another should present evidence that they were co-created.
Many say that God is the ruler of this universe, but what of all those theoretical other universes out there? Would they have parallel gods? And of these Gods, being gods as such, would they compare notes with each other, perhaps engage in recreational activities on their seventh days? Perhaps they might even have stronger work ethics and establish eight or nine day weeks.

We are strongly pro-religious but weakly pro-Christian monopoly.
Too many possibilities and too little diversity on the airwaves.
 
All you'd have to do is find financial backing and start your own religious radio station broadcasting your religious views (which is what Harold Camping did back in, I believe it was, 1958 when he started Family Radio - that network broadcasts Camping's interpretation of Christianity). A fairness doctrine for religious radio wouldn't work, as even within the Christian realm of religious thought, you have the basic bedrock beliefs of Christianity, but then there are the secondary interpretations that create denominations (originally Catholic - the word actually means universal but with the capital C refers to the original universal Christian church, then the Protestant Reformation, mid 1500's, creating Lutheranism. Later Methodists, Baptists, etc, etc).

Religion, is like political talk in one sense that people have strong views on both, but in a different sense, politics is the engine that runs our secular government, whereas religious beliefs are personal for each person and our government has wisely stayed out of having state religions, etc.

In some radio markets, you probably do find "Jewish religious stations and Muslim religious stations, and probably in Utah you'd find Mormon religious stations. So there is nothing, other than money, from starting a religious radio station in your market (assuming a frequency is available).

What you might consider doing instead though, as it might be cheaper and easier to do, is to start your own religious radio show and buy time on "secular stations" on Sunday mornings (when most stations usually will sell air time to religious groups) as "The Lutheran Hour" has done since 1930 and today is on over 900+ US radio stations and Billy Graham has done since 1950 and also is on many radio stations. Both reach millions each week with their specific brand of Christian thought, on secular radio.
 
I've done a huge amount of study of ancient and medieval Christianity, and all the different heresies the Church worked so hard to stamp out over the centuries.

The Church called them heresies. Today, we would just call them "different viewpoints," or "differing interpretations of scripture."

The most interesting thing I learned about all those old "differing interpretations" is that they're almost all alive and well today in the many and varied Protestant Christian denominations, and even in scattered outposts of the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches.

Call the roll. They're all out there somewhere.
 
I've done a huge amount of study of ancient and medieval Christianity, and all the different heresies the Church worked so hard to stamp out over the centuries.

The Church called them heresies. Today, we would just call them "different viewpoints," or "differing interpretations of scripture."

The most interesting thing I learned about all those old "differing interpretations" is that they're almost all alive and well today in the many and varied Protestant Christian denominations, and even in scattered outposts of the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches.

Call the roll. They're all out there somewhere.

St. Paul in 1 Corinthians tells us that we see through smoked colored glass, but will see clearly when the perfect comes. Churches are all run by humans. Even as followers of Christ, we still are sinners who have been saved or redeemed by God's grace and love. No one can earn salvation as it is a gift from God via Jesus Christ. Someday, we'll be in heaven in his presence and we'll see and understand clearly. Then we'll have all the answers.

Getting this back to a radio topic. My guess as to why NPR axed religious programming is those shows were Christian and statistics (polls) showed that most born again Christians are of a conservative bent (meaning they more often than not vote conservative or Republican, or as Independents leaning conservative), which doesn't line up with NPR's left leaning bent. My guess is a Muslim, Jewish, or Hindu show would be welcomed on NPR, but liberals generally are not open towards Christianity. There are liberal Christian denominations (United Methodist, ELCA Lutheran, Episcopol, Prepyterian- PCUSA), but those denominations have been losing numbers for the past 30 years where as the conservative denominations have been growing by leaps and bounds. So even though NPR does a pretty good job of presenting a balanced news report as I mentioned in an earlier post, their view point is decidedly liberal, pro Democrat, pro abortion for any reason including partial birth abortions, a very worldly elitist view, etc. My guess is ( it would be interesting to actually find out) that most if not all employees at NPR and their affiliate stations lean left politically and are not a member of any Christian church where being born again and where the Bible is taught as the inerrant word of God and is read as the literal word of God, as a key factor in faith (as in Assembly of God, Non-Denominational, Charismatic, Southern Baptist, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, etc) So airing any sort of Christian program, especially one that up lifts Christianity and Biblical teaching, probably rubs many of the NPR "faithful" the wrong way. As far more NPR contributors are liberals who are not religious at all or at least not conservative Christian religious as defined above, why upset the apple cart for a small group of odd ball Christians who might be listening to NPR.
 
Aside from the occasional story on the religious right and abortion rights, the influence on Jewish klezmer music on some odd new death metal subgenre and how Muslims in Mississippi celebrate Ramadan, I can't say I can even think of ANY programming on NPR stations where religion is even MENTIONED, let alone PROMOTED.....
 
Bongwaters got it I think. NPR does cover religion to a certain extent, but listening to discussions of Hunnukah or Ramadan or Christmas is a long shot from playing an hour of worship services or preaching. The bias that people are claiming, that NPR is somehow anti-Christian is just an opinion of another person. Mine is opposite. And that America is anti Christian? This is a foregone conclusion? I have never been unable to get a worship station on my radio dial and all of them have been conservative Christian. Sounds like Christian groups are more upset that no ones listening and looking for a convenient excuse (if only we had gotten on WKGB, the we would have changed their wicked liberal hearts!). I've never heard any dollar a holler ministers on any public radio stations for any religion.

As for all the liberal bias comments, I encourage people to listen to "marketplace" which often carries comments from conservative think tanks in their editorials. Morning edition does the same- not sure about All things considered. At times I have felt that NPR has overcompensated, constantly looking for the other side of the story by chasing after the Cato Institute's comment on one thing or another.
 
robbbc said:
The bias that people are claiming...is just an opinion of another person.
Click to expand...
Of course oppinions are subjective by deffinition.
Whenever anyone opines a news or editorial operation, they are only describing their perspective.

Here is mine: Cigarette commercials have never been outlawed, but stations must give equal time for anti-tobacco spots.
Likewise, broadcast stations which preach Christianity should present views which would counter the festering stench they push.
 
Nope. The religious broadcasters PAY for it. your idea will never happen.

Cigarettes cause cancer.

Festering stench???

You must be bored, again. Either that or you are a 12 year old kid.
 
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