Several reasons why to defund public broadcasting

[PTBoardOp94]

How do you feel about Indiana Public Radio, operated out of Ball State University? Ball State is a public university, and IPR's budget is made up of pledge dollars, underwriting donations, CPB grants, and funding from the university (a mix of tax dollars and tuition dollars). IPR is operated by a mixture of professional staff and Ball State communications students.

http://www.bsu.edu/ipr/Default.htm

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

How do you feel about Indiana Public Radio, operated out of Ball State University? Ball State is a public university, and IPR's budget is made up of pledge dollars, underwriting donations, CPB grants, and funding from the university (a mix of tax dollars and tuition dollars). IPR is operated by a mixture of professional staff and Ball State communications students.

This same funding debate is taking place in multiple threads on Radio-Info at this time. I highlighted one phrase in your post above... not to take issue with YOU but with some other folks who are grabbing the low-hanging fruit of information and running with it.

What percentage of the BSU operating budget comes from TAX DOLLARS? There are a number of prominent state universities that get no more than 8 to 10% of their operating money from the state funding. A few I am told get ZERO state money. (Yes, you will find state money via grants for specialized research, but not operating funds that might be routed into a broadcast operation.

The little state university near me which is at a stage of development comparable to where Ball State was in maybe 1970 gets 45 to 48% of it operating money from the state. This year this little university is building a new $16 million dollar academic building with ZERO tax funds. All the money is from corporate and alumni donors. You would have to take university and college operated stations one by one and check to see how much state money goes into that school, and then further dig into the budget to see if corporate and alumni donors may have designated some funding for the broadcast operations.

It is NOT a simple world that we are discussing.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

In fiscal 2010, Ball State received $146 million from the State of Indiana, in addition to $37 million Federal dollars. Total university revenue was about $418 million.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

In fiscal 2010, Ball State received $146 million from the State of Indiana, in addition to $37 million Federal dollars. Total university revenue was about $418 million.

I'm not picking a fight with you. Thanks for the numbers. But, so that everyone can learn how to evaluate these types of numbers.... Was that $146 million Total... including operating expenses, capital funds for new building, grants for running special research projects, or was that whole $146 just for operating expense alone?

To further get "the big picture"... how is the $418 million total "revenue" broken out? For instance, the little college I am referring to here in Georgia would not include student rent for on-campus housing as pare of their revenue. A separate foundation owns those buildings and runs them. And a combination of rent income and special private gifts pays for the construction and operation of those buildings.

To compare one university tol another, you have to make sure you are doing and apples-to-apples comparison.

Comparing the typical on-campus college licensed NCE station and it's budget to the budget of a somewhat typical NPR affiliated station with no university connection is also very hard to do. One has the cost of the fund-raising mechanism along with the costs of acquiring programming from NPR and the other vendors. Some college owned stations may have a fully professional staff with the cost of competitive employee benefits, while another college owned station may fill as many hours as possible with student originated programming because they consider that as an educational activity for the student with listeners treated a little bit like "laboratory mice" or they an focus on programming that is truly devoured and appreciated by the student body.