• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Trump plans order to cut funding for NPR and PBS

Status
Not open for further replies.
Cite a reliable survey or source.

The U.S. does not have required voting. Many of the places I have lived get over 90% turnout because of that. And in all those places, elections are on a Sunday so that people have very limited work excuses to not vote (just police, emergency workers, etc. are "pardoned")

I'd wager that a majority of all voters have not heard of it. Remember, except for a few markets like DC and SF, the NPR station(s) average less than 5% of listening.

I don't listen, but know what it is. I don't use "appointment" radio, so NPR does not match my schedule. I used to listen to all-news radio in LA, but have always had subscriptions to the WSJ, The Economist, INFOBAE, the NYT, Reuters (paid one) and several others which I spend too much time reading. I also have personal / family requirements that have me subscribed to El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico and El Comercio in Quito (INFOBAE gives me Argentina along with the world and Latin America).
So you're trying to tell me Donald Trump is universally worshipped and adored based on his very narrow election win. There are some people who are finding out that "mass deportation" doesn't exempt the family your kid plays soccer with. Still, for the people who bothered to vote, it was a 50-50 election, Democrats won other races on the same ballots. I will be joining the No Kings Day protests which are happening even in red states.
 
Cite a reliable survey or source.

The U.S. does not have required voting. Many of the places I have lived get over 90% turnout because of that. And in all those places, elections are on a Sunday so that people have very limited work excuses to not vote (just police, emergency workers, etc. are "pardoned")

I'd wager that a majority of all voters have not heard of it. Remember, except for a few markets like DC and SF, the NPR station(s) average less than 5% of listening.

I don't listen, but know what it is. I don't use "appointment" radio, so NPR does not match my schedule. I used to listen to all-news radio in LA, but have always had subscriptions to the WSJ, The Economist, INFOBAE, the NYT, Reuters (paid one) and several others which I spend too much time reading. I also have personal / family requirements that have me subscribed to El Nuevo Día in Puerto Rico and El Comercio in Quito (INFOBAE gives me Argentina along with the world and Latin America).
Several polls have Trump with an abysmal approval rating. No need to cite them because you wouldn't accept it anyway.

NPR stations have many listeners and donors all over the country. Deny that too if it pleases you...
 
OK, we defund public radio in my city, we get rid of the university-owned News/Talk/Classical/Misc 100,000 watter, the student-run station, and the station that plays Americana and some other genres. Could they survive on foundation support and listener donations? Maybe? Maybe not. Bear in mind federal money is being pulled from arts and civic organizations. If the federal government is going to be gutted, people are going to pay more for medical care; your special needs child won't be served by your school system but you'll have to pay a private corporation for them, that cuts into what can be donated. The red states want everyone to home school or private religious schools which vouchers will only partially pay for, so that's going tp be a big expense for people.
 
Then again, the #1 station in those markets get less than 10% of listening.
And that has been pretty much the norm since FM grew into dominance in the 70's, making most markets have as many as triple the competitive signals.

I use Cleveland as an example, with 6 truly competitive AM signals in the 60's. With the growth of FM from the very late 70's onwards, we ended up with about 20 competitive signals if the non-commercial full signal stations are considered.

While a station could get a 15 to 20 share in the mid-60's, by the late 70's getting a 10 was astounding.

How many PPM markets have even one station with a 10 share today?
 
The point another poster made was that in smaller markets, there is less such local news coverage. And in some, the NPR affiliated station is part of a wide area or statewide network, where no local news at all is done outside of the location of the main studios and offices.

And that is a valid point. However, removing CPB support will most likely *decrease* local public radio station coverage, not increase it.
 
Plenty of purpose for public broadcasting in 2025 and I can prove it, unequivically, without a shadow of a doubt.

Hey Paul,

Your Senator supports the work you do. She just needs 3 more repubs to agree with her:

Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski voiced support for public media in an editorial in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner earlier this month. She said the loss of funding for local stations in her home state would be "devastating."

"Not only would a large portion of Alaska communities lose their local programming, but warning systems for natural disasters, power outages, boil water advisories, and other alerts would be severely hampered. What may seem like a frivolous expense to some has proven to be an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska," Murkowski wrote.
 
And in the meantime, FCC Commissioner Symington announced that he is stepping down. That means -- at least for the moment, FCC Chair Carr's agenda is dead in the water, because they no longer have a quorum to do business.

Of course, that won't last forever, but if enough pushback on matters like the CPB defunding takes place before Trump can get both his current pending appointee and whoever he appoints for the new vacancy approved by the Senate, there could be related setbacks to his agenda as well.
 
The majority of people do not support Trump.
Cite a reliable survey or source.

Here you go. Go ahead and bookmark this link so you can watch him never be above water again for yourself.

 
I'd wager that a majority of all voters have not heard of it. Remember, except for a few markets like DC and SF, the NPR station(s) average less than 5% of listening.

I don't listen, but know what it is. I don't use "appointment" radio, so NPR does not match my schedule.
NPR has tons of podcasts, including concerts, that anyone can listen to on their own schedule. You & others who don’t listen should check them out:
 
Last edited:
What we need here is a restructure where a broadcast entity is not getting money from the "fund" but rather only media associated entities that create content. Programming created and then 'shopped'.
That's not likely to work. Then it's just another argument over the entities creating the content being too "liberal" or what they're creating not being of value. The CPB system works, in part, because stations have to have certain levels of service and provide extensive documentation to get the money. It's not some handout so they can create leftist radio.

NPR is rarely local. Maybe in major markets where there isn't a need for them anyway. The "local" I see more than often are statewide networks with one local broadcast point, the state capital. The network stations are just repeaters. NPR is not reporting about the traffic light that is out on Main St. or the new restaurant in town.
But state level public radio provides in some areas (especially rural ones) the only comprehensive journalism on the radio relating to state government. I've lived in places where the only real coverage of happenings at the state house was through those public radio networks. Even in some very red states, it was valuable news to have and covered factually.
Local radio is, at least accountable, due to the fact that the community won't fund them unless they serve the local public.
They do. That's why they're able to leverage that funding for services to outreach and raise the majority of their funding from listeners and underwriters. This entire argument is over $1.63 a year per taxpayer.

There's a lot of things that cost me more as a taxpayer that I fundamentally disagree with, or are filled with bloat. That includes subsidies and lucrative contracts that benefit people like Elon Musk. I don't see anyone who's really upset with "NPR" that's also upset about that. So sure, have the debate. But have it fairly and across the board. Personally, I'm fine with my $1.63 a year going to the CPB. In fact, I'd be fine with it being $2. In addition to my donations to the local station that provides in-depth local and regional stories that the commercial stations don't, along with jazz and Americana.

The loudest voices who want to "defund" NPR have muddied the waters and people think the government is sending money directly to a bunch of "liberal talk show hosts" and reporters. They don't understand how the system works. I've been involved with grant applications. It's a lot of documentation and proof to get CPB funds. It has to be demonstrated that there's an audience and that they're being served and invested in.

Ideologically, I can grasp why some people might want CPB defunded. I happen to disagree, but I can understand that perspective. That being said, there's far better places to examine the budget cuts, and even if CPB were trimmed, it shouldn't be eliminated precisely because of stations like Paul's. Personally, I appreciate a service that at least has some semblance of depth, covers state level issues, and is accessible without additional barriers to all.

I was raised in a very conservative family, in a solidly red part of the USA. I grew up listening to NPR and part of my formative experiences with "personality" radio were shows like Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion. My father appreciated the news coverage because it had depth and good coverage of topics beyond the fast paced 30 minute newscasts on TV or even less on radio. Still to this day he watches the News Hour on PBS. And I for one am glad someone who lives in a rural area, with no great broadband options, who isn't tech savvy, like him, can turn on their TV or radio and have access to solid reporting - and it's only costing those who can't donate under two dollars a year. I regard it as a value - both financially and culturally.
 
Here you go. Go ahead and bookmark this link so you can watch him never be above water again for yourself.

The current rating, per one news reports based on one type of survey, is 44.5% which is above the same-period 41% for Biden. that is just one survey, and that was used as the basis for a Yahoo article. Read on, and you will note that the Yahoo survey, which has no revelation of methodology or type of question, is the lowest of all the surveys to be found!

This source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating shows "all the polls" and the approval ranges from 41% to 51%. This listing shows more surveys than the one you sourced.

As someone who spent a lot of their career doing radio programming research, I am familiar with the issues of how polls are conducted. The biggest variable is "who do you sample?". A major difference in current polls is on sampling all adults or just those who voted in the last election. Then we have the enormous variable of how the question is phrased. We generally do not see the raw data or the questionnaires so this is a big area of doubt and explains the wide difference in the different polls.

In radio, we saw survey methodology affect the change in listening levels when the PPM was introduced. When people had to write down the times they listened to the radio, they dramatically rounded up and did not note interruptions in "continuous listening". So when the PPM came out, we saw about a 30% to 35% reduction in the amount of time people spent listening to the radio.

While the PPM does not use a questionnaire, we see the difference between "reality" and what people think they did. The same applies to any kind of survey, and a "poll" is just another kind of survey.

So what we should be asking is "who did you ask and how and what did you ask them?"

Oh, the Atlas poll was the most accurate predicting the election itself, closely followed by Trafalgar.

Here is an article that describes the superior Trafalgar methodology based on shorter questionnaires and better "recruiting" (industry term for selection of inteviewees). https://www.realclearpolitics.com/a...ter__leading_private_polling_firm_151588.html
 
NPR has tons of podcasts, including concerts, that anyone can listen to on their own schedule. You & others who don’t listen should check them out:
I'm a reader, not a listener. The best course I took in high school was speed reading, so I find all "spoken word" offerings to be too slow... and thus, boring. I can read a half-dozen written sources on a topic in less time than a 15 minute podcast.
 
I'm a reader, not a listener. The best course I took in high school was speed reading, so I find all "spoken word" offerings to be too slow... and thus, boring. I can read a half-dozen written sources on a topic in less time than a 15 minute podcast.

I tend to listen to the local NPR outlet when I am in my vehicle, so speed reading is not much of an option for me.

But at home, yes, I'd much rather read a story rather than have it spoken to me.
 
I'm a reader, not a listener. The best course I took in high school was speed reading, so I find all "spoken word" offerings to be too slow... and thus, boring. I can read a half-dozen written sources on a topic in less time than a 15 minute podcast.
On podcast platforms that offer it, I often use the “speed up” feature and run the audio at 1.2 or 1.5x. Still perfectly understandable, and I can get through things much quicker.
 
I tend to listen to the local NPR outlet when I am in my vehicle, so speed reading is not much of an option for me.

But at home, yes, I'd much rather read a story rather than have it spoken to me.
Some vision issue are taking me more toward audio, that said, I'm more of an "aural" learner. Still, don't even give me a boring audiobook reader
 
Let's move away from political emphasis. I am talking radio in general. I know places like the stations Paul Walker manages in Alaska and a couple of other Alaskan public stations. All the support their captive audience could muster will not pay for a station, yet it is needed. They provide services like a message board broadcast specifically for off the grid folks to communicate with people they need to get in touch with. They need financial help.

If we are going to fund non-commercial stations, why not support many of the LPFMs trying to survive on under $5,000 a year.

How about AM stations that are hurting financially. There are so many AMs carried financially by their FM. In rural areas where Amazon and big box stores have destroyed revenue for the station serving the county. They're the only source of local news on a daily basis and carry high school sports among other things. Many are desperately looking for a buyer and if that buyer doesn't come, they'll turn in their license once the savings the station has are spent. These stations need help. Can they get some support through a program like their non-commercial station brothers? One could argue these government dollars are for some but not all in need.

Then there's educational TV. Programming is deserving of funding that I understand would be where many of those dollars go and rightfully so.

My thinking is not political side at all. If these dollars are needed by stations, why not be all inclusive verses a select bunch.

In looking at annual reports for entities like Minnesota Public Radio (not to pick on them), their revenue is very substantial and a few million are these government dollars. Why might that be? Do they truly need that?
 
Why don't you go volunteer at your local public radio station, then you'll have a better understanding about how it works.
How many public stations have internship or volunteer programs. I know that in commercial radio, interns pretty much have to be under a program approved by some agency or entity and must include experience in a variety of areas. In other words, a real-life introduction to all aspects of a station, from sales to engineering. The days of young people being a hang-around go-fer who gradually learned the board and eventually got the Sunday morning shift are seemingly gone.

In 1970, we had a kid at Moony Broadcasting's WUNO who hung around just like that. We trained him to do the Sunday morning PA shows, and he would arrive at midnight and sleep in the lobby to be sure to be on time. He retired last year after several decades of having the highest rated mid-day music show out of about 120 stations in the market!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Back
Top Bottom