US radio, especially public radio, is like a bad restaurant ...

[tomservo]

The thing I'd like to know is what the average listener thinks of BBC and paying an annual license fee. Is this a painless tax for a radio service that the public desires and of the standard the public wants or is the tax considered a required tax to be squandered by a government entity that serves only a portion of the general public. Would the British primarily commercial radio listener resent paying a tax each year?

I thought the tax was only a television license and that radios were not taxed? I can't find anything on a radio tax.

Suffice it to say that a TV or radio license scheme such as what is employed in Great Britain (complete with the now-rare roving detection vans) would be met with collective indifference in this country and would be ignored on a universal scale.

 

[bturner]

I believe you are correct Zach. In the past radios were taxed...maybe 40 years back.

According to figures I've seen, there are nearly two radios per person in the United States. With the population at 300,000,000, the numbers can get really big if you applied a 50 cent a month or $6 a year tax on radio: 1.8 Billion Dollars...at $1 a month, this is 3.6 billion.

There are .7453 televisions per person in the USA according to an internet search. This is 223,590,000 TV sets. If the annual tax on an operating TV was, say, $2 a month or $24 a year this would be $5,366,160,000

While I see no figures on industry totals on television revenue, radio revenue in 2009 was around $16,000,000,000, down from almost 21.7 billion in 2006.

When one considers the number of radio stations required to covered the land area of Britain versus the USA, it is easy to see there would be fewer stations required. By vastness of real estate alone, the USA would required many more facilities to reach the population. Even so, are media revenue levels so low that an annual reasonable tax would eclipse that amount? When we consider the dollars we spend monthly on cable TV, cell phones, etc., could a radio and television model set up along the lines of $X per person in the city grade coverage area provide more revenue to operate non-commercially?

Imagine if you will, an option of a fund of radio/TV tax dollars doled out to broadcasters promising a certain level of service to the community based on the number of people in the city grade signal. A station could opt to take the money and provide the service or be 'independent' and sell advertising. The question of who can 'qualify' for the money would need to be worked out. Perhaps a system like the newspaper business in many states would be utilized. A 'newspaper of record' is voted on by local voters during elections. This newspaper of record is required to publish all required state, sounty and local, including school district, public notices (which is paid for by the governing entity at a rate per word). Instead of just one station being funded, perhaps a certain number could be allocated with the top vote-getters receiving money from the fund created by the radio and TV tax. Would this not center radio stations on serving the community?

 

[TheBigA]

Read my lips: No New Taxes.

Sure, the #1 complaint about OTA radio is the amount of commercials. Tell the public that if they approve the tax, radio would be commercial free. I dare say the public would vote for the commercials. People are cheap.

Here's the scary part: Right now in Congress, there is a proposal, made by the Democrats, that would impose a spectrum free on all broadcast stations to pay for universal broadband. I'm not kidding. Imagine being forced by law to fund your competition. That's what some in Congress want to do.

The mood in Congress about broadcasting isn't positive. Congressmen have been placed in a no-win situation over the performance royalty. They want broadcasters and the music industry to work it out themselves.

So there are a lot of issues here...a lot of reasons why the US isn't like the UK. There is a negativity in the US that I don't see in the UK...where people seek out what's wrong about things, rather than look for what's right. I don't see that in other countries. Europeans are more likely to follow the pack. Americans want it their way. Therefore, even if the US adopted a system more like Europe, with a tax on radio and TV, the people wouldn't like it, and they'd view the system as government-imposed media. That would lead to a competing system of commercial radio, just as it did in England and Canada. And we're right back to where we are now.

 

[johnbasalla]

The underwritings, particularly on TV, are so much like commercials anway. Let freedom ring. Let stations raise funds any way they want to. They want to sell advertising time, fine. They want to hit up their listeners with pledge breaks, fine. They want to do a combination of both? Fine. The combination option would be most useful for current non-comms who wish to continue programming that is less sustainable if they could only sell advertising. The trick would be to convince the audience that they need to support the station even though they have commercials. But, then again, you have 'almost commercials' masquerading as "underwriting" as it is, and that doesn't seem to hamper pledge breaks.

I would be one who would vote for commercials over higher taxes any day of the week... and not because I'm cheap, but I don't want the potentially freedom-stealing government to have any more control over things. You want money from the government, you have to jump through hoops to get it, make promises that otherwise would be bad business decisions, and do things that you are mandated to do.

 

[bturner]

Here, Here, I agree with the above posts. I do not want more taxes and I want less government intervention, period. I have always been a proponent on letting radio stations, for profit or non-profit, choose the elements of funding that works for their market and/or format.

The thing I have seen, especially in smaller communities, is how the communities work. Community A might be very prone to support their local media and be very likely to self-fund numerous local projects while Community B is an exact opposite and Community C is so politically divided or socially divided that they only support that which is 'on their side'. For public supported radio, this can be the difference between success or failure. Community A might see lots of local support for its radio station while Community B's station has incredible listenership but virtually no support and Community C has a nice listenership from both sides but only support from one clique in the community.

For the three case scenarios above, it is evident flexibility needs to be the plan for public supported radio.

Another factor is allowing supporters from out of town, especially those after the same customer as the in town business. A station has to strive for enough local support because if some of the support comes from out of town, especially when there is a local competitor, several to many in the local community will hate you for not supporting them even if they fail to support you.

In the past I've had to say "If you, the local businesses will support the station with the needed revenue, I won't solicit businesses out of town except those businesses offering services or products not available locally". It wasn't a threat but a bit of harsh reality. I had a car dealer that wouldn't spend a dime but when I explained car dealers were a good percentage of a typical radio station's revenue and I needed their dollars, they figured out spending with my station meant the out of town car dealers wouldn't be the ones asking for the town's business. I never 'denied' but didn't solicit, which works out prertty well since few businesses call you trying to spend their money.

 

[TheBigA]

Here, Here, I agree with the above posts. I do not want more taxes and I want less government intervention, period. I have always been a proponent on letting radio stations, for profit or non-profit, choose the elements of funding that works for their market and/or format.

Exactly, and your remind me that one thing not mentioned in the LA Times article is that BBC 4 is a national service, similar to NPR or American syndication. While there are local transmission facilities around the country, and they may be staffed to provide certain specific local services, the main programming on the stations comes from London. In this country, radio is seen as a more local thing, even if some programming comes from other places. Reagrdless of funding, it would be a difficult for most local stations to create the kind of professional programming that one can hear on BBC 4. And American radio stations (other than talk) have been more reluctant to give up large portions of their day to national programming.

 

[bturner]

I have to agree and note that the geographic components of the USA create a lifestyle that varies. A person in Florida is more likely to know little of bizzards as a Vermonter may have little knowledge of hurricanes. A North Dakotan would be more in tune to blizzards than a person in New Orleans. A Midwesterner less likely to know of earthquares and a Sothern Californian less of tornadoes. Likewise, a good game of curling might be big in Minot but unknown in El Paso. My point is a national service would have a difficult time serving the varied lifestyles of the USA based simply on weather and natural events than a national station reaching the British Isles.

Local or regional would have to come into play in the USA and those national shows would have to be focused on the commonality of the USA's interests alone and in such a dramatic way it could easily become uninteresting to the listener at large. No more Baskin Ribbins 31 flavors on national shows but a one flavor fits all. I can see a State network being able to work in many states but even there the lifestyles can vary greatly (South California compared to North California; Panhandle of Texas compared to the Gulf Coast; Sandhills of Nebraska to Omaha; Portland compared to Lakeview, Oregon; Las Vegas versus Battle Mountain, Nevada; New York City versus Watertown, etc.).

 

[johnbasalla]

I don't want government, directly or indirectly, to be the determining agent about most content areas.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't want government, directly or indirectly, to be the determining agent about most content areas.

I don't think anybody does. That's why CPB was created in the 60s. That's why it's chilling to have Congress threatening to defund public broadcasting because one commentator was fired. That's using the threat of the purse to control content. This is not to say that discussion of government funding isn't valid. But to have this direct connection between an action and defunding is improper. It's too bad more people don't recognize the impropriety of this.

Back to the issue, there are ways to handle this kind of thing. But the key is the government knowing its limits.

 

[Talk_Dude]

I don't want government, directly or indirectly, to be the determining agent about most content areas.

I don't think anybody does. That's why CPB was created in the 60s. That's why it's chilling to have Congress threatening to defund public broadcasting because one commentator was fired. That's using the threat of the purse to control content. This is not to say that discussion of government funding isn't valid. But to have this direct connection between an action and defunding is improper. It's too bad more people don't recognize the impropriety of this.

Back to the issue, there are ways to handle this kind of thing. But the key is the government knowing its limits.

The thing is, it doesn't take an express and explicit communique from a government official to communicate to the operator of a public broadcasting station, radio or TV, for the operator of the station to know which side his bread is buttered on.

 

[aaronread]

Sure, the #1 complaint about OTA radio is the amount of commercials. Tell the public that if they approve the tax, radio would be commercial free. I dare say the public would vote for the commercials. People are cheap.

Of course they would. Everyone hates paying taxes. But everyone also likes having public libraries, paved roads, clean drinking water, streetlights at night, public parks, etc etc etc. Even when you lay it all out that having such things costs X in taxes, there has become such a gigantic disconnect in the public consciousness that paying taxes = funding public services. Oh sure, there's strong arguments that lots of what you pay in taxes is just pissed away somehow. But a lot of people literally have a hard time wrapping their minds around the idea that the guys plowing the snow off your street are not doing it for free; your taxes are paying to have that snow plowed.

This is why there was such a huge "oh shit" from the public when the Cranick's house burned down in Tennessee and the fire department refused to put it out because the Cranicks hadn't paid the fee. People just expect that government will do certain things but they forget that paying taxes (or fees or whatever) is how the government pays for such things to be done.

Here's a comparable example: when you make people pay for safety features in a car, like air bags, traction control, sway bars, etc, as an option...they almost always will not pay for them. However, if you just include them standard, and raise the price...even if it's a higher price than what the old base+option price was...almost everyone will pay more without even blinking.

I would bet a hefty sum of money that even as recently as 2000, if you imported the BBC model of radio into the United States, got it on a comparable network of signals, and funded it equivalently, you would have a radio product that a lot of people would listen to. And who would all scream loudly if you tried to take it away even if it meant "lower taxes" for those same people. After 2000? Well, it still could work but you'd have to work mighty hard to overtake the ground lost to the iPod.

I don't want government, directly or indirectly, to be the determining agent about most content areas.

This begs the question: who DO you want to be the determining agent about most content areas?

 

[johnbasalla]

In the final analysis, the people who will choose to listen or not listen.

 

[bturner]

That's the point exactly. They will listen or they will not listen. The question is what makes them listen and keep listening.

The problem I see with today's radio is not as much voicetracking and such as it is failing to reinvent itself. We can see clearly that radio no longer has a monopoly on some of the reasons people listen to the radio.

The person tuning in for music might spend more time with an ipod versus the radio station they might still sample here or there. The news station is suffering and newspaper as well but the internet's ability to get news to potential listeners (same goes for weather, sports, traffic and financial news). All of this does not mean a listener never tunes in, but it places radio in a position of gaining a slice of the pie versus virtually the whole pie. Within the problem we must find the answers. I say answers because I believe there are many.

At my station our programmer is doing block programming in a major metro. There might be a pop/rock program that is not just full of variety but all over the road and sidewalk too. You'd likely hear a Lionel Richie ballad, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Led Zepplin and JayZ in the same hour. Then it might a a talk show about frivilous lawsuits that seems more like a Dateline or 60 Minutes episode from TV. Earlier in the day might be a music program with the likes of 1960s pop and Adult Standards, a news analysis show, etc. The programming is all over the place.

I wonder if we are hitting much of an audience and how much carryover there might be from one program to the next. Being at the station, I hear it all and I enjoy most of it. Most seems to aim for a 35 to 49 age market. I'm told the format is inspired by the BBC. I'd say I'm impressed with the air talent and content but I realize the variety in programming during the broadcast day makes the format much like a fish out of water.

The jury is still out but at least it's something new on the radio dial and it tosses all the rules out the window. At the very least it is radio thinking outside the box.

 

[Talk_Dude]

At my station our programmer is doing block programming in a major metro. There might be a pop/rock program that is not just full of variety but all over the road and sidewalk too. You'd likely hear a Lionel Richie ballad, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Led Zepplin and JayZ in the same hour. Then it might a a talk show about frivilous lawsuits that seems more like a Dateline or 60 Minutes episode from TV. Earlier in the day might be a music program with the likes of 1960s pop and Adult Standards, a news analysis show, etc. The programming is all over the place.

You might broadcast that kind of train wreck all in one hour, but I'll never hear it.

However, I'll make it a point to tune in at a specific hour to hear a specific program so long as (1) I know that it's going to be on and (2) it sounds interesting to me. If a particular show is on consistently at the same time, I'll even make a habit of consistently tuning in. For example, tuning in Prairie Home Companion every Saturday at 6:00 PM is a habit for me.

I suspect that while other people might have different favorite shows than I do, most people are the same about tuning in their favorite shows.

 

[TheBigA]

I suspect that while other people might have different favorite shows than I do, most people are the same about tuning in their favorite shows.

Studies show that most people don't listen to specialty shows in real time. Most people don't plan their lives around airtimes of radio shows.

 

[aaronread]

In the final analysis, the people who will choose to listen or not listen.

The entire profession of marketing is devoted to the idea that your statement is not true. :

 

[johnbasalla]

The statement is an answer to the question, who should decide what is on-the-air. Listeners should decide, not some grand poobah government. Ratings, ability to sell the time or otherwise garner support are the measuring sticks.

 

[Talk_Dude]

I suspect that while other people might have different favorite shows than I do, most people are the same about tuning in their favorite shows.

Studies show that most people don't listen to specialty shows in real time. Most people don't plan their lives around airtimes of radio shows.

There's a hell of a big difference between me being aware of the time on Saturday evening and making a point of tuning in WABE if I happen to be near a radio and "planning my life around airtimes of radio shows".

Tell me, is there some reason why you feel the need to hyper-exaggerate what other people say when you write replies?

 

[TheBigA]

There's a hell of a big difference between me being aware of the time on Saturday evening and making a point of tuning in WABE if I happen to be near a radio and "planning my life around airtimes of radio shows".

Tell me, is there some reason why you feel the need to hyper-exaggerate what other people say when you write replies?

I'm not "hyper-exaggerating." I was responding to the second half of your statement about "most people."

 

[Talk_Dude]

There's a hell of a big difference between me being aware of the time on Saturday evening and making a point of tuning in WABE if I happen to be near a radio and "planning my life around airtimes of radio shows".

Tell me, is there some reason why you feel the need to hyper-exaggerate what other people say when you write replies?

I'm not "hyper-exaggerating." I was responding to the second half of your statement about "most people."

I said that "most people" will tune in to a program they like if they have access to a radio when it comes on. I never said or implied that "most people" would "plan their lives around airtimes of radio shows". The latter is a gross exaggeration, which is a synonym for "hyper-exaggerating".