Public stations need money to run just like all the rest. Most federal and state funding is gone now, so corporations, charitable foundations and wealthy individuals must be continuously and tirelessly solicited for support, along with the general listening audience. It takes a certain type of person to do this kind of thing every day, and quite often that type of person is motivated by money. Hence the high salaries, especially in the absence of conventional sales commissions. The GM of an NPR affiliate is essentially the same kind of animal as the GSM of a commercial station. Chasing the almighty dollar. Same as always.
Unfortunately, there just aren't that many dollars out there anymore. You may expect the same consolidations, economies and contractions in public radio that have been experienced in the commercial end of things.
Non-commercial broadcasters are beset by the exact same forces of technological, financial and cultural change that have diminished so many commercial stations. Diverse, detailed and innovative programming, traditional professional standards and an active involvement with a mature and highly-educated audience have sustained NPR and similar services for the time being, but the writing is on the wall.
In my observation, the available radio broadcast audience is steadily shrinking because the majority of young Americans under the age of 30 do not listen to the radio. At all. Ever. Period. Most have decided that iPods, iPads, laptops, smart phones or satellite are the only way to go. It's pretty hard to deny the appeal of totally personalized and virtually infinite programming choice. Most of those remaining young people who still listen to broadcast radio for entertainment or information either can't yet afford the new devices or have limited access to high-speed internet or cellular services.
We can endlessly debate the details, but the basic demographic truth cannot be denied. The valve is being closed at the young end of the hose and eventually the broadcast radio listener stream will run dry. Forty years at the most, and the only remaining AM & FM transmitters will be operated by museums on special occasions, much like the steam engine enthusiasts of today.
Of course, natural disasters, tiered access profiteering, bandwidth crunches or general economic decline could affect the growth of the internet and reinvigorate radio broadcasting, but so far there's no sign of that happening.
It's been painful to watch all this happen so quickly and decisively. There's been a scramble for some way to stop or reverse the decay. Local programming! Live DJ's! Contests! New music! Digital audio! Those of us who fondly remember the exciting radio business of the 1950's thru the 1980's and complain about the current state of affairs need to pause and take a long, long look in the mirror. We're not at the young end of the hose anymore.
The next audience generation has made their choice. Old-fashioned radio broadcasters need to make a choice, too.
We can program for our own generation in the manner to which we are accustomed, with oldies, jingles, conservative pundits and all the rest of the traditional formats and formatics. Nothing wrong with that, and for the moment it remains a fairly viable business model. However, we need to soberly and solemnly acknowledge that this is literally a dead-end course of action, and honor it as such.
The other course is the one that "NPR" seems to be choosing. No more "National Public Radio". Leave the towers and transmitters behind and let the programming entity merge into cyberspace and whatever unimagined media realms succeed it. Don't look back. Don't worry about how it will be produced, staffed or financed. Just go. Make the leap. Go.
So we make our choices.
I know that a wi-fi hub or cellular phone is still a radio, but to me cyberspace is not the 'aether'. That complex and rigidly controlled network of servers and cables and digital code that we call the internet is not the same as the mysterious and fuzzy analog void that we have explored with our radio sets for the past century.
So call me old-fashioned. I must be a dead-ender.
