WBAI's Opportunity to Become More Relevant

[BruceB]

Not if the station listeners simply donate more money to replace whatever government funding exists. WNYC has multiple revenue streams. So if one source goes away, they appeal to listeners to replace it. Or they cut expenses by dropping staff and programs. It's up to the listeners.

WBAI, for example, has a policy that they don't accept any government funding.

Kudos to WBAI, Public and community Radio stations should be funded by their listeners not the Government through a so called
"Corporation for Public Broadcasting "

 

[TheBigA]

Kudos to WBAI, Public and community Radio stations should be funded by their listeners not the Government through a so called
"Corporation for Public Broadcasting "

The government funding comes because of a law called the Public Broadcasting Act. If you read the law, which was re-written during the Reagan administration, it's primarily funding for the states, not stations. A lot of public stations are owned by the states, so they decide how the federal money is spent. CPB is designed to keep politics out of the system, so funding decisions are based on the amount of money a station raises from its listeners rather than need or political ideology. The public stations in New York state are mainly independent, and not state owned. However, if you look at public stations in red states, such as West Virginia, Alaska, Iowa, or South Carolina, they're owned by states. Some are owned by state universities. So a cut to CPB will disproportionally affect red states.

 

[BruceB]

The government funding comes because of a law called the Public Broadcasting Act. If you read the law, which was re-written during the Reagan administration, it's primarily funding for the states, not stations. A lot of public stations are owned by the states, so they decide how the federal money is spent. CPB is designed to keep politics out of the system, so funding decisions are based on the amount of money a station raises from its listeners rather than need or political ideology. The public stations in New York state are mainly independent, and not state owned. However, if you look at public stations in red states, such as West Virginia, Alaska, Iowa, or South Carolina, they're owned by states. Some are owned by state universities. So a cut to CPB will disproportionally affect red states.

Red states or Blue states makes no difference to me.I'm actually a moderate Democrat.I just don't think that the government should be funding Radio stations just my opinion

 

[Identnut]

Red states or Blue states makes no difference to me.I'm actually a moderate Democrat.I just don't think that the government should be funding Radio stations just my opinion

I don't know why that kind of thing is considered controversial. In Europe, Canada, and Colombia, the government owns even mainstream entertainment stations, while still allowing public ones to exist.

 

[fybush]

We've been down this same circular path so many times here.

If there's something new to add to the conversation, by all means please do.

If it's just regurgitating the same old same old argument about public funding of broadcasting, I'm going to close this thread.

 

[Tibbs4]

Going in circles here ....

You just defined why liberal radio failed. When "you" know everything, you don't need too hear anyone else's opinion. Especially when they are always wrong.

 

[TheBigA]

When "you" know everything, you don't need too hear anyone else's opinion.

Hey Tibbs, I know everything. Yet I always love hearing your opinion. What does that make me?

 

[davideduardo]

I don't know why that kind of thing is considered controversial. In Europe, Canada, and Colombia, the government owns even mainstream entertainment stations, while still allowing public ones to exist.

In Latin America, nearly every nation has a “national” radio station which coexists with a multitude of private ones. Colombia has a handful of stations, but in the larger markets it is just one out of 30 to 50 AM and FM stations.

Every significant nation in South America has a government “spokestation”. Nearly every one in Central America does, too. Again, they are one out of many and not particularly influential. All of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations have had commercial radio before any government or government supported station, much like the U.S.

In nearly all of Europe, the national government ran all radio well into the 70’s except for Spain and Portugal that had abundant independent radio. And then there were the tiny nations of Monaco! Andorra and Luxembourg that had high power stations that were commercial.

 

[Tibbs4]

Hey Tibbs, I know everything. Yet I always love hearing your opinion. What does that make me?

Relevant. Invested. Gifted. Happy. Trusting.*


*except about KDF

 

[Miss Tuned]

In Latin America, nearly every nation has a “national” radio station which coexists with a multitude of private ones. Colombia has a handful of stations, but in the larger markets it is just one out of 30 to 50 AM and FM stations.

Every significant nation in South America has a government “spokestation”. Nearly every one in Central America does, too. Again, they are one out of many and not particularly influential. All of the Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations have had commercial radio before any government or government supported station, much like the U.S.

In nearly all of Europe, the national government ran all radio well into the 70’s except for Spain and Portugal that had abundant independent radio. And then there were the tiny nations of Monaco! Andorra and Luxembourg that had high power stations that were commercial.

Radio Luxembourg, of course, ran English on high-power directional 1440 AM aimed at the UK right up until the early 1990s.

 

[Mark Roberts]

In nearly all of Europe, the national government ran all radio well into the 70’s except for Spain and Portugal that had abundant independent radio. And then there were the tiny nations of Monaco! Andorra and Luxembourg that had high power stations that were commercial.

During the fascist years, though, all stations in Spain were required to use the government’s radio news service from RNE, which was censored.

Some of the Spanish networks were arms of the governing Falangist party rather than of the government itself.

Otherwise…
The (West) German system was more of a collaboration between the individual Laender (states) rather than something coordinated by the federal government.

The Dutch system is too complicated to describe here. It essentially has been a consortium among various interest groups with an independent government-sponsored foundation coordinating who gets television and Radio 1 (NPO 1) airtime based upon the number of members in each of those interest groups. (NPO 2 & 3 are commercial; NPO 4 is cultural/classical; plus there are numerous commercial networks and local stations.) The Wikipedia article (in English) on Dutch public broadcasting goes into considerable depth and appears to be reasonably accurate.

 

[Spareparts]

The internal battle for WBAI to accept underwriting from NYC took years to resolve....

 

[Ed Nielson]

In nearly all of Europe, the national government ran all radio well into the 70’s except for Spain and Portugal that had abundant independent radio. And then there were the tiny nations of Monaco! Andorra and Luxembourg that had high power stations that were commercial.

France also had the "stations peripheriques," LW-band stations that operated outside French territory, but broadcast to a French audience. These were privately owned and competed with the government-run France-Inter. The others were in Luxembourg, Germany (Europe 1) and Monaco. (These existed in the early days, decades before they opened up the FM band to private stations inside France.)

Things did get rather dicey in May of 1968 during the Paris riots, when people turned to the private stations to get uncensored news coverage not provided by the government outlets.

French radio history during those days is extremely fascinating.