It's unfortunate that a 'non-commercial' radio station has to be so concerned with ratings. It used to be that the stations at the left end of the dial put programming first and dollars second. Diversity was one of the unique things about them. Replacing live & local DJs playing jazz with a re-broadcast of a news program doesn't make sense to me in the age of the podcast.
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WGBH reduces jazz programming
- Thread starter notlob
- Start date
ned said:
That was easier to do back in the days when dollars were readily available from the sort of "taxpayer funding" that some posters here are so quick to decry.
What we're seeing at WGBH (and WDUQ/WESA) and plenty of others around the country is exactly what happens now that the "end taxpayer funding" crowd has largely gotten its way (even if they don't seem to realize it): in the absence of the sort of NEA/NEH/CPB grant dollars that used to fund culturally-significant-but-financially-challenging programming like jazz and blues, stations are under increased market pressure to focus tightly on the programming that draws the maximum response from listeners and underwriters. (And make no mistake about it: it was the niche stuff like jazz and blues and folk that was made possible by the NEA/CPB pennies; news and talk have been self-sustaining for a long time now.)
Even those HD2 and HD3 services are a lot harder to launch now that the PTFB-funded programs that helped pay for digital upgrades have been zeroed out.
The conventional wisdom right now in public radio says the road to financial independence is a pure news and information format. And just as the unfettered hand of the free market yields up a half-dozen similar-sounding classic rock/classic hits/hot AC signals all chasing the same maximally-lucrative piece of the audience on the commercial side of the dial, it pushes WGBH to chase the same audience that's been so successful for WBUR on the noncommercial side of the dial.
It's easy to argue that noncommercial stations should be set loose into the free market to sink or swim on their own merits. It's harder (or at least it should be harder, if one is being honest about it) to criticize the programming decisions they then have to make in order to survive.
WNTIRadio said:
I continue to be astonished that NPR does not give its subscribers market exclusivity. No commercial network would allow a station to take a program that another station in the market is already taking.
If I were WBUR, I would be screaming bloody murder over this. Those programs are not cheap, nor can they be paid for on a "barter" basis as a lot of commercial networks allow.
WGBH versus WBUR is one of the last radio rivalries. I've always maintained that rivalries are a good thing because they spur excitement among listeners, keep radio in the public eye, and encourage better service.
We used to have WBZ vs WHDH, WBCN vs. WCOZ, and late Kiss 108 vs. WZOU. Mergers and acquisitions put an end to all those, and the Boston radio dial is worse off for it.
Now we have WBZ-FM vs. WEEI, and WGBH vs. WBUR. That's about it.
We used to have WBZ vs WHDH, WBCN vs. WCOZ, and late Kiss 108 vs. WZOU. Mergers and acquisitions put an end to all those, and the Boston radio dial is worse off for it.
Now we have WBZ-FM vs. WEEI, and WGBH vs. WBUR. That's about it.
As a musician and ex jazz jock, I'm a staunch advocate of Jazz, and I've been railing against this decision on FB and Twitter. I agree that WGBH is a big operation and needs a big cash flow. But, first of all, their "a new focus on jazz" claim was a sorry piece of bullshit. You do it. Take your medicine.
Secondly, I think Aaron tries to cut them way too much slack. That amount of duplication of programming is simply not justifiable from any mission perspective. As a non-profit, and a non-commercial station, they're supposed to pay at least some attention to that. Otherwise, tax them and charge them licensing fees at a commercial rate. The fact that they do not pursue alternative programming, even if it is news/public affairs, makes their decision about jazz particularly galling.
Secondly, I think Aaron tries to cut them way too much slack. That amount of duplication of programming is simply not justifiable from any mission perspective. As a non-profit, and a non-commercial station, they're supposed to pay at least some attention to that. Otherwise, tax them and charge them licensing fees at a commercial rate. The fact that they do not pursue alternative programming, even if it is news/public affairs, makes their decision about jazz particularly galling.
carmen said:
WCUW is all-volunteer. No payroll overhead, and it's an extremely modest operation.
WICN's airstaff is partially volunteer, and it's a smaller operation than Boston's public radio stations with much lower overhead.
4CX1000A said:
Why would they... NPR is "National Profit Radio" ... They charge out the wazoo to "member" stations to air their programming.. Having them on multiple stations means multiple $$$$ for NPR...
xmusicmatt said:
Nobody's forcing any noncommercial station to join NPR if they don't want to. If stations don't think the programming is worth what NPR charges, they're free to drop it and look elsewhere, just as some public TV stations (KCET in Los Angeles, for instance) have parted ways with PBS over its fees.
I'm not seeing that happening in radio so far, anywhere.
Some insight into the exclusivity issue (non-issue?) from the last time it flared up:
http://www.current.org/radio/radio0722exclusivity.shtml
Scott, most of these stations get HUGE money from the federal government. I used to work at a small one, in my handle here, and that got almost $80k a year from the CPB grants. If you look at WGBH and WBUR, they get upwards of a quarter million dollars a year from federal money. I know a lot of commercial broadcasters who could do a lot with that.
Part of the problem I see at "public" radio in the major market is the money is no object spending on a lot of needless equipment. Do the studios really need Neumann microphones when an RE-20 will sound just as good on a car radio with 5" speakers? The smaller pubcasters run more like a commercial operation where spending is controlled but some of these big ones, like WGBH, waste money left and right. The money spent on that stupid jumbotron looming over the Mass Pike could have been put to a better use. Granted, that's the TV side, but it eventually all goes to the same place.
And, NPR charges EXORBITANT fees for its programming. We looked into All Things/Morning Edition back in 2005... $70k a year EACH to air in NW New Jersey. Yikes!! We then decided that money could go to hiring staff and expanding the music programming. Those fees are also market size dependent, so WNYC, WBUR, WGBH pay a lot more for them. I know they're expensive for NPR to produce, but there has to be a better way. All that CPB taxpayer money goes round the horn and mainly into NPR's coffers. That's what the $80k in grant money mostly went towards... the NPR fees for news, World Cafe, Car Talk ($8K an for an hour a week!!!). I didn't want to run Car Talk but the VP at the licensee wanted it so that was that. It never made that money back in membership dollars.
The grant money helps out smaller stations quite a bit. WGBH could easily make up the difference if it were to go away. More of it should go to the smaller broadcasters then what goes to the top 10 market flamethrowers that make bank in the form of millions every year. And their attitude is if budgets go over, just go raise more money.
WXPN now does FOUR membership drives a year. They used to do two. If you need to do four, and annoy me for four weeks out of the year begging, perhaps you need to look at your budgeting. You can only go to the well so much, especially in this economy. I think four weeks of fundraising is listener abuse, and all that will accomplish is driving them to other means to hear new music.
Re: "National Profit Radio": if I ran a public radio station, I would be very concerned by NPR's efforts in recent years to reach listeners directly through the NPR Web site, bypassing the stations. While I'm not very knowledgeable about the history of NPR, my understanding is that it was formed to serve its member stations. It now seems to be something of a Frankenstein monster.
News is an expensive format to run, particularly when it has a significant local component, as WBUR's format does.
News is an expensive format to run, particularly when it has a significant local component, as WBUR's format does.
Big money at NPR...big salaries for hosts, fancy studios. And they don't run ads but they do accept corporate money and mention the donors on air. A 2008 list of donors found online turned up many big companies--including Fox Broadcasting Co., for you non-fans of Murdoch...movie studios,car companies, credit cards, beer companies...big money. Then there's CPB money, private donations to member stations or the network(how many jazz fans will forget about giving to GBH now?)
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/annualreports/NPRSponsorsDonors08.pdf
I'd allow them to run ads, what the heck, and get taxpayer $ out. This Car Talk rerun will be right back after this message from Fram auto filters.
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/annualreports/NPRSponsorsDonors08.pdf
I'd allow them to run ads, what the heck, and get taxpayer $ out. This Car Talk rerun will be right back after this message from Fram auto filters.
What they should do is run national underwriting, and not just after the news. I'm sure a lot of stations would like a reduction in fees if it meant carrying 3 national underwriters per hour. Fram can sponsor Car Talk, just do it in "underwriting language". Take some of the burden off of small stations that need the programming to attract an audience but find the fees burdensome. And the other option, of doing it locally, isn't really viable. Is a small NPR station in NJ going to be able to afford to produce it's own version of Morning Edition? No, but $70k is steep for a syndicated morning show. Let's say it drops to $20k a year after the national spots are put in... then it may be an option.
The barter system has worked for commercial radio for 90 years. I never understood why NPR hasn't gotten with that program.
The barter system has worked for commercial radio for 90 years. I never understood why NPR hasn't gotten with that program.
WNTIRadio said:
Let's be clear about what those numbers actually are: going by CPB's own figures (http://cpb.org/aboutcpb/financials/funding/state.html?year=2011&state=Massachusetts), WGBH radio received $618,000 in "radio community service grant" money in FY 2011, while WBUR received $1.309 million.
Are there commercial broadcasters who'd like to have that sort of money coming in? Sure there are - but as you know from your days at that smaller station in New Jersey, that grant money comes with huge strings attached. Do those commercial broadcasters want to live up to the sort of public-service programming obligations that CPB mandates? Do they want to produce the sort of programming for national distribution that those big CPB grants to the WBURs and WNYCs of the world are meant to fund? Do they want the hiring and staffing restrictions that come with CPB money? The audits and reporting requirements? The limitations on what else they can do with their programming (no sectarian religious programming, no political advocacy)? And most critically...would they give up the ability to sell commercial advertising?
I'd bet that when you really dig into it, you'll find that very few commercial broadcasters would really give up the freedoms they now enjoy in the marketplace in exchange for the relatively small percentage of their budget that would come from federal funding.
One of the challenges public broadcasters face right now is getting the word out beyond their core audience about what they're doing and why it's worth paying attention to. Every media outlet on the face of the earth has to market itself, and market itself aggressively, if it's going to continue to grow its audience and bring new listeners/viewers/potential members into its audience.
I can't speak to the specific costs of the WGBH jumbotron. I don't know nearly enough about WGBH's internal financials to know if it was a ridiculous investment or not. But I know this: if I'm trying to build an audience for my programming, and I'm moving into a new building that happens to overhang the friggin' Mass Pike as it carries hundreds of thousands of cars a day in and out of Boston, I wouldn't be doing my job if I failed to investigate whether I could promote my station and my programming that way.
Which brings me to another one of the challenges of comparing public radio/TV budgets to commercial broadcasting: public broadcasters get to work with a much longer timeline than commercial broadcasters. WGBH owns its building and expects, I think, to be there for decades. How much would 30 years of a billboard campaign and bus cards and newspaper ads and direct mail add up to in the end? Compare that total to the one-time cost of putting up the "stupid jumbotron" and the numbers may not look as disproportionate.
Same thing with studios: yes, WGBH invested heavily (and not with CPB money, either) in building a magnificent live-performance studio big enough to fit the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I've been in the studios of pretty much every commercial broadcaster in Boston, and there's nothing that can compare to what WGBH has in that live-performance studio...but what commercial broadcaster would produce a live BSO broadcast from its studios in 2012, either?
For the record, the air studios for WGBH, down the hall, are essentially indistinguishable in design or equipment from anything down the street at Entercom or CBS Radio or over in Medford at Clear Channel...and WGBH will probably still be at its studio long after the leases have run out and the commercial stations have moved on to the next location, or two. You budget differently, and build differently, when you can look 30 years ahead instead of a few quarters ahead.
From the birth of radio in America, we have always had major-market studios that have equipment and facilities that are the envy of smaller-market stations. Once upon a time - up until just a few decades ago, in fact - those studios belonged to the big commercial broadcasters. The WNBCs and KNXs and WGNs of the world prided themselves on being showcases for the best engineering (and talent) that the industry could offer, and the technologies and people that they developed ended up benefiting everyone else in the industry down the line, too. (Remember the days when RCA and CBS operated their own R&D labs? Who fulfills that role for radio today?)
You know as well as I do what happened: the days of RCA yielded to today's Cumulus and Clear Channel, where the driving motive isn't to be the best, but to be the cheapest and most profitable. Why invest in expensive studios if they're going to sit empty for most of the day while voicetracks are playing from a closet a thousand miles away? There's nothing wrong with any of that, either - it serves an audience and it makes money - but shouldn't there still be more to radio than a relentless race to the bottom? Just because some people have no problem with mono sound out of a five-inch speaker, why in the world shouldn't someone still provide something better for those who still care? And if not public radio, then who would you cast in that role?
And looking at that station's schedule, I see Car Talk no longer runs there.
Yes, ME and ATC are very expensive to produce...because they're done to the same high standards commercial radio once practiced. How many commercial radio networks still maintain more than a dozen foreign correspondents, or their own in-house bureaus covering subject areas such as science and religion and the arts, providing both material for hourly newscasts and long-form reporting for two daily magazine shows?
Every other major Western democracy - every last one of them - funds this sort of public radio with taxes or user fees that amount to tens (and sometimes even hundreds) of dollars per household per year. Even if you were to take every dollar of CPB radio community service grant money and assume it somehow finds its way to NPR, you're looking at a grand total of...29 cents per American per year.
(And in reality, of course, that 29 cents also provides for a lot of other programming at stations like WNTI that don't buy NPR magazine programming and instead use the money locally; the real figure is probably something like 15 cents per American per year that goes to NPR itself.)
Is there room to modify the system to help the smaller stations out? Sure there is. The magazine shows already carry not just the 10 seconds of underwriting after the top and bottom-hour newscasts but also an additional 80 seconds (six underwriters) at 28:20 and 58:20...plus additional topic-specific underwriting for things like the morning business report. That's a significant increase from the load they carried a couple of decades ago, and that's not even counting the local underwriting at individual stations. (When we're full-up at the station where I work, that can add just over two additional minutes of underwriting content in drive time.) There's probably a middle ground between that and the 15+ minutes of spotload we carried when I worked at WBZ in morning drive...and there's also a point at which the FCC will start to question a station's noncommercial status.
You must be looking at a different schedule. Still on, Saturday 10am. I haven't been there for 3+ years now, but still live in town so I hear it every Saturday.
What could WGBH have done? How about a sign overhanging the Mass Pike. A lot cheaper than a jumbotron. I get it, it's a prime location. But they're spending other people's money to do it. Unless they got one sponsor to fund it?
The larger stations have the ability to get larger funding from other sources. The smaller stations should get a larger slice of that pie for true "community service".
I'm not advocating ending the CPB. I'm advocating using the money more effectively than just handing over huge sums to the stations that already raise millions from supporters, grants (other than CPB) and underwriting.
WRNJ does 15 times the community service that WNTI does in the area. WNTI doesn't even have a local newscast, not even with broadcasting students anymore. But, with $200k in grant money, a small news dept could have happened.
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