RaccoonRadio, dude, you work at the US Post Office, and you do a show on a state-owned (and -funded) radio station. While you are certainly entitled to your opinion, and to your right to voice it here...I think any comments you make on the topic of "efficiencies", "overpaid employees" or the "non-commercial nature" of anything have to taken with a small mountain of salt. :
(Of course, I work at a public radio station, and have worked at or for public & college radio stations most of my career, so I have my biases as well!)
As for whoever suggested national underwriting on NPR affiliate shows, they already have that. WBUR disguises it somewhat because they (as is allowed in their affiliate agreement) choose to have their local talent read the national spots. You rarely, if ever, hear the dulcet tones of Frank Tavares on WBUR. Don't know about WGBH. But on a lot of stations, you'll hear Frank reading all the national spots. Frankly (pun intended) this is part of the problem. NPR is working hard to prepare for a future where it bypasses member stations and sends content directly to the public. The last three CEO's have denied that, but the evidence is overwhelming. NPR has just enough revenue coming in the door that's not made up of station fees that it might...emphasis on might...be able to weather the ugly transition period before it can start fundraising to listeners directly, and effectively destroy the entire radio network to stand on its own. Arguably this is inevitable; the one-way nature of radio broadcasting will eventually become obsolete enough in the face of two-way communications media (i.e. the internet) that not only will NPR not need member stations, it will be counterproductive to be associated with them.
The problem is that for numerous infrastructure-related reasons...the technology won't reach that point for at least a decade, possibly two or three. That's a long time to stab your member stations in the back preparing for D-Day while simultaneously demanding they fund your preparations through affiliate fees.
The substantial (although recently rather reduced) national underwriting revenue that NPR earns "independent" of member stations is enough to help NPR think that they CAN weather that transition period. If national underwriting were blocked and NPR was solely dependent on member stations' affiliate fees, I would argue that it would force everyone to work more collaboratively...albeit undoubtedly at a substantial cost in quality of the network product.
Back to this in a second...
WNTIradio - every business spends "other people's money" on things. That's what a business DOES. What exactly would you suggest they do differently?
Also, you're implying that CPB merely hands over giant wads of cash arbitrarily to larger stations. This is not true. Smaller stations actually get LARGER standard CSG (the annual Community Service Grant, mainstay of CPB funding to stations) amounts each year. It's the bigger stations that choose to receive a smaller fixed amount but can apply a multiplier against their annual NFFS (Non-Federal Financial Support...i.e. the money they raise underwriting, fundraising, etc) and since they have larger budgets, their total grant is naturally higher. This is not done arbitrarily. It's done to encourage all stations to increase their total incoming revenue, on the theory that stations that are more successful financially are ALSO more successful in fulfilling their mission of public service. The logic is that since direct listener support (i.e. fundraising in all its forms) is the bulk of most stations' financing, and that people wouldn't give the station wasn't serving them appropriately, that stations who earn more money must be fulfilling their mission.
I don't deny it's an imperfect system, but compared to the alternatives, it's pretty good. Much like famous saying by Churchill: "democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms".
BTW, all the specifics of how CPB allocations money can be found at
www.cpb.org if you're really bored and feeling masochistic.
FWIW, however, I am inclined to agree that the CPB CSG system is getting outdated as a greater divide opens up between the "haves and have-nots" in public radio especially. And I'm not alone in that analysis,
fundraising guru John Sutton also recently blogged about it, too. And how it's actually a much larger and far-reaching problem than most people realize, due to the goals of NPR becoming increasing divergent from the goals of member stations.
