While federal funding cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are a tragedy for large and small market stations, large markets generally have a wide range of options for local news reporting. However, how will this affect stations in smaller markets?
I live in Harrisonburg, VA; a market with limited local media coverage. The local NPR station, WMRA, is one of those options. While the bulk of their programming is from national sources, they do a good job covering stories of interest to not only Harrisonburg but the wider Shenandoah Valley.
They have posted on their website that this change will cost them $170,000 annually. They claim this represents 11% of their budget. That is a significant loss of revenue.
Their over-the-air fundraising has been successful, and they approach it differently from other non-commercial stations. They fit their pitches within the normal breaks in programming. Listeners do not have to sit through ten-minute “beg-a-thons” extolling the virtues of supporting public media. The station has been doing this for years and, apparently, it works. Hopefully, they will be able to continue to use this approach.
Unfortunately, this is all uncharted territory.
If the government is willing to make such a fundamental change in how public media is funded, then the rules of engagement for these stations must change, as well.
Here’s my suggestion – let them compete on the same playing field as commercial radio stations. Rather than limiting non-coms to “sponsorships” or “supported by” mentions, allow them to run spots.
If you ever watch PBS, you often see cleverly disguised commercials in the run-up to a particular show. Why can’t non-commercial radio be allowed to do the same thing?
Will there be listener blowback? Most likely. But perhaps that can be used as a springboard to increase donations.
I do believe there should be a spot load cap, preferably agreed to by the stations and not one mandated by the government. And these stations should produce/run commercials that fit their on-air styles. In other words – no screaming car dealership ads.
Commercial radio will not like this, especially in markets like Washington, DC, San Francisco, or Seattle, where public radio generates market-leading shares.
The last thing radio needs as an industry is to lose, or see significantly damaged, an important part of our media landscape. NPR-style radio stations provide a different type of listening experience than traditional News or News/Talk stations. We need that diversity of programming to continue for the benefit of us all.
A lot of these stations operate in something call the non-commercial educational part of the FM dial. The rules for obtaining those licenses require them to be non-commercial. They are also owned by non-profit organizations. That would also be a problem if they ran commercials. But even beyond that, a lot of commercial stations have had to lay off staff because of declines in advertising revenue. The ad market isn’t an endless pot of money. We’ve seen three of the biggest radio companies go bankrupt because of declines in ad revenue. Adding commercials isn’t the solution. In fact, adding commercials eliminates one of the main selling points these stations have.
In addition, the FCC is currently doing an investigation into funding announcements like the ones you mentioned. They have their enforcement division investigating NPR and PBS. So its clear the government isn’t interested in allowing these stations to run commercials. Quite the contrary. They want to make it even harder for them to simply exist.
Comments are closed.