[Mb-hair] NYTimes.com Article: NPR' s Growing Clout Alarms Member Stations

Mon Aug 30 22:13:31 PDT 2004

michael...its krishna...rachel....i havent seen you or spoken to you in so long!  i went to see hair in silverlake on saturday night...and it made me miss old times!  how are you?  love, peace, and harmony.

The article below from NYTimes.com 
has been sent to you by michael at intrafi.com.

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NPR's Growing Clout Alarms Member Stations

August 30, 2004
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 - With a newly robust endowment burning
holes in its not-for-profit pockets, National Public Radio
is in the midst of a major expansion. But NPR's ambition
has stirred anxiety within the public radio system over how
to preserve the character and financial viability of local
stations in the ever larger shadow of the national
production service they created more than 30 years ago as a
modest support operation. 

NPR, a member organization governed in part by local
stations, is pumping $15 million into its news division
over the next three years, using interest from a recent
bequest of more than $236 million from Joan B. Kroc, the
widow of Ray A. Kroc of McDonald's. NPR executives have
touted the expansion as unmatched in a time of media
cutbacks and consolidations. 

But at a meeting earlier this month in Los Angeles between
NPR executives and station managers from the top 25 radio
markets to discuss cultivating future major gifts, the NPR
team faced a flurry of pointed questions about its
long-term intentions. 

Among the questions, according to several station
representatives: Was NPR trying to woo away coveted local
donors? What, if anything, would NPR give to member
stations from the Kroc endowment? And what about rumors
that NPR was considering taking its top-rated shows to
satellite radio? 

"The local stations created NPR as a newsgathering
organization for us," said Alan Chartock, president and
chief executive of WAMC Northeast Public Radio, a regional
network that serves seven states from Pennsylvania to
Vermont. "If the tail is now wagging the dog to literally
compete with us, then we have to protect ourselves." 

Kevin Klose, the president and chief executive of NPR, said
it was merely responding to an increased appetite for the
type of wide-ranging, in-depth news that public radio can
provide. NPR's audience has doubled in the past 10 years to
roughly 22 million listeners a week, according to Arbitron.

"We want to be the authoritative source for broadcast
journalism in this country," Mr. Klose said, "the place
people go to first." 

The first fruits of the expansion will become evident soon.
To cover more breaking news and to provide more
investigative and analytical reporting, NPR is spending $4
million this year for everything from domestic beat
reporters to expanded foreign bureaus to pricey satellite
telephones that transmit higher quality sound. 

Many public radio executives contend that NPR's growth
offers potential benefits for all players. While people are
spending less time listening to radio over all, public
radio's share of radio listenership is up, from roughly 1
percent 20 years ago to more than 5 percent of all
listeners today, according to the Station Resource Group, a
public radio strategy and analysis organization. 

Much of the anxiety about NPR's growth has less to do with
changes at NPR than with broader changes on the radio
landscape. 

Satellite radio companies are fast expanding their services
to include channels with public-radio-like content and
sensibility. Last month XM Satellite Radio - the largest
satellite operator, with 2.1 million subscribers -
announced that it had hired Bob Edwards, the former host of
NPR's flagship news program "Morning Edition," for a
competing morning broadcast. 

That move sparked fears among public radio stations that
NPR, to remain competitive, might consider offering
"Morning Edition" and its other staple, "All Things
Considered," to Sirius Satellite Radio, XM's rival. The two
NPR-produced programs are keys to sustaining listenership
and fund-raising for many public radio stations, which pay
millions in annual dues and programming fees to NPR to
support their production. 

"These programs have required an enormous public
investment," said Ruth Seymour, general manager of KCRW in
Santa Monica, Calif. "To simply sell them to a commercial
entity is completely against the principles of public
radio." 

NPR has a contract to program two Sirius channels, NPR Talk
and NPR Now. But Mr. Klose said there were no plans to add
the top-rated news programs to its satellite lineup against
station wishes. "We will respond to the will of the
system," he said. "And the will of the system right now is
that they should be where they are." 

Still, executives at both NPR and the two satellite
companies speak of their continuing flirtation as something
that will eventually bloom into a more serious
relationship. 

Jay Clark, executive vice president of programming at
Sirius, said he hoped to add NPR's top programs to his
schedule "down the line." And XM is poised to approach NPR
when its contract with Sirius expires in 2007. 

"I love 'Morning Edition' and 'All Thing Considered,' "
said Hugh Panero, XM's president and chief executive. "I
would love, when it becomes appropriate, to explore having
them on XM Satellite Radio, and I hope NPR would be open to
exploring making them available to the largest possible
audience." 

As stations confront inevitable changes in the structure
and distribution of public radio, they are also being
forced to examine their own reliance on NPR. While local
stations created NPR in 1970 to act as a centralized
producer and distributor to supplement their own
programming, it now provides up to half of the content for
many of the more than 770 stations that make up the
country's public radio system. 

For years stations have sought to diversify their
programming options. Public Radio International, which was
also created by stations and has become NPR's primary
competitor, markets and distributes programs produced by
local stations, like "Marketplace," the popular business
and economics report produced by Minnesota Public Radio,
and Michael Feldman's "Whad'Ya Know," a weekly
entertainment show produced by Wisconsin Public Radio. 

This year Minnesota Public Radio moved to strengthen its
position as a content provider by forming American Public
Media, which independently distributes programs like
Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion." 

But the newer national distributors, too, are changing with
the times. Both Public Radio International and American
Public Media are providing content for satellite radio. 

"Listeners are embracing new technologies," said Jim
Russell, general manager of American Public Media West and
the creator of "Marketplace." "If you don't get on the
train, it's going to leave the station. It's as if the
makers and users are stretching their arms trying to reach
one another in new ways, and in the middle there are the
stations trying to figure out an economic model to make the
new reality work." 

To remain viable, many managers say that their local
stations must gain more leverage vis-à-vis NPR by producing
and promoting more of the kind of distinctive, localized
programs and segments that help shape public radio's
eclectic character. 

"We have to work very hard to make sure NPR sees our
relationship as a joint partnership and an opportunity to
work together as opposed to them being highly resourced and
the stations being merely a vehicle to transmit their
programs," said Laura Walker, president and chief executive
of WNYC in New York. "I think the jury is still out as to
whether they get it. But I'm hoping that they will." 

After building for years, the imbalance in resources
between local stations and NPR has been exacerbated by the
Kroc endowment. The donation was facilitated by Ms. Kroc's
long relationship with her local public radio station, KPBS
in San Diego. The gift, and the future development that it
has made possible, Mr. Klose said, made NPR executives
realize that there should be a joint strategic plan with
the stations to cultivate other major donations. 

One idea thrown out by Mr. Klose and others at the meeting
in Los Angeles was to allow NPR to court donors in local
markets more directly. "We may have 22 million listeners,
but we can't tell you who they are," he said. "The stations
have those databases. The Joan Kroc gift demonstrates that
there is potential for fund-raising out there in the
country that we need to explore." 

Talk of directly courting local benefactors left many at
the meeting squeamish. 

"NPR has had its appetite whet by this gift," said Torey
Malatia, president and general manager of Chicago Public
Radio. "It's kind of stunning to many of us in the system,
because having that kind of money in the endowment is like
a dream. But all it's done is create a scramble for even
more. Now they want to know if there is a way to come into
communities to meet people, wine and dine them and get more
gifts." 

Mr. Malatia and other station managers say that NPR's
growth is ultimately good for the entire public radio
system but that it will require a shift in the way stations
and NPR view and work with one another. 

Many in public radio speak of the system as a big,
dysfunctional but close-knit and loyal family. That
perspective, Mr. Malatia said, is perilously out of step
with the times. 

"NPR has gotten so good that it needs to be managed as a
business, rather than as a familial adjunct to stations,"
he said. "Many of us have been caught sleeping, and we have
to get moving, so that we can stand with NPR, each of us
doing something distinct, but the sum of which amounts to
an irreplaceable public service." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/arts/30npr.html?ex=1094903314&ei=1&en=560556ac41490b2b

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