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

Tue Aug 31 10:12:51 PDT 2004

Krishna/Rachel,
So good to hear from you. I also saw the HAIR at Knightsbridge. Nice show
brings back memories.  Just heard from Artyom, sending some songs, wanting
to come here. He was also asking for Brian's address which I do not have. Do
you?
Hope you are well. I am and working, loving life.
Peace and Love,
Michael
-- "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only
exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess
from the public treasury. From that time on the majority always votes
for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury,
with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal
policy, always followed by a dictatorship.?
Sir Alexander Fraser Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee) (1747-1813)
RLW/Chicago


> 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-?-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=560556
> ac41490b2b
> 
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