National Public Radio listeners are being inundated with warnings that they soon may have to drive to work every morning without the sonorous intonations of Morning Edition’s Corey Flintoff, Steve Inskeep, and Renée Montagne, and may be forced to drive home without the narrative drone of All Things Considered’s Robert Siegel, Michele Norris, and Melissa Block.
Just this morning, I received a panicked e-mail from the director of broadcasting at an NPR affiliate in my home state, Michigan. You know, one of those state-based public-radio operations that just last October received a portion of George Soros’s $1.8 million Open Society Foundation gift to hire two government reporters in each of the 50 states; one of the same group of radio stations benefiting from the Joan Kroc Foundation’s $200 million endowment in 2003; one of the same stations that host interminable on-air fundraisers at least twice a year.
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They are warning that Congress may eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that heaps money on 900 NPR affiliates across the country.
The warnings reek of disingenuousness.
After all, crying poverty is public broadcasting’s modus operandi. If it didn’t do it extremely well, no one would donate during those radiothons, corporations wouldn’t spend huge sums of money to sponsor programming, and “people just like you” wouldn’t forgo paying the cable bill so they could help meet a challenge grant from their neighbors and co-workers.
As an example of how much begging public radio does, Wisconsin Public Radio — a network of 32 stations programmed by seven regional stations – reported that 13 percent of its total budget in 2009 was used for fundraising. Additionally, the network’s website reveals that 25 percent ($1.94 million) of the revenues garnered from listener and corporate donations ($6.25 million and $1.58 million, respectively) are directly allocated to fundraising.
So it came as no surprise when I received the director’s e-mail, which warns, “I believe this is one of the most serious challenges to public broadcasting that we have ever faced.”
Not mentioned in his emotional appeal are the substantial costs American taxpayers are stuck with.
According to dedicated public-broadcasting professionals at several stations in Michigan with whom I’ve had the pleasure of speaking without a single Freedom of Information Act request, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocates federal tax dollars every year to state NPR affiliates. Station personnel I interviewed this past week said that the sums granted to affiliates range from $258,000 to approximately $450,000 annually.
Why, that’s “only $1.35 per American per year,” according to the e-mail. But not every one of the 300-plus million people in the United States is forced to pony up that buck thirty-five. If we hypothetically assume that 150 million people file federal tax returns and that half of those receive substantial refunds, that makes NPR’s share more like $5.40 per person. That’s still relatively insignificant for enlightened fans of Terry Gross and Diane Rehm — but it’s $5.40 more than most of the people who don’t listen to public radio would pay if they had a choice.
Moreover, the public “donations” don’t stop at direct coercion by the federal government. State taxpayers cover a big chunk of public radio’s bill through subsidies to state universities and colleges that house transmitters, offices, studios, and utilities. One publicly supported station in Michigan told me that this arrangement amounts to 12 percent ($405,159) of its annual budget. Wisconsin Public Radio has a similar 10 percent ($1.6 million) “indirect/in-kind” arrangement.
In addition, there is often direct support from the colleges and universities, which again are supported by taxpayers. In many cases the college’s board of trustees owns the broadcast license of the station nestled on its campus, so a line-item designation is included in the college’s annual budget. The Michigan public university referred to above bestows $1.1 million on its public-radio station (that’s 32.8 percent of the station’s total annual revenues). Likewise, Wisconsin colleges contributed 23 percent of Wisconsin Public Radio’s $16 million revenues in 2009.
There are plenty of other arguments for defunding public radio (and public television as well), but the basic one is this: Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to support the luxury of public radio.
— Bruce Edward Walker (bwalker@heartland.org) is managing editor of The Heartland Institute’s InfoTech & Telecom News.
Public Radio and Public Television is really just Democrat Radio and Democrat Television. They want everyone else to pay for broadcasting left wing, liberal points of view and shutting out all other viewpoints. Let's end taxpayer funding of public broadcasting now! Let them pay for their own, one-sided viewpoints for a Change!
If the demand existed for the government propaganda on government radio, the government would not need to plunder taxpayer wealth to run it.
It's a religious entity for the elites, or at least their understanding of religion. Forced tithing followed by endless fundraising to create the potemkin village of spiritual enlightenment.
I thought that NPR only got 2 to 3 percent of its funding from tax dollars (as they claimed in the aftermath of the Juan Williams firing)? If that's the case, then cut them loose. I've cut back by much more than that in these current economic times.
I wish Mr. Walker had also mentioned some of the salaries that NPR and CPB management and talent bring down. Of course, when they're fundraising, no one ever says they need donations to cover Terry Gross's $200k salary-plus-benefits.
I think it's money well spent. Jazz shows are awesome and they wouldn't survive on commercial radio. But Jazz is worth saving since it's such an American treasure.
I think they should add commericials and raise the prices of their podcast and shows they produce. They could raise a lot more money but give most of it away. Everyone of Ken Burns movies are available free at the local library.
Good radio can pass the test of the market, even without becoming "commercial." The superb classical radio station WCPE, headquartered in Wake Forest, NC but available on the internet world-wide, has been on the air since 1978 without any government financial support. WCPE doesn't always hit its fundraising goals, but finds ways of adjusting costs to the revenues available. I would like to see all the "public radio" stations follow suit.
I sometimes listen to NPR from USF when I'm in Tampa, because I enjoy the classical music they play. Should "All Things Considered" come on, I quickly flip to another station. The things they say on that radio program are just idiotic.
The CPB is chronically mismanaged because it can draw on public funds. If it were run like a university or college it would have a self-sustaining endowment by now. But instead its executives play shell-games and put on corporate welfare acts to make sure that their networks didn't see a dime of the massive merchandising revenues from shows brought to market with public funds like Sesame Street and Barney.
Instead their pals at HiT and the Sesame Project (formerly Children's Television Workshop) received those revenues without a percentage cut going to pay for the network like they do for the non-subsidized networks out there.
This and other willful acts of management make it very clear, on paper, that CPB and its affiliates are purposefully running perpetual shortfalls to insure permanent public subsidy rather than engaging in a self-sustaining non-profit model.
There is a smug, unctuous, self satisfied tone of definitive magisterial pronouncement that colors the near totality of NPR programming. That alone is reason to cut it off at the pockets. Folks who like that stuff should pay for it.
I don't understand the reference to tax refunds. If I get a tax refund, this doesn't mean I am failing to pay for NPR, only that I paid for it earlier than some of those who don't get refunds.
That is, if any of us can be said to have paid for it at all, since the background of this is precisely that taxpayers are not paying for everything they get, and thus if they don't want to pay more, they need to cut some of the things they get. Not everyone is going to be happy that NPR is to be cut, but it is hardly a vital government operation like defense, police, and prisons.
Oh for heaven's sake what a lot of codswallop! There are a lot of good things on Public Radio and Public TV (TV: American Experience, MI-5, Mystery, Masterpiece Theatre, Ken Burn's Baseball and National Parks series, Huell Howser, Tavis Smiley, Jim Lehrer etc)... Yes, there is a Democratic bent on SOME Public Radio programs, but there are also some great shows like Marketplace and some fantastic music (jazz, bluegrass, old standards, alternative rock) plus some great human interest stories which have no political agenda at all. Listen a little! Watch some! Enjoy! Gotta go now and listen to more Public Radio! see ya!
"There is a smug, unctuous, self satisfied tone of definitive magisterial pronouncement that colors the near totality of NPR programming. That alone is reason to cut it off at the pockets. Folks who like that stuff should pay for it."
The only way you could know that your statement was if you actually listened to the 'totality' of NPR programming. I suggest that the probability that you listen to all of NPRs programming is 1 in a trillion.
Discussing the merits of funding NPR is reasonable, but the programming is the best you'll find on the radio and not nearly as left-wing-commie as you believe. Maybe you should listen to NPR a little before you recite the talking points...
So, bob jones, let's see if I get this straight: If I never listen to NPR, then I have no basis for criticizing the use of my tax dollars to help pay for it?
Um, why is there any "need" for local NPR/PBS? With the bulk of station budgets going to fundraising, how much of the programming budget goes to that? And what are local programing's ratings (listener per taxpayer buck)?
Why not consolidate it all in Washington, distribute it by satellite/internet, and let the centralized outfit exist on tax-exempt fundraisers? Everyone gets what they want, right?
NPR/PBS is not a vital role of government - and there's no debating that. It is welfare for the hearing elite. Let it stand on its own bottom.
BTW: Anybody seen most PBS/NPR facilities compared to their private sector broadcast bretherns'? Whooo-eeeee! Nice stuff there, and no taxes on the capital equipment, largely bought with grants. Plus they are selling ads in competition with competitors who pay taxes. YIKES!
NPR is at its best only on the weekends when regular AM radio seems to think we Rush/Hannity listeners disappear and are replaced by people who care about gardening and divorce law advice. And now that the History Channel has become such a humbug ("Ice Road Truckers"???), PBS often compares favorably.
I watch and listen to PBS/NPR, but as a taxpayer I am perfectly immune to their "free rider" guilt trip attempts during pledge drives. I will not donate willingly so long as I am forced to "contribute" via taxes.
I listen to NPR in Tampa during my commute. Deconstructing every news story to discover their bias and selective reporting is educational. Listening to the echo chamber that is the Diane Rehm Show also helps me better understand the progressive mind.
I would love to see under the NewsHour shell to see what that costs the stations. Or better yet, the Bill Moyers contract. Hatch that baby open and the cry will be heard in Oahu. PBS has fine tuned the art of public begging. It is one well oiled machine. What aspiring social climber would not want to walk down the street with a NewHour umbrella.
