Page 301 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

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agenda of the university stations that formed the backbone of the public radio
system. While these stations may have welcomed the raised profile and pres-
tige afforded by national programming, many chafed at carrying programs
that did not “fit” their affluent audiences or clashed with classical music
programming.
Such conflicts are inevitable whenever new structures are overlaid on older
organizational forms, and station representation has been an ongoing source of
conflict within the public radio system. Public radio has been subject to fluctua-
tions in federal and state funding, which contributes to the system’s instability.
NPR continued to turn in a “hard news” direction with the implementation of
Morning Edition in November 1979. Reflecting the growing clout of consultants
with backgrounds in commercial radio, Morning Edition was designed on a
“clock hour” format, with set time segments for stories and frequent cutaways
to local stations. To some critics, Morning Edition represented a milestone in
NPR’s history: the transformation from a program, or series of contiguous pro-
grams, to a service, or as Looker notes, “something that listeners would not listen
to from beginning to finish” (1995, p. 123).

ThE rEagan yEars
The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 plunged public
broadcasting into crisis. The new administration initially proposed to end all
funding for public broadcasting; the final budget included drastic funding cuts.
NPR then embarked on a series of self-sustaining venture capital projects that
would replace government funding by 1987. The projects were ill-conceived
and haphazardly implemented, however, and NPR came within 24 hours of fil-
ing for bankruptcy in June 1983. The network was rescued by a last-minute
loan from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the bailout would
have a cost. NPR would have to open its satellite system to competitors such
as American Public Radio, and nearly all federal funding would go to stations,
who then would purchase programming from NPR and its competitors (NPR
presently receives only 2 percent of its funding directly from the federal gov-
ernment). NPR would stake its reputation on news and public affairs program-
ming, and cultural and performance programming would continue largely as
afterthoughts.
NPR showed a profit by 1985, but the days of significant innovation at the
network were over. National programming decisions were now driven by sta-
tions, which increasingly relied on commercially derived audience research
methodologies to determine their schedules. As federal and state funding con-
tinued to shrink, listener donations became the fastest-growing sector of sup-
port for public radio stations. These stations sought shows that would retain
audiences in midday and during evenings (after the “tent poles” of Morning
Edition and All Things Considered), as well as shows that could be “stripped,” or
programmed at the same time every day. Programming that didn’t fit into this
mold was axed; one public radio consultant quipped that the best time to sched-
ule radio drama was “1938” (Stavitsky 1995).