Page 303 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Nat onal Publ c Rad o

network has been pouring more and more money into its news operations,
and news continues to dominate cultural programming at the local level.
Daytime classical music and evening jazz, which historically comprised the
bulk of station broadcasts, have fallen by the wayside as stations (particu-
larly those in large markets) switch to all-news programming, relying heavily
on NPR satellite feeds and augmenting them with syndicated news and talk
programs. In addition, larger stations have aggressively expanded their oper-
ations by acquiring additional stations. Iowa, Colorado, and Minnesota pub-
lic radio now operate as umbrella organizations that feed programs to local
affiliates. NPR currently operates two channels on Sirius satellite radio, but
the “tent poles” of Morning Edition and All Things Considered remain firmly
staked to terrestrial broadcasting. Stations, which purchase programming
from NPR and other suppliers, would never allow their two chief moneymak-
ers to bypass them.
NPR also has entered the webcasting fray by offering streams of program-
ming to stations for rebroadcast on their Web sites, and the results have con-
founded consultants who claim that public radio listeners approach radio
passively, listening to stations rather than discrete programs. A director at
Boston’s WGBH found that Morning Edition was downloaded approximately
14,000 times a week in December 2005 despite no promotion whatsoever. In
contrast, the program’s RealAudio stream drew less than 50 listeners a week
(Janssen 2005). Yet the existence of a digital divide ensures that substantial
portions of the U.S. population will lack access to broadband technology in
the foreseeable future (although NPR historically has had little interest in less-
than-affluent audiences). Most importantly, the local stations that form the
core of the public radio system largely vend the programs—they don’t create
them. Instead, many public radio stations have become little more than juke-
boxes for syndicated programming.
A 2005 Harris Poll found that NPR was the most trusted news source in the
United States. NPR has cultivated an affluent, graying audience of approximately
20 million listeners per week, yet it has had little success in attracting young
or minority listeners, which bodes ill for its long-term future. More ominously,
nearly half of all public radio stations in the United States operated in the red
in 2003. The New York Times noted that “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” (Clemetson 2004). Radio is
uniquely suited to fill the role of a public medium. Its low cost and mobility
afford a sense of immediacy and flexibility that make it ideal for reflecting a
community’s history and constructing a community’s possibilities. As it is buf-
feted by technological change and internal politics, public radio may have to
rediscover the concepts of localism and diversity if it is to remain viable in the
twenty-first century.

see also Conglomeration and Media Monopolies; Media and Citizenship;
Nationalism and the Media; Pirate Radio; Public Access Television; Public