Well, it's that time of year again, when my local National Public Radio station (WNYC AM & FM) interrupts programs with appeals for money so it can give me interruption-free programming, unlike commercial radio.
The basic marketing concept is to make you feel like a deadbeat for getting a free ride on the airwaves. The fact is, most of us are. Getting things like radio free is an inalienable right, guaranteed by the Constitution somewhere, an extension of the public health and education clause, as well as free speech, whatever.
In playing the guilt card, these eleemosynary institutions' marketing people have tried everything but read off a list of names of those who haven't given yet: "Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan, Lady Gaga..."
The other day I heard the good news that Sundays had been bought back. There will be no pledge because listeners had contributed that day's daily quota by pledging early. If we cough up enough money now, we can have Saturday back. It's a new form of media extortion: "Pay -- or we kill a day."
What a shame there aren't more listeners like the late Joan Kroc, widow of Ray Kroc, the guy who founded McDonald's (NYSE: MCD). My favorite NPR pledgee left the public radio network more than $200 million when she died in 2003. That's a lot of hamburgers!
If only other public spirited citizens, who didn't make their fortunes by inventing double whoppers with double cheese and bacon that might create obesity in the young, would help public broadcasting with its financial problems. I can't help but think of Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) with its billions stashed away offshore, accumulated by serving the public's thirst for fast info and talk.
The only problem with giving them money in public broadcasting is they never seem to have enough. Based on 35 years of watching begathons on TV as well as radio, here's Kitman's Law: The more you give them, the more they need.
If only Congress had set up a steady revenue stream for public broadcasting, instead of trying to abolish it every year, a tradition that began with the Nixon and Reagan administrations. The mistake LBJ made when pushing through the 1968 law establishing public broadcasting is not mandating the system be funded by, say, a non-political across-the-board 6% deduction on profits from commercial station license holders to pay for public broadcasting, a system that works so well in the UK.
Unfortunately, the Johnson family had extensive broadcast holdings in Texas at the time.
A one-time tax on new TV sets also might have helped with any shortfalls.
But the horse is out of the barn. How would I pay for it now without the evil of interrupting programs to give us interruption- free broadcasting?
Assuming public broadcasting is necessary and proper in a democracy, providing diversity of opinion, and not a waste of taxpayer money, as Mitt Romney is the latest to suggest, I would have credit card companies like Visa and MasterCard (but not American Express, with its higher processing fees) tack on to monthly statements a small charge.
Two check-off boxes would do it:
Yes, I want to support public broadcasting
No, I'm a deadbeat
So if you want to be "a viewer like you," just say so. Or you could opt out, and nobody would ever know what a deadbeat you are, except your credit card company.
Just yesterday, I was stuck in traffic, happily listening to a report on the collapse of our economy as we know it, when BOOM...the annoying plea for donations. My mother spent years guilting me into action. I don't need public radio taking over now.
With the exception of some extemely fat cats at the top of the ladder they pay very poorly. I've known people who work clerking part time in order to subsidize their Public Radio position.
The days of having to have a station serving even the tiniest markets are long gone. Internet radio has rendered that model obsolete.
There was a time when the only place you could find programming like Steve Allens "Meeting of the Minds" was PBS - that's not the case anymore.
Many of the slow talkers and support staff are either trust fund babies or people who've taken a vow of poverty in order to look cool and socially committed.
The top execs in that system know that such disdain for money is merely a trick of the rich and so they reward themselves handsomely.
Start up costs should have been the biggest costs incurred. Start up costs surely are not reoccuring costs. But running costs also seem to be high if the number of requests for donations are so high. Where exactly does all that money go if employees are paid so poorly?
PBS President Paula Kerger earned $632,233, NPR former President Kevin Klose $1.2 million, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting CEO Patricia de Stacy Harrison earned $298,884, plus $70,630 in additional compensation.
I dont begrudge anyone the maximum they can earn. ( People are truly worth what they can get ) But you have to ask youself how many of these folks have offered to reduce salaries, how many execs have taken paycuts before going begging during pledge week.
Fresh Air host / executive producer Terry Gross: $245,563 in 2008
This American Life host Ira Glass: earned $170,605 in 2008
I too, won't begrude anyone money they've earned. Would point out that the average listener who donates $35 bucks, is making a lot less than these hosts. Same could be said of the average taxpayer.
So why doesn't NPR just adopt an advertising model for their funding?
@predictable chaos You brought up a good point. If they are having a difficult time with funding and has to pledge for it so agressively there must be something wrong. May be times have changed. It might be time to change their business model and do a bit of advertising.
I've heard stories about our local PBS affiliate about bloated salaries ... essentially trying to live like paid-for TV stars. I believe in public media and I believe in government funds for it because for-profit media is far more corrupt. But I agree that they need to change their business model and end the once-a-month fundraising.
I don't know that those salaries are shockingly high. NPR is basically in every radio market in the country (and some overseas). Millions of people listen to it, it's a big market.
If you compare it to what Rush Limbaugh or Howard Stern make, it's peanuts. Those guys make millions of dollars a year.
So if you work for public radio you should work for free? I don't get it. They're working in big market radio at what are likley below-market rates. That's good enough for me.
Just saying I'm not going to be "shocked" by those salaries cause they are not that shocking. Of all the nits to pick in government this is a small one.
The radio people actually work and produce something. Now if you want to talk about U.S. Congressmen that's a different story. They are supposed to be serving the public good but instead they churn out thousands of pages of usless documents working for lobbyists while they are pulling down $175+ and more + benefits and there are hundreds of them.
They don't have to work for free. But if you are going to go on the air and ask for money lead by example. A 1million plus salary can probably be trimmed a little to support the cause.
I'm in total agreement with you about Congress.
Agreed. I don;t care what someone earns -- unless he's begging for my money to earn it. Then I think I have a right to expect him to accept a more modest paycheck.
The other thing to consider: some of the NPR salaries are significantly higher than salaries for similar positions at for-profit media companies. How does that make sense?
It's like those guys begging at the subway in NYC -- to live in houses nicer than the ones the people who support them have.
Well not to beat a dead horse, we can agree to disagree, but the reason they ask for viewer support is so that Altria doesn't sponsor the investigative piece on the cigarette industry and they can have less advertisements.
But I'd agree with a 10% pay cut. What the heck. Pledge drives are annoying anyway.
"the reason they ask for viewer support is so that Altria doesn't sponsor the investigative piece on the cigarette industry."
I've always wondered why people were so convinced that the integrity of a journalist could be compromised by a sponsor, or even through gifts or freebies. My experience has been just the opposite--most reporters I have known would gladly take your free gifts or your sponsorship and then treat you with as much disdain and distrust as everyone else. And in fairness, when I worked at newspapers, there was never any pressure to tone down a story for the sake of an advertiser.
In fact, a team of reporters at my old paper won a Pulitzer for an expose of shady transplant practices at a leading medical facility -- the same facility that spent a lot of money advertising its services in our paper.
So I'm not sold on the fact that fairness is related to lack of advertising.
"most reporters I have known would gladly take your free gifts or your sponsorship and then treat you with as much disdain and distrust as everyone else."
This is pure gold. Love it!
"And in fairness, when I worked at newspapers, there was never any pressure to tone down a story for the sake of an advertiser."
Yes.......but newspapers are different now. The Philly Inquirer has been owned by corporate giants who could - not saying do or would do - but conceivably could attempt to influence coverage in some manner. And remember the recent controversies at the LA Times....
I know you are right Kevin...the news business changed when they replaced newspeople with corporate bean counters. But I still hold onto my fantasies of what was.
Stern and Limbaugh, like them or not, generate returns for the companies they work for in the form of listeners, sponsors, whatever. The NPR audience generates what? Pledges? So select hosts can make pretty healthy salaries (while lots of low level employees make next to nothing?) Hardly seems like a great deal.
Just drop the pretense: Let NPR be for-profit, and let the salaries for the hosts gravitate to the fair market value...without the need to beg for $5 here and $5 there.
Let's pay people according to what they accomplish not based on what they can accumulate at the public trough.
Any station that fires Jaun Williams for his opinion on a station that presents only opinion does not deserve universal support from those of us unwilling to support them. The $90 million a year that is extracted from taxpayers could well be directed elsewhere, certainly not to the salary of former CEO Vivian Schiller after she was caught in an outright bit of bias damning the right wing while trying to raise 5 million in donations from questionable sources.
I would gladly pay a fee to continue listen to Car Talk, which is the only program I listen to on the station, after learning 35 years ago that everything they said was biased.
I just love reading Kitman's posts. Where else can I be amused when a self-professed registered Republican juxtaposes three of his heros; "Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and Lady Gaga" together in a single sentence.
And where else can I chuckle over the attribution to NPR of "interruption-free programming," even though my favorite, "Car Talk," is cut into three sections separated by commercials, introduced with a list of their benefactors and ended with a referral to their "shameless commerce division?"
It sure is nice to have a source for the logic of public support for the spewing of one-side opinion and an occasional bit of news.
Good point on the commercials. But Car Talk is awesome. One of my favorites.
It is interesting how some of the public broadcasting shows have turned into big hits. Bob Vila did pretty well on the "This Old House" franchise. I wonder if he pledges them any money?
I never miss Car Talk @Scott, I listen to their free pod cast and can skip the interludes as well. However, I would happily pay them directly to listen, but would not send NPR a dime.
Note also that as soon as Bob Villa discovered that he could make a living outside of Public Television, he did so. Free enterprise at work -- three cheers!
Bringing up Bob Vila reminded me of how well the National Public Media works the system. The following is from an article in People Magazine around the time of the Vila firing for what was called his transgressions.
I think the following paragraphs give all the reasons we need to stop supporting public broadcasting.
Still, some of the show's own foundations have now begun looking shaky to critics of its ethics. The most ominous charge: The lure of free materials from manufacturers has subtly altered its how-to-build format into one of how to buy, giving the appearance, at least, that the spirit of commercial-free broadcasting is being compromised.
By the time the army of carpenters showed up at the Dromgoole house in July 1987, the program staff no longer demonstrated how to repair an old sink at minimum cost. Instead, they laid in state-of-the-art fixtures and brought in a decorating team from Country Home magazine. To "pay" for the donated products, brand names were dutifully touted and lingered on by cameras until Morash calculated that he had settled the account. His self-admitted call to the cameramen-"Hey, have we paid these guys off yet?"-became a commercial tocsin to the Old House crew. "This isn't cutting-edge technology being showcased," grouses one employee of WGBH-TV, the Boston flagship station that produces the show. "It's cutting-edge advertising."
Morash, for his part, denies pushing product names in front of the cameras but says the show's annual budget-about $1 million-makes accepting those products a necessity. And if a company is generous enough to supply wood or wiring, "we have a responsibility to show it or mention it. I think it's only fair."
I agree lets be very honest the pledge drives are irritating and in this day and age there are more efficient ways to get donors to donate, trying recurring donation plans with benefits, email campaigns and mobile campaigns could be some of the ways to try and get donations throughout the year.
Does it not even enter into your thinking @impactnow that perhaps they have no money because they have no value?
Or perhaps, if you think they have value does it even cross your mind that advertisers might also think so and they could release the taxpayers $90 million and work for a living?
So I'm not sold on the fact that fairness is related to lack of advertising.
I'm with Noreen on this one. And Altira is a shining example that makes the point - advertising doesn't buy any special favors. For decades, cigarette advertisers spent more on print advertising than almost any other segment.
During and after that, how did newspapers and magazines treat them? Not with any special favor that I saw. Almost the opposite - it was a race to see who could be the strongest anti-smoking advocate on the opinion pages and in the reporting.
Plus, NPR basically has advertisements anyway. Should we just drop the pretense and make it a commercial network?
@PredictableChaos, you are right. Just last night, I was watching my local PBS station and saw basically a full-length Honda commercial, the same one I would see watching NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.
@Noreen, you have the old-timey reporter's attitude dead-on. I know of some newspaper reporters, too, who won't accept any freebies, especially from companies they are covering for their writing. I also know of publishers who demand that editorial coverage of their advertisers at least be toned down, if not spun with a happy face. The firewall between sales and editorial has eroded over the years in all media outlets -- TV, print, B2B...
As usual, Marvin, you nailed it. Public broadcasting needs a stable source of funding that is outside of politics. I have a modest proposal: Let's tax the Tisch family and use the money for public radio and TV. That way they can atone for the mess that the late Larry Tisch made of CBS.
Carly Rae Jepsen has a hit with "Call Me Maybe," a sunny pop song. So NPR producer Brent Baughman cornered some NPR personalities and put together an NPR version of the song.
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