Well, it’s that time of the year again. Public Radio wants my money and it will not allow me more than 10 minutes of blissful listening without a horribly shrill woman insisting that I “get off my kiester and get on the horn” to make a pledge.
Now, I love NPR. And I don’t really mind the pledge drives. I fing it amusing that every drive the most frequent guilt trip has to do with expensive coffee drinks. “Fifteen dollars a month is just one less latte a week!”
But, then it gets late in the week, and the local personalities start to get desperate, because it probably is their heads on the chopping block. And so they resort to accusing listeners of stealing. Sometimes it’s subtle, as in “You’ll pay for cable and high speed internet, but not public radio?” Sometimes it’s not so subtle, as in “It’s like stealing, folks.”
So, am I stealing? I’m not going to pay for public radio (and I don’t want to hear any “Why the hell nots?” unless you’d like to hear a long, boring tale of fiscal woe). Does anyone out there feel as guilty as I do during the pledge drives? Are we a bunch of information and entertainment banditos?
Hell no it’s not stealing. The product is available to everyone to use, like all broadcast radio and television. There’s nothing illegal about using it. There’s nothing unethical about using it. IF you wish to contribute, that’s fine, just as you’re welcome to contribute to the United Way or beggars on the street.
If our stations ever pulled that “stealing” crap, I’d make a point of never contributing again. I find that sort of heavy-handed manipulation far more distasteful than someone listening to a show while choosing not to donate.
STEALING? No way! It doesn’t matter if you can afford it or not. You are not obligated to pay for something that they are offering to you for free. It’s your money, so you are well within your moral rights to decide that it’s worth spending on a latte rather than NPR.
I can’t believe they’d even say that. I doubt that most people who watch a show on PBS feel that they are “stealing” if they don’t contribute.
I work for a public radio station. We just finished a pledge drive, for which I produced 90% of the on-air pitching. Our volunteers never, ever say the word stealing. They do compare it to the cost of a coffee a day, or other things, but they are never unpleasant or condescending, and we do not badger our listeners. We remind them of the services they are getting and that it is their contributions that pay for the programming that they like to hear. To continue to hear it, we need some of them to pay for it - in whatever amount they’d like. That is the total extent of our message. And every year, the fine folks in Florida give us a quarter of a million dollars.
They do advertise, though. Yesterday’s Fresh Air rebroadcast interview with Chuck Jones was brought to me by the new Warner Brothers cartoon DVD, complete with a short spiel describing the DVD’s contents. That’s advertising, right?
Technically, yes. In the world of public broadcasting, it’s called underwriting.
May I add that some folks are confusing who is asking for the cash? NPR doesn’t want your money. They have plenty. Ray Kroc set them up for life when he died, and they are underwritten up to the eyeballs by corporations. The money being asked for is for your local station to buy the programs you hear. The people breaking into the programs to pitch are at your local station.
I like NPR and listen to it for about an hour a weekend. But when I donate money, I choose to donate to other causes. I give X to toys-for-tots, and Y to the local homeless shelter, etc. etc.
If NPR were subscription based, I would not subscribe. That is the difference. I choose to subscribe to cable (although if I weren’t such an American Football fan, I might cancel) and I choose to subscribe to the internet. It is a choice. If NPR wants to go subscription based, that is fine with me, I’ll miss out on them. Actually, I don’t supose I would miss them that much.
I guess what I’m saying is, NO! It isn’t stealing. Decide if you can afford it, decide if this is where you want you money to go, and if the answer is no in either case, forget about it.
Advertisers pay other stations money to broadcast their message, knowing full well that not all that hear the commercial will buy the product.
The consumer’s obligation in this case is fulfilled merely by listening to the commercial; if they choose, then, to purchase the product, that is entirely up to them.
When NPR goes on a pledge drive, they are playing a commercial for their own product.
I consider my obligation fulfilled by listening to it.
Jeez! You guys aren’t listening! NPR DOES NOT DO PLEDGE DRIVES! The station on which you listen to NPR programming does. They are in almost all cases owned and operated by a university. They need to get that cash to buy the programs from somewhere: the people who like them enough to support them. End of story. We don’t care if you listen without paying. It’s not stealing. All we ever say about it is, if you like it enough to send in a few bucks to help purchase the next season of Morning Edition/ATC, please do so. If not, no loss. Just don’t come on with that smug putdown kind of attitude when you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
And you aren’t reading! Maybe your station does things the way you say, but the OP made it clear that his is more agressive. Can you say for sure that he is lying? To quote you: Just don’t come on with that smug putdown kind of attitude when you don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Just to chime in, my local NPR station has had one person say that it was pretty much stealing to listen to NPR without pledging. To be honest, I listen, and I don’t pledge. According to their own stats that they used during the pledge drive, only 1 out of 7 regular listeners do pledge. I find the pledge drives vaguely offensive in how they’re executed, and I do end up wondering if I should pledge, then not, every time.
It’s still not stealing even if they could afford to give $100 a month and don’t. Sure, it’d be great if the people who could afford that much donated, but they’re still not actually stealing if they don’t.
Interesting question, on an ethical level. I would agree that if a public radio station generally portrays itself as being free to listen to and supporting itself on the generosity of those who feel moved to make donations, then they can’t get away with turning around and accusing you of stealing if you don’t feel moved or generous enough to make a donation.
On the other hand, I think a radio station that wanted to be straightforward about it could set up an implicit contract with listeners that I would consider to be ethically binding. One of the requirements would be announcing regularly the terms of listenership, all the time and not just at annual pledge drives, so that if someone is listening regularly they would not long remain unaware of the situation. Also several details would need to be nailed down - how long a ‘trial period’ a new listener is entitled to to decide if he or she likes the station, what a reasonable donation is and how frequently it should be sent in. (Exemptions for those with insufficient means is a tricky bit.)
Basically, I see it as the station putting its listeners on the honor system… fair enough if they can get any listeners who are happy to listen to it on that basis. (And of course there WILL be some people who are reasonably content to be unethical and will break the system… that’s just life.)
Where do you work, fishbicycle? In the morning and during my commute, I listen to WLRN (Miami) and occasionally WXEL (West Palm Beach). However, all day at work I listen to WXPN (Philadelphia), so I’ve chosen to contribute to them.
Zjestika, I feel vaguely guilty during pledge, but so far not enough to contribute to more than one public radio station.
