RobotArm already made this request upthread, but, yeah, you’re going to need a cite here.
According to information available from the NPR website, local radio station money comes from the following sources:
32.1% Individual contributions
21.1% Business contributions
13.6% University funds
10.1% Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds
9.6% Foundation money
5.6% Federal, state, and local government funds
7.6% Other
Red font indicates what is commonly discussed as being from “government” sources.
16% does not equal 80%+ as you claim.
Also, fat salaries for local news hosts? Not so much, it would appear.
Hey ChicagoJeff, are you referring to Lois Reitzes? Must admit, her voice just crawls all over me.
Read carefully- realmarine says it’s 80% of the actual, “not stated”, budget. Clearly the stated budget is just a smoke screen to hide the fact that the government is paying 80% of the “real budget”. :dubious:
Frankly, I wish he was right. I can’t think of a better place my government dollars would go to, than educating and engaging the public with intelligent news reporting.
in my version of 1984, the people at the pledge telephones can look out of the telescreen at you and complain.
“You – Smith, Winston, you’re not giving enough!. Look at me, I’m the mother of two, yet I give once a month! And I have this handsome tote bag and umbrella!”
I’m sure some senator from Oklahoma will be along with a bill to prohibit publicly funded broadcasters from pulling one anothers’ pud on air, to protect our children.
You might be right. Logically, it sounds plausible that every person and organization is operating optimally at all times, and that all management is based on rational analysis of good data.
Surprisingly often, I find that not to be the case, however.
The public college station I volunteer at, WTJU, always does special programming during fundraising to help mitigate the annoyance of the pledge drive. I will be doing to two such shows during the fund drive in April (one on “Deep Woods Ambient” and one on “Dada and Surrealism”) and I am already prepping now for those shows now.
A heck of a lot of volunteer work goes into these drives. Alas, no matter how you do it, asking for money is never that pleasant for the askee.
yup, can’t get behind your rant either. You are mad at a service that you do not pay for, that does not have commercials to fund themselves, because they are asking for money to fund themselves. You have never paid them money in all your free listening, but you think MORE free listening will entice people like you to pay…
That’s how I felt about the PBS station in my old town, which was in an economically depressed rural area. Shortly before I moved away, that station had pretty much transformed itself into one giant infomercial, and it wasn’t even GOOD programming that they were showing!
I am amused at the PBS pledge season programming. Over the years, you can see the demographic they are targetting - people of a certain age with the most disposable income – which changes over time. At one point, they were putting on '50s era rock & rollers, then folkies, and now we’re moving into the '70s rockers.
I also find it amusing that, during pledge time the stations go on and on about how little of their funding comes from the government, but, when they are in front of the appropriations committees pitching for bucks, the entire culture is at risk if they don’t get their money. I know it is possible that both things could be simultaneously true, as money is fungible, but still it looks funny.
Speaking only for my local WABE, and YMMV: I absolutely refuse to donate AND be subjected to numerous commercials throughout the hour. Every single opportunity (seemingly, every 5 minutes, but I have not timed it) there is:
*support for WABE comes from: * (insert some corporate entity here, and their plug)
*and from: * (insert another corporate entity here, and their plug)
These plugs are not just names, or name+slogan (the way it was a few years ago), but full-voltage advertisements.
I have donated in the past, but the above - combined with dreadful local hosts and a “news” program that seems 10% news (this blame is divided locally and with NPR), and the incessant focus on Atlanta Public Schools (who holds their license), I’ve pretty much given up all hope.
And while I’m ranting about WABE and their hosts: the one commercial announcer really drives me nuts: he has a pleasant voice, but I’m convinced it is a computer - he simply cannot get the cadence of English right. Drives me nuts.
Since a lot of these posts are specific to WABE in Atlanta, I’ll chime in.
WABE plays classical on weekdays from 9AM to 3PM, then 9PM to 5AM. Atlanta has a large demographic of African American professionals, so WABE has substituted classical for jazz and blues. I don’t like jazz or blues, but I don’t mind sharing with other people who are also excluded from mainstream radio playlists.
I can always tune in to WMLB out of Avondale Estates: those guys are really great: they’ll play sets of 1920’s Appalachian mixed with traditional Laotian highland (it’s all hillbilly either way!), or a show of 1950’s children’s '45s, or Calypso.
Yes, Lois Reitzes is incredibly annoying. I don’t get an angry vibe off her: to me she comes off as one of those affluent baby boomers who can drop $500+ a week at restaurants but still need Prozac.
WABE has the typical Atlanta attitude that anyone who lives outside the 285 ringstrasse is an ignorant lout. Luckily, there are enough millionaires inside the perimeter whose asses can be kissed in easy propinquity at pledge time, that I feel no guilt for listening for free. If it ever goes away, I can live without it.
