Payment due at KUOW

We know how boring this is, but it's the best talk radio station in Seattle's Spring pledge drive and you need to call 'em up and give 'em some dough.

We speak of course of National Public Radio affiliate KUOW, "Nearly 95" at 94.9 FM. Make an on-line pledge here and get a Steve Scher wife-beater 't', a Bob Edwards Mr. Microphone, or Ken Vincent giving your message machine greeting as a free gift.

NPR doesn't have traditional advertising, so it depends on the kindness of corporations (30 percent), and foundations (12 percent) but almost half of its operating budget comes from member stations based on formulas tied to their listenership and dredged up on these semi-annual pledge drives.

(Contrary to the crap you hear on right-wing radio, no more than 2% of NPR's budget comes from federal grants. This has insulated it from Congressional battles over programming.)

In 2003, Joan Kroc, (widow of Hamburglar Ray of MacDonald's) bequeathed NPR $230 million- an amount so generous to the constantly panhandling national non-profit, the interest alone has paid for a large expansion in the newsroom- nearly 70 jobs- while other news organizations are cutting back across the board.

NPR is a great continent of hope for the future of real scratch journalism in an age when marketers and bean-counters are either drying up newsrooms or pushing them around.

(After the Kroc gift, you might ask, why do we have to give at these infernal pledge drives? Because half the operating budget is raised from listeners, that's why- so get out your damn wallet! Besides, the sooner you do it, the sooner they'll shut up and we can get back to "All Things Considered" and Vaughn Palmer).

In the last 10 years, NPR listenership has increased impressively- going from 12.5 million to 25 million listeners tuning in at least once a week according to Arbitron. And since nearly half of its budget comes from member stations based on listenership, total revenue has taken off- from $74 million in 1998 to $140 million this year.

KUOW is the most listened-to talk in Seattle and would come in 2nd in the entire market if it were measured like a commercial station in the Arbitron surveys. (2nd only to the mighty country music format KMPS).

As liberal, socialist, commie, deadbeat elites, we love to see non-commercial broadcast media working so well within the free enterprise system while airing stuff they know will not get them a fraction of a scintilla of a ratings point. (like BBC sports, the most soporific half hour you'll ever spend short of 10 minutes listening to Rabbi Lapin). 

Comments

[joanie]

Joe, hopefully one last time for you:

"The frequency of Americans’ misperceptions varies significantly depending on their source of news. The percentage of respondents who had one or more of the three misperceptions listed above is shown below."

NPR listeners were the most informed factually according to this poll. How so from this liberal outlet? Or, are facts a liberal domain now?

[Andrew]

Cons say that the media is liberal but I rarely hear them explain why except to say that the press reports more stories that show Cons in a nagative light than a positive one, but if the facts at hand aren't favorable to cons then tough shit. Who's fault is that?

The alternative would be to show 50% negative stories and 50% positive stories, and that in itself is far more deceptive, because no matter how awful something might be you would expect the media to put lipstick on a pig.

Everyone says the media wasn't journalistic enough in the "run up to the war" and it was specificly because they tried to play it down the middle. Opinion polls were on Bush's side. The media didn't want to pee in the viewer's Cornflakes, and they never do. If you look close enough you'll see that news covereage parallels public opinion polls.

[Fremont]

I love that "pee in the viewer's Cornflakes"!! Andrew, why are you up so late...the clocks won't be springing forward until tomorrow, Saturday...