FOLLOW THE MONEY

posted by James Reel

    The Washington Post informs us:

    A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts blasts public radio, saying it fails to fulfill its obligation to provide music that commercial stations won't touch. The NEA says public radio—once dominated by classical, jazz and other minority forms of music—is retreating ever further from that mission, choosing to focus on news and talk.
    National Public Radio pleads guilty to using its new resources to build a stronger news operation, but rejects the NEA's notion that public radio is abandoning its cultural mission. Rather, NPR maintains, it plans to use the Web and other emerging technologies to introduce a new generation of listeners to music you can't hear on the radio.

    Well, NPR is simply following the money, in more ways than one. The widow of the founder of McDonald’s bequeathed it a huge chunk of change—200 million served—specifically for news programming. Had some benefactor ponied up a similar amount for music, no doubt NPR’s priorities would be different.
    KUAT-FM dropped its NPR affiliation back in the 1980s, and it’s hardly been missed. The most interesting classical-music programs have for years come from other sources, especially American Public Media. Whatever NPR is planning to do with new technology will be playing catch-up with APR, the BBC and several other content providers around the world.
    If you read down into the Washington Post article, you’ll find this:

    The report says there's no shortage of listeners for classical programming. Classical listeners tend to spend more time listening to their public stations than news listeners devote to their stations, according to a public radio study quoted in the NEA report. But because news listeners tend to give stations larger gifts, many stations have dumped the classics.

    Aha. This is hardly a secret, but it’s something that few public-radio managers care to talk about within earshot of their listeners. Now you know, in case you hadn’t already guessed the truth. You can read the full Washington Post article here. I haven’t been able to find the NEA report itself online.