Re: [Swprograms] [Internetradio] [dxld] Defunding public broadcasting

[Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

It's always been an ideological attack -- 'twas so in Mr. Gingrich's attack in the 1990s.

Some additional observations:

1) For the most part, the public radio vs. religious radio battle tends to happen at the time of station licensing by the FCC when interests from both camps compete for new licenses.  I cannot recall any instances where existing public radio licenses were sold to religious broadcasters due to a funding challenge, though I suppose that could happen.

2) Joe Buch is correct in that direct CPB funding is a comparatively small portion of most radio stations' budgets.  However, CPB does have a bigger funding stake in syndicated public radio programming; I know of several syndicated classical music programs that receive a good-sized chunk of funding from the CPB; the programs then get other revenue from syndication fees from the stations.  Loss of CPB funding could more quickly jeopardize individual programs than stations themselves.

One would hope that the capital that's been available for recent commercial-to-public conversions such as KUSC-KDFC (San Francisco), KING (Seattle), WQXR (NYC) and WCRB (Boston) would be available for these stations at risk as well.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 2:33 PM, John Figliozzi <jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

All true, buy let's not kid ourselves that defunding public radio and tv is part of some noble effort to bring the federal budget to heel. It's an ideological attack pure and simple. We could close the budget gap far more quickly by ending tax breaks for religious institutions or ending sacred cow military projects that address dangers we no longer face or which have proven themselves infeasible, but I see none of that in the legislation proposed by the new House majority.

In saying this, I'm not the one injecting politics into the discussion because it's already in there by virtue of the defund CPR proposal.

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