What's At Stake With Public Broadcasting

Those of us who write about the media industry spend so much of our effort analyzing private sector businesses that we sometimes lose sight of what a major role public broadcasting companies play in supplying the public with a reliable source of news and information.

Every time I mention NPR , for example, my in-box explodes with reader reaction, and the “comments” posted to the article itself reflect a lively interest in the fate of what is, arguably, now our most trusted news brand in the U.S. (I rarely focus on public TV, because for the most part, with some notable exceptions, i.e., Frontline, it is not really a significant national source of news.)

The percentage of NPR’s overall revenue stream that comes from the federal government is quite small. The fees paid by large, regional member stations, such as KQED, for NPR’s programming keeps the lights on — beyond that, a mixture of private donations, foundation grants, and advertising (which in public broadcasting lingo is called underwriting) fleshes out the rest of the budget.

The local stations also use the pledging process twice each year to raise money via memberships throughout their listening area. These are packaged on a sliding scale that bundles additional benefits to those who buy in at the higher levels.

The people who solicit and collect all of this funding for NPR (and its member stations) are professionals, and for the most part extremely good at what they do. When I became Executive Vice-President of KQED, Inc., back in 1994-’5, I was given management responsibility for all of the revenue-producing departments in the company.

Given my background as a reporter, I asked everyone a lot of questions, and before long, I had ascertained that there was very little “dead wood” in these departments. In fact, some of the most creative ideas about how to turnaround the company (which was at that point close to bankruptcy) came from our development and underwriting staffs.

One of these led to a huge increase in the underwriting revenue the company has attracted ever since we implemented it late in 1995. I would argue that this one step (which increased the allowable TV spots from 15 to 30 seconds, thereby conforming with industry standards and the expectations of media buyers) probably did more to save KQED from its financial crisis in the mid-’90s that the company’s new President and I inherited when we assumed control of the company.

Among the comments on my previous post about the pending layoffs at KQED, one reader notes that the company made an unwise investment in its new building during the early ’90s, only to see the value of that real estate plummet during a subsequent downturn in the economy.

He is partially right about that, but commercial real estate values later rebounded during the Web 1.0 boom, with multimedia design firms moving into the neighborhood around KQED. Starbucks, Peet’s, et. al., were soon to follow, and today this section of San Francisco is thriving.

Meanwhile, KQED had established state-of-the-art recording studios that have since been capable of adapting to the digital transformation of producing, editing, and broadcasting audio content. (TV still lags behind in all respects.)

Another comment-maker to my previous post makes the point that there are those who will call for “bailout” funds to go to the media industry, thereby increasing government’s role in the companies that survive. He thinks this is a bad idea, and so do I.

Again, back in my time at KQED, there was a loud effort led by one Newt Gingrich to cut all funding for public broadcasting. His political posturing, for a time, seemed likely to undermine our ability to continue providing anything like the quality listeners had become accustomed to.

In the end, Gingrich and his ilk failed, but those of us inside public broadcasting had learned our lesson. We much more aggressively expanded our alternative funding sources (as described above) and the system has survived intact until this day, with a more robust programming lineup, higher quality news shows, and a more stable financial model.

Unfortunately, just as a rising tide lifts all ships, a falling tide exposes all ships to the dangers that lurk just below the surface — thus the waves of layoffs at NPR, KQED, and other companies that we will be seeing in 2009.