KCRW's financials are public record. It appears they've gone to a "by request" model on their website, but until last year, you didn't even have to request---just Google. Here's a link to the 2021 docs:
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16 Staffers Leaving KCRW In Buyouts
- Thread starter Mykel the Radio Guy
- Start date
KCRW's financials are public record. It appears they've gone to a "by request" model on their website, but until last year, you didn't even have to request---just Google. Here's a link to the 2021 docs:
Yes NPR and PBS are separate non profit entities. The confusion some people will make is tied to how some local entities have affiliations to both PBS and NPR in some parts of the country. Notable examples are KPBS San Diego, WGBH Boston and KQED San Francisco are ones where the TV side has the PBS affiliation and on the radio side NPR affiliation.
I think to some it boils down to both PBS and NPR being non-comm broadcasters, therefore they must be the same.
I think the name Corporation for Public Broadcasting makes it sound like PBS and NPR are divisions of the CPB. It takes explaining.
And in my area KVCR-FM and TV San Bernardino.
In Connecticut, Vermont and Western Massachusetts, radio and TV are together. Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Vermont Public, New England Public Media. Same ownership, no more "Radio" or "Television" in the names.
No such problem in the Front Range of Colorado: Colorado Public Radio (KCFR + KRCC), Rocky Mountain PBS for TV, whoever is running KBDI(TV), and KUNC (radio) in Fort Collins/Greeley are all separate entities. CPR and KUNC run multiple program services (news/features, AAA, and classical [CPR only]).
It gets interesting in New Mexico: The Albuquerque Public Schools' KANW and the University of New Mexico's KUNM for NPR; the two entities use a joint venture for New Mexico PBS (KNME). All are operated independently of one another. KENW at Eastern New Mexico University and KRWG (New Mexico State University) in Las Cruces cover some areas of the state with both radio and TV.
I know that. Just illustrating the difference between them. I always thought PBS TV stations were lean & mean also.
Here in Phoenix, it's interesting having 2 public radio stations, albeit just one affiliated with NPR in KJZZ. The other station is KBAQ & it's largely local with classical music & it's more associated with KAET (Arizona PBS) having an audio simulcast on its 8.5 subchannel as well as being owned by Arizona State University. Both stations are sister stations being owned by the Maricopa County Community College District.
What would be an interesting subject is a comparison of different NPR and PBS boards of directors. I am curious as to how much influence on the day today operation particularly local programming, the board exercises.
Do some boards get very directly involved with content while others try to hire the most competent management to do that?
Similarly, do some boards get directly involved with fundraising or is that function left mostly to the station management of staff?
Do some boards get very directly involved with content while others try to hire the most competent management to do that?
Similarly, do some boards get directly involved with fundraising or is that function left mostly to the station management of staff?
If you mean NPR in Washington, that Board is largely made up of station GMs who exercise a lot of control and have fired a few CEOs for trying to make NPR more powerful than the stations.
As far as station boards, they're usually a mixture of community leaders and businessmen. They don't know much about radio or media. In the case of Sacramento Public Radio, they allowed the station to go deeply in debt.
Here is a list of the KCRW Board:
KCRW Foundation Board
www.kcrw.com
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What I would also find interesting is the degree of financial commitment required from board members, something fairly typical in the nonprofit realm.
Yes.
Or to put it another way, if you've seen one public media outlet, you've seen one public media outlet.
When the system was designed in 1967 (via the Public Broadcasting Act), it was built to be decentralized, in part to avoid making the sort of true national public broadcaster that might have become a real threat to commercial radio and TV.
Having worked with a lot of these boards and local managers, it's truly all over the map. Joint (radio/TV) licensees, separate radio and TV, community boards, colleges, state governments... there's a little of everything out there and no single overriding body imposing any kind of standardization or order on it all.
Shoestring operations? Yup, plenty of them. Giant media organizations with multi-million-dollar budgets and hundreds of staffers? Yup, lots of those too, and everything in between. And it's impossible to generalize much beyond that.
That's an awfully naive and simplistic way of looking at things.
As nonprofit organizations, public broadcasters all file Form 990, which provides a lot more transparency into budgets and salaries than any commercial broadcaster is required to disclose.
The funding that comes "from the government" is as far from a blank check as it could be. If you've never been on the receiving end of CPB funding, it comes with more strings than a marionette. We're required to provide CPB with tons of specifics about how its money is used. Every hour of every timecard has a category and subcategory attached to it to track how it's funded and what it's being used for.
Does that mean that as Joe Random Taxpayer, you get complete license to pry into every aspect of the operation of any given nonprofit that receives any degree of government funding? Of course not. As a taxpayer, your representative government has oversight powers which are exercised through CPB and ultimately through the Congress that funds it. If you want to file FOIA requests, you can do so, within limits. You can also attend open board meetings, which we're required to publicize.
Nonprofits (unless they are themselves government entities like state universities) are still private institutions. There's a big difference between accepting some amount of grant money from a government entity (as many nonprofits do) and actually being a government entity. The 1967 public broadcasting act explicitly did not establish a federally-run public broadcasting system, for better or worse - and because it didn't, it's up to each individual nonprofit entity running a station to make its own decisions about staffing and operations.
Here?
absolutely zero.
My board leaves me be..in 3 years, i have never had them dictate programming edicts to me or tell me to put on something i think is a big mistake
they told me when interviewing me "we all did radio here as volunteers or paid staff 20-30 years ago, we dont know it anymore, so much has changed.. we need someone who knows what theyre doing"
These stations are all very open about their hiring and staffing. No big secret. Its the law. They're also required by the FCC to track and report DEI information. But there is this view that people take a vow of poverty to work in the non-profit world and they don't. The station isn't asking for a government bail out. They're handling their situation internally. What's wrong with that?
Elon Musk takes government money. Billions of dollars. More money that all of public broadcasting put together. Does that entitle me to dig into his business? I guess it does.
Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
Los Angeles entrepreneur Elon Musk has built a multibillion-dollar fortune running companies that make electric cars, sell solar panels and launch rockets into space.www.latimes.com
I am very (and I mean VERY) well aware of what NFPs must do when they get federal funds, or any other type of funds for that matter, government or not.
Most NFP organizations (and ALL in California) must also make their audited financial statements available upon request to anybody who may ask, whether they have government funding or not, in addition to their form 990.
So yes, anybody can make any NFP organization's business their business. Just with those two documents, a knowledgeable observer could contribute quite a bit of "oversight" if they so desired. Your description of the difference between public and private NFP organizations, for the most part, simply does not exist.
Esoteic minutiae aside, the larger point is that I am always amazed how touchy people around here get when one suggests NPR (and all NFP organizations) accept a high level of transparency and accountability. Shouldn't we all be for the highest level of transparency?
The poster's question is still valid. How many staff members should be running a public radio station, one that receives government funding?
Don't like those kind of questions? Take the organization private and pay a full share of taxes applicable to truly "private" organizations. Stop living off the government teat.
As many as it takes. As many as those actually responsible say they need. The government itself creates some of those jobs. The government mandates a lot of paperwork to be completed. EEO requirements. CPB requires minimum staffing to receive that funding. Engineering requirements. On and on. Running a radio station is not a reality TV show where everyone gets to vote. That's not how things work. Once again, those responsible are responding to the budget shortfall, and cutting staff. They're not asking for welfare. So there are now fewer people there than before.
Once again, do I get to question Elon Musk's staffing because he takes billions in government money?
That's really not an option. If you're in the non-commercial part of the dial, you have to be non-profit. That's not required for the upper part of the dial. But if you got that license as NCE, that's how you stay. Nobody is "living off the government teat." It's money that was appropriated for a specific purpose. Don't like it? Tell your rep. For over 50 years, both sides of the aisle have voted for the appropriation. Donald Trump appointed the current CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He also signed the appropriation. It's the law. We follow laws in this country whether we like them or not.
One thing I'll add: I said that CPB has minimum staffing requirements, and it has a minimum budget requirement for a station to receive federal funds. But there is no maximum. A station can have as many employees as it wants. The government COULD have imposed a maximum, but it didn't think that way. When Congress redid the public broadcasting act in the 80s under Reagan, they didn't want to base government funding on need. If they did, it would be like welfare, providing money as a handout. They wanted the complete opposite. They wanted to encourage these stations to raise money from listeners and local business (although not to compete for advertising). Thats why they came up with rules for sponsorship mentions being different from advertising. Congress could have put staffing limits on stations, but if a station raised enough money from its community, the government was OK with them spending that money on local staff. Because the employees pay tax on that income, even though the station doesn't. In fact, I can't think of any government funded entity that has government limits on the size of its staff.
To blame all the corporate layoffs across all sectors (per a previous post, certainly not just in Radio) on the government is ridiculous. This is pure private-sector corporate financial mismanagement and corporate greed (yes, even in "non-profits"). The layoffs continue while the few billionaires at the top keep their bonuses. Food prices up, gas prices up, rents up...it's all for the same reason. Sick of all the big corporations squeezing all the regular middle-class people so a few billionaires at the top can buy an extra yacht.
I have a contrarian perspective. Entrepreneurs such as Gates or Bezos or even Musk take enormous risks and, when successful, give tens of thousands of jobs and stimulate the economy. Were there no incentives for personal gain, nobody would take the risks that have resulted in enterprises that benefit the economy.
The same, of course, applied to the few independent broadcasters who, in the 1960's, took the failed FM band and put their careers and money on the line to build stations. I'm talking about Jerry Lee and Saul Levine and Art Kellar and a number of others who took the risks in our industry that ended up turning FM radio around after nearly two decades of failure.
"Owners" of big companies do not have a huge pile of cash; some are investment rich and cash poor. Their "wealth" is concentrated in shareholdings which are not liquid. And that applies to station owners, big and small who have fixed expenses but who are dependent on the uncertainties of the economy and the advertising market.
And if you look at expensive cars, homes, yachts and planes, every purchase like that produces revenue for the suppliers who in turn give employment to many.
But the subject here is radio, not yachts. And when there are cases like Entercom/Audacy that end in failure, all that does is show how considerable the risks are in creating a business. As a former station owner myself, the risks and responsibility are a huge burden. What I learned in station ownership was to give great respect to the entrepreneurs and investors who keep private enterprises advancing, innovating and prospering.
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