CPB okays boost for rural radio service, effective fall 1999
Originally published in Current, Feb. 8, 1999
The CPB Board on Feb. 2 [1999] approved a $7 million strategy designed to strengthen rural radio service.
The plan, Listener Access 2000 (LA2K), takes advantage of a boost in the Fiscal 2000 federal appropriation. When Congress approved the increase, it directed CPB to foster service to underserved communities, particularly rural and Native American ones. About $6 of every $10 added to CPB's radio station allotment would go to rural service.
The plan will:
- classify about 75 additional licensees as rural, raising the number of CPB-classified rural stations from 44 to 120 [earlier article]. CPB's old policy left out such obviously rural operations as Vermont and Wyoming public radio.
- establish a new competitive $3.4 million "Listener Access Incentive Fund." Largely through stations bonuses, it will support efforts to start multiple program streams, improve efficiency and help public radio reach more of the 25 million Americans that still lack access to public radio signals. It would also offer emergency dollars to ensure that rural listeners don't lose a public radio signal.
- offer relatively higher base grants to public radio licensees serving remote listeners and relatively smaller grants to those in more densely populated areas, where private support is more readily available.
- add seven rural stations, most Native American, to those eligible for minority incentives, by opening up certain grant categories to the bonuses.
- require that stations' grants from CPB not exceed any station's nonfederal financial support. "American taxpayers should never be the major operational stock holder or principal funder of any licensee," the LA2K report says.
- give an average 10 percent increase to non-rural stations.
Presenting the plan to the board, CPB Vice President Rick Madden noted that it offers incentives for both local and nonlocal licensees to bring new or added service to remote areas. Some who favor local control don't like that policy, but "we're looking for novel ways for people to extend signals," he said.
Listener Access 2000 was developed by a task force of station and network representatives, conducting an annual review of CPB radio grant programs. Madden had traveled around the country discussing the proposal, and consultant Mark Fuerst moderated an online discussion. During the board meeting, SRG's Tom Thomas, one of the task force members, said the effort had been the "most participatory consultations ever undertaken in public radio."
Future Funds awards
CPB also announced new Future Fund projects, two of them Alaska-based. The TV and Radio Funds awarded $120,000 for Alaska III, a partnership between the Alaska Public Broadcasting Commission, the state's two dozen public radio stations and four public TV stations. New leadership will give the stations help in administration, budgeting, financial reporting, technical support and policy leadership, CPB says. Alaska public broadcasting suffered severe cuts in state support in recent years.
CPB is also funding a partnership between American Indian Radio on Satellite (AIROS) and KNBA-FM, Anchorage. The two entities, which both offer service to Native American stations, hope to strengthen programming and lower costs, CPB says. The $60,500 funding will support facilitated meetings among staff and board members, CPB says.
Finally, CPB awarded about $300,000 to the "Listener-Focused Fundraising Partnership." Headed by consultant and researcher John Sutton, it will integrate VALS-2 psychographic profiling of public radio listeners with focus groups and auditorium testing to find how stations can reduce "pledge-drive resentment," CPB says. Participating stations are WBUR, Boston; WKSU, Kent; WUSF, Tampa; KJZZ/KBAQ, Phoenix; and KPLU, Seattle/Tacoma.
Earlier news: Boost of aid to rural radio stations proposed at CPB, 1998.
Outside link: Listener Access 2000 radio service study on CPB's web site, 1998.
Web page created Feb. 11, 1999
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