System/Policy

Alaska’s KUAC, APRN reach agreement to help station with budget shortfall

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Joint licensee KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Alaska Public Radio Network have agreed on a three-month extension that will allow the station to continue airing APRN content while it addresses a $170,000 funding shortfall. The University of Alaska Fairbanks, which owns KUAC, announced July 1 that it would cut the station’s funding by that amount to offset its own $12 million budget shortfall. The reduction amounts to about 6 percent of KUAC’s total budget. APRN helps stations in Alaska share content and offers the programs Talk of Alaska and Alaska News Nightly, both of which air on KUAC. The agreement between KUAC and APRN allows the station to continue running APRN content without paying dues until November 30.

Community Service Grants

KEET steps up membership efforts to hold on to federal funding

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KEET-TV, one of the smallest PBS member stations, has grown its membership by 40 percent and raised more than $600,000 over the past six months in an effort to keep its federal Community Service Grant. Local businesses in Eureka, Calif., have posted banners pushing “The Power of One,” the motto of KEET’s campaign. Website pop-ups show viewers holding signs with titles of their favorite public TV shows. A local utility provider is pitching in, donating a portion of each paid petroleum bill to the station. At issue is KEET’s inability to meet the $800,000 minimum in nonfederal financial support that CPB requires of CSG grantees, which the station has never done in its 45-year history.

Programs/Content

Nonprofit Marshall Project gears up for putting criminal justice reform on national agenda

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The Washington Post had a blockbuster front-page investigation with a lengthy Aug. 3 story about an unreliable witness in a Texas execution case. But the story came from a new kid on the block. “The Prosecutor and the Snitch” was the first story to be published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news site focused on criminal justice reform. The Marshall Project, named after former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, plans to officially launch in October.

System/Policy

Crane, Savage elected as new NPR board members

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The month-long election for NPR’s Board of Directors closed Monday, with two incumbents and two new faces joining the board. NPR announced Tuesday that Mike Crane, director of Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison, and Mike Savage, g.m. of WBAA in West Lafayette, Ind., will join the board. For what is believed to be the first time, Savage got on the ballot with a written petition signed by at least 15 authorized representatives. Candidates are usually picked by a selection committee headed by the NPR board chair. Incumbents Caryn Mathes, g.m. of KUOW in Seattle, and Flo Rogers, c.e.o. of KNPR in Las Vegas, were re-elected to second terms, and Patricia Diaz Dennis and former NPR interim CEO Paul G. Haaga Jr. were re-elected as public directors.

System/Policy

How stations can stay relevant as listeners go elsewhere for NPR content

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The public radio economy is built on $432 million in annual listener contributions to local public radio stations. Each year nearly 3 million listeners and their families recognize the value of a station brand in their lives, and they voluntarily give that station money. We’ve known since the 1980s that listeners give out of enlightened self-interest, not altruism. The primary motivation for donating to a public radio station is nearly universal — they recognize that the programming they hear via the station brand is personally important and that they would miss it if it were to go away. This finding has been confirmed through multiple studies over decades and more than 1,000 donor surveys conducted over the past nine months by Emodus Research, which I founded last year to learn more about the emotional connections that motivate audiences to listen and donate to public stations.