Bill Kling

MPR to rep its own shows, mainstays of PRI catalog

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Minnesota Public Radio will begin distributing many of its own programs this summer, depriving longtime distribution partner Public Radio International of strong offerings with combined audiences equal to 40 percent of its total listener-hours. MPR, public radio’s second-largest producer of programs behind NPR, will distribute 10 shows, including A Prairie Home Companion, directly to stations starting July 1. Marketplace and its companion Morning Report will follow a year later when their PRI contracts expire. MPR will also distribute its own specials and limited series. PRI will continue to distribute Classical 24, the 24/7 classical service it produces jointly with MPR.

Programs/Content

To empower active citizens with knowledge, locally as well as nationally

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When President Clinton had just taken office in 1993, Current asked an assortment of outside-the-Beltway people connected with public broadcasting to write open letters to him about the field’s public-service potential. One was Bill Kling, president of Minnesota Public Radio in St. Paul and founder of American Public Radio. Dear President Clinton:

I know that as a listener to public radio around the country, you know its national programming well. At a time when the spirit of a new national agenda is high, the mission of public radio fits well into the public understanding and assimilation of that agenda just as it has for every administration since Lyndon Johnson’s.