Two recent news items ought to make your head whirl. The first is from current.org which is the online arm of Current, the pubcasting journal.
The latest analysis from public radio’s Grow the Audience project identifies a “short list” of market factors that drive performance of individual NPR News stations–namely education levels, competition within each market for NPR News listeners and the presence of key psychographic segments.
News surfaced recently of some fallout from the upcoming cancellation of Classical Public Radio Network. WBHM, a news/classical station in Birmingham, Ala., announced last week that it would stop airing classical music during middays Monday to Friday, and has replaced the music with news programs. The changes took effect yesterday.
Station execs indicate that they had anticipated dropping midday classical sometime within the next few years, but that the impending demise of CPRN hastened those plans. In local press and on WBHM’s website, they cite several reasons for the change, many of which echo the weaknesses of the dual format that we’ve been discussing here at Scanning The Dial.
I’m sad to say, it all boils down to $$$$. I know. It’s counterintuitive. You would think the musicians would want to be on the air, because that would help them get noticed and sell CDs or downloads. Well, classical musicians do want to be on the air, but they expect to be paid for it, because they are professionals who deserve to be paid a living wage for their work.
It makes sense that the musicians earn royalties for their CDs. After all, several middlemen (the studios, the record companies, the merchants, and the stations) are making money off the fruits of their labor.
But the radio is another matter. The stations do support the musicians when they pay BMI and ASCAP for royalties, but they can’t afford to shell out extra payments for live concerts. Stations also have to pay syndicators (e.g., American Public Media and NPR) for programming (membership fees based on market size, plus fees for specific programs), though the WFMT Radio Network offers programs free to stations. Believe me; stations are operating on very tight budgets.