Re-Examining
Public Radio's Values

The time has come to ask the question:

Does public radio have the responsibility to ensure that all segments of the American population are served?

In the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, public radio’s founders drafted language that encouraged "a source of alternative telecommunications services for all citizens of the Nation" addressing the needs of "unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities."

Is this mission still relevant? For community radio – which perhaps has remained truest to public radio’s original mission – the answer is a resounding "yes".

AUDIENCE 98’s data informs us that network-affiliated public radio, in general, is doing a laudable job serving white, middle-class, middle-aged, moderately affluent, educated people. Community radio – as defined by AUDIENCE 98 – is also, principally and generally, serving this population, but with lower average loyalty.

The timing for this information could not be better. At this pivotal moment when public radio is moving to a more listener-sensitive economy, we need to take stock of our values. What are our roots? What makes us worthy of public support? What makes us different from commercial media?

The single most distinguishing characteristic of public radio is its mission to serve this country’s underserved.

If we aren’t doing it well, we need to use what we know about radio – and how people use it – to do better. But it’s a principle that we should never abandon.

In areas where a community station is the only public station, we have tried to be many things to many people. While this tack runs counter to building a core audience and higher loyalty, responsibility to the many people in these communities has driven our decisions.

But today, two-thirds of Americans have the choice of two, three or even four public radio stations in a single market. The majority of these stations consciously targets the "NPR News audience" – leaving community radio to address the needs of everyone else not well served by commercial radio.

Community radio wants and needs to do better, but improvement in loyalty and giving must be sought in the context of mission – and with the cooperation of the rest of public radio.

A couple of possible scenarios come to mind:

Instead of serving all underserved listeners in an area with a few hours here and there for each group, a community radio station could choose one type of underserved listener, and serve that listener well, all of the time. In effect, that’s what many Native American, Latino and African-American stations are trying to do today.

By providing a programming service that appeals consistently to the interests and needs of one type of underserved listener, a community station may reduce audience size, but substantially increase listener loyalty – a prime measurement of public service.

But the ability of a smaller audience of perhaps poorer listeners to support the station is a big question. At what income level does public service disconnect from public support? AUDIENCE 98, which could only survey today’s public radio listeners, cannot tell us about the giving behavior of different types of future listeners.

Another scenario concerns the network-affiliated public stations, many of which are seeking to establish second services in their markets, offering a different stream of programming to the NPR News audience they already serve.

In the spirit of public radio’s mission, why not offer a second service targeted to an underserved audience?

Perhaps the greatest opportunity that AUDIENCE 98’s report offers is the chance for all of public radio to pull together; work with this information; investigate new ideas; and divide responsibility to fulfill the promise envisioned by public radio’s founders – of a radio alternative, free of commercial pressures, offering the best possible public service to all Americans.

– Carol Pierson
NFCB President
AUDIENCE 98 Associate

 

Audience Research Analysis
Copyright © ARA and CPB.  All rights reserved.
Revised: September 01, 2000 12:38 PM.