Public radio fights commercialism

Local public radio station WFIU/103.7FM has begun a week of fund-raising amid decreased federal subsidies and reduced citizen support for public radio. Local stations and National Public Radio have adapted to their financial situations by seeking increased support from program underwriters.\nPublic broadcasting has been in a steady and rapid worldwide decline during the last decade. Robert McChesney notes in his book "Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times" (New Press, $17.95) that "the collapse of public broadcasting makes perfect sense, as it really no longer has justification to exist." \nPublic broadcasting has two historic reasons to exist, writes McChesney, a professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. First, public broadcasting maintains "public control over a scarce broadcast spectrum" and second, it provides socially beneficial programs "that the few commercial broadcasters would find insufficiently profitable to produce." \nMcChesney writes that the notion of a scarce broadcasting spectrum "no longer holds water." \nWith access to hundreds of channels now on television, radio, and the Internet, the government has no real need to subsidize certain kinds of broadcasting programs. \nMcChesney takes issue with the total commercial nature of radio and television broadcasting that now entirely dominates American society. \n"Commercial values now dominate the media and political culture," he writes. Public broadcasting is the noncommercial solution to the problem McChesney sees. He wants to believe public broadcasting can continue "if a movement on its behalf is part of a broader democratic movement to lessen the corporate and commercial domination of society at large."\nIn the last decade, public radio has changed in fundamental ways because of cuts in funding from its traditional source, the federal government. Most striking to listeners is sponsor identification, which now resemble advertisements on commercial stations so much that public and private stations are hardly distinguishable. National Public Radio, which Washington established several decades ago to counter the solely commercial nature of radio, has extended its sponsor identifications from only reading a sponsor's name to giving descriptions of a sponsor, an 800-number and Web site addresses. \nThis trend in public radio is disturbing to listeners who believe public radio should be just that -- public radio, not commercial radio with advertisements. NPR and local stations are not to blame for their commercialization. Drastic funding cuts by Washington have forced them to increase funding revenues from outside sponsors and listeners themselves. Combined, NPR and its sister on television, the Public Broadcasting Service, account for around only $1.12 per year per person in federal taxes. \nA radio history scholar, McChesney argues for this movement through an analysis of radio's history, from its inception immediately after World War I to the present. He writes of the debates around the developed world over whether airwaves should be monopolized by the government or should be opened up for use by private, commercial stations.\nThe United States and Great Britain are McChesney's examples of the two extremes in this debate. The U.S. went commercial, giving control of its airwaves to NBC and CBS; Britain, conversely, ceded its airwaves to a public institution, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The public-commercial debate's outcome was different in each country. Broadcasting was an international phenomenon -- not only was the public-private debate international, but messages from one national broadcasting system are often audible in surrounding countries. \nCanada's struggle with choosing its broadcasting path highlighted the inherently international dimension of broadcast policy making, McChesney writes. It retained close ties to Britain and the BBC, but its people could frequently hear U.S. broadcasting stations on their radios. But non-commercial forces won, and Canadian radio was nationalized. The Canadian government chose the Canadian Radio League, in part, from a compilation of several factors, including: \n• "inescapable evidence of dissatisfaction" with commercial radio in the U.S.\n• commercial radio's neglect of public affairs and education\n• a potential "threat to Canadian culture and political autonomy" and\n• traditional close ties with Great Britain and its Broadcasting Corporation.\nMcChesney writes that the work of the Canadian "public broadcasting activists is a continual reminder that control over broadcasting must always be the duty of the citizenry in a democratic society." \nPublic broadcasting's supporters must regain a sense of connection between public broadcasting and democratic politics. The type of society we choose for ourselves -- whether one dominated by commercial, for-profit interests or one based on democratic principles -- will, in part, be partly influenced by the future of radio and television communications. McChesney leaves us to consider whether society will be "based on 'one dollar, one vote' rather than 'one person, one vote'"