KUSC sees no evil in alliance (NPR)

LA times ^ | July 7 2003 | Steve Carney

[Drango]

KUSC sees no evil in alliance

By Steve Carney
Special to The Times

July 7 2003

In a move skeptics might call a deal with the devil, but those involved see as a match made in heaven, public radio station KUSC today is announcing a partnership with the nation's largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications.

KUSC-FM (91.5) relies on underwriting — those on-air blurbs saying, "this program is being brought to you by" so-and-so — for 18% of its income, with the rest coming from member donations and grants (the station gets about $400,000 of its $5-million annual budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting). But station general manager Brenda Barnes said her marketing staff is too small and has too much turnover to drum up those sponsorships effectively. So she has outsourced the job to Clear Channel, which owns eight commercial stations in the Los Angeles area and about 1,200 nationwide.

"It's not a huge effort for them, but it makes a big difference for KUSC," she said. "The bottom line is: Nothing changes for the listener."

She said the volume of announcements will remain capped at a minute and a half per hour. Currently, only about half of those are underwriting messages, while the rest are various placeholders.

Clear Channel will get commissions for every sponsor it signs, with the percentage increasing if it's a new client.

~snip...please go to the link above to read the full story.

[Drango]

Just 'casue you put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig.

Just 'cause NPR calls it underwriting, doesn't mean its not an ad.

[Drango]

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[Tacis]

"KUSC-FM (91.5) relies on underwriting — those on-air blurbs saying, "this program is being brought to you by" so-and-so — for 18% of its income..."

Flaming barbra streisand!! Another example of the neocommies corrupting our language for their purposes! Those are COMMERCIALS!!! And, no matter how many times these lefties claim to be "non-commercial," they are lying. Any message of sponsorship whether for yourself (the endless fundraisers) or for someone else is a COMMERCIAL!!!

[Drango]

ping!

[onedoug]

So now they get tax money, solicit members, run commercials and now have Clear Channel doing the bulk of their fundraising...also paid for by the taxpayer.

Hear the music?

[Drango]

So now they get tax money, solicit members, run commercials

And do they ever run commercials...KQED, my local NPR station runs MORE commericals than almost all the FM stations. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink...but they call 'em underwriting so it's OK)

[Chairman Fred]

KUSC is one the the very few all-classical music format radio stations in southern California. If this helps keep them on the air, fine. Especially since Clear Channel is one of the good guys.

[Drango]

If this helps keep them on the air, fine.

Sure, if they want to sanctimoniously assert they're non-commercial but in reality they behave as if they are, why should hypocrisy be important.

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[WorkingClassFilth]

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