Is it important for a new station to provide news?

Question

Please read this and tell me what you think.

How important is it to have the news rather than strictly music?

Answer 1

A non-profit station operates differently (much differently) than a commercial station. A non-profit has the luxury of not being beholden to advertisers and offering programming that is not geared toward ratings.

As Gearbox says, they can pay more attention to what the more vocal audience and benefactors (public or non-profits are supported by grants, donations and underwriting) has asked for - and actually deliver it.

NPR's "Morning Edition" was obviously a big part of the station until a few years ago. In fact the timing is just about what it would take for a student to join the operation as PD, change things around and then graduate - maybe with a Masters Degree.

I wonder if hat's what happened here? That person has now gone on to bigger/better things and some folks are moving things back the way they were? Just a guess.

I'd like to answer your question, but don't know if you left out the letter "s". Is it "... for a news station..." or "...for a new station?"

Because this is not a new station, but they may consider themselves a news station. In any case, as a long-time commercial broadcaster who was just recently exposed to a non-profit radio convention, I can attest that NPR is a big part of many non-comms' programming and probably should be. Dependent, of course, on what else is available within their listening area.

It is important for this station to have news. How important as opposed to strictly music? That's up to those who run the station - these folks have obviously decided "very important."

That was a bit convoluted - hope it answered your question.

-a guy named duh

PS: Cool Avatar - someone obviously has some photoshop talent!

Answer 2

He is right in that the station is supposed to serve the public interest and that of it's ownership (In which case in the college)

All the station did was move the music and news around to a more familiar to commercial station listeners time frame of news in the morning and music for most of the day. That and if the folks who sponsor the station are members who pay and if they asked to have it on, they are more likely to push to have it on.... Basically majority rules

But another thing is news costs less than music as music they have to pay the writers of the song and if Congress and the record companies have their way, the artist and record companies too eating at a lot of the money that public radio needs to operate the station with.

So even though I rather music, you can write to the author and ask what happened but my guess is people wanted the talk show back on the air and got their wish.