Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

Re:Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity ... by hoopism on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @04:21PM (#9572860)

Naive question... with the influx of cash from larger and larger underwriters and the public funds becoming a smaller and smaller % of overall funding how does public radio handle the natural tendency to chase the big funds?

What's the % breakdown today? I don't think it's evil, but when 80% of funding starts rolling in for projects like invisibilia I could see it as tempting to head more into a "reality show" type programming to chase big donors / big audience... again, that's not to say that is wrong... but it certainly isn't the mission.

Big dollars brings big pressures.

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Re:Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity ... by fleitz on Tuesday May 19, 2015 @05:59PM (#9573449)

The key is to limit advertising to the point where there is always demand for the spot, and/or not reliant on major sponsors.

eg. If coke is willing to spend $15 million and pepsi $10 million if you sell the ad to coke for $10 million you know you can always sell to pepsi for $10 should you piss coke off.

Ideally you should have a bunch of smaller advertisers such that it's easy to find another person to take the spot.

It's an issue for any business and something DHH talks about regarding not getting big clients which you inevitably end up becoming beholden to.

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Re:Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity ... by hoopism on Wednesday May 20, 2015 @08:50AM (#9575935)

Thanks. That's a great explanation.

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