Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to Your local NPR station must be a lot different from mine

Sponsorship
Mary Anne — (archived)

You imply that listeners pay for commercial radio. They don't.

Corporate and foundation sponsors do.

In the case of corporate sponsorship, we the consumers support the programming underwritten by the sponsors. Many corporations own many brands, and have no brand name associated with the corporated name that appears on the sponsorship list. Hence it's more difficult to trace precisely who is supporting what, what the agenda of the sponsorship pattern might be, how that might influence the broadcaster's editorial policy, and (if one is well and truly pissed off) what products to boycott in protest.

Sometimes boycott isn't possible. If you needed a particular product for your health or your business, and no other product would do as well, would you stop buying it because you objected to the editorial policy of a show sponsored by the product's producer? That isn't a gun held to the public's head (a popular synonym for government funding around here); it's a gun held to the public's wallet.

In the case of foundation sponsorship, it's generally easier to determine agenda, if any. To maintain their legal status, foundations are supposed to have documents available to the public which
state their mission and their sources of income.

Government funding is a lot like foundation sponsorship in that it's easy to see. It's like corporate sponsorship in that it draws from a very large portion of the public, many of whom are "giving" either unknowingly or unwillingly.

Oppose government funding if you want. Remember, though: media purchase by large corporations is nothing less than allowing them to use their money to make sure we only know what they are willing to allow on the air.

Regards--
Mary Anne

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