Re: non-profit AND commercial radio

[dan.strassberg@att.net]

Canada allows listener-supported non-profit stations to 
run limited numbers of commercials. I'm listening to 
such a station via the Internet as I type this--CJRT 
91.1 Toronto's Jazz Station (www.cjrt.fm). It's great; I 
don't think there's a US station like it--certainly not 
a commercial station. The commercials are relatively few 
in number and are unobtrusive, and the fund-raising is 
about the same as you hear on US listener-supported 
stations.

However, while I think Lydon's and McGrath's demands are 
excessive, and should give WBUR contributors, including 
me, pause before we donate more money to the fat cats, I 
think a good case can be made for the marriage of public 
radio and entrepreneurship. Certainly, Car Talk has 
thrived in such a marriage and brought us the kind of 
radio fare that no commercial station or network has 
been able to produce. Sure the program has little to do 
with cars, but it _is_ funny. It's NPR's biggest revenue 
producer, and at least one of the Magliozzi brothers 
(Tom) apparently makes a tidy living from it.

Many religious stations and program producers for such 
stations do very well under a combination of time 
brokerage and listener support. Why shouldn't the same 
combination work for stations with secular formats?

> I mentioned the WBUR/Lydon feud to a Yahoo aircheck
> club I belong to, and the leader of the club, who is
> originally from Chicago, pointed out that Chicago's
> WFMT is both non-profit AND commercial. He said that
> when their license was donated to a non-profit
> corporation in the 50s, they didn't bother to change
> the license from commercial to non-commercial.
> 
> Thus WFMT listeners hear requests for donations,
> followed by (low-key) commercials.