“It’s been a fascinating learning experience for me. Schiller joined NPR from the for-profit, ad-driven side of the media establishment, having previously run the New York Times’ NPR doesn’t air sponsor commercials of the type one hears on other radio stations. government today the organization funds just 1% or 2% of its budget through Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocations, while, according to the NPR website, additional funds from the National Endowment for the Arts and other federally supported organizations together constitute less than 1% of NPR’s funding. Once, the lion’s share of NPR funds came from the U.S. It makes approximately half of its dollars from the fees and dues it charges member stations. NPR, which hit the airwaves in 1971, is a privately and publicly funded nonprofit membership entity that distributes content to about 800 public radio stations in the U.S. “For us, making money is a means to an end,” she explained. Schiller has to swim in the same economic waters as her counterparts at the for-profit media companies, but she doesn’t have to paddle quite as hard as the others. “By 2020 we would like to be at least at 50 million.”īesides being NPR’s main cheerleader, Schiller also acts as its most vocal fund-raiser. “We have this magic ‘50’ number in our head,” she told me. Schiller is looking forward to further growth. “The average listening period a week is six hours.” “We have incredible engagement,” she said with pride. That translates to a 60% growth rate over the last 10 years. This development, along with the iPadĪnd other new technology, keys much of NPR’s growth expectations.Īs of spring 2010, some 34 million people tuned in to their local NPR member station every week, Schiller noted. “There will be Internet radio in probably every automobile sometime over the course of the next generation,” she mused. NPR’s expansion plans are every bit as ambitious as other media operations’ are. It’s very liberating in a way to be working for a not-for-profit.” “Everything we do is driven by that very, very simple principle. “It’s very simple: Our mission is to provide more news and info to more people in more ways,” Schiller said. On a recent episode of MarketWatch’s “Media Matters with Jon Friedman,” Schiller talked tough about holding the line when it comes to fulfilling NPR’s mission for its listeners.
NPR has no intention of pandering to a public that wants to be spoon-fed its news. We don’t want our future audience to think, ‘Oh that’s something that I listened to when i was trapped in the back seat of my car that my parents liked.’ We’d risk becoming irrelevant, and we wouldn’t be fulfilling our mission.”
However, the next generation of users, we want to make sure that those audiences know there is a place for them at NPR. “No matter what, we never, ever ever want to - nor will we - dumb down our news coverage.
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