mediacrit.com

Public radio listeners are perhaps the most devoted of all radio listeners.

In a radio environment that increasingly corporate and homogenized, they appreciate in-depth news content, musical forms forsaken by commercial radio, and the community-based nature of their stations. And when their beloved stations need their financial support, public radio listeners are willing to send money.

KUNI/KHKE listeners in Eastern Iowa have been contributing to the stations since 1973. In fact, KUNI/KHKE was the first public station group in the country to incorporate a listener support organization to pledge funds. Those early contributions helped the stations go stereo and build more powerful signals, which now cover much of Eastern and Central Iowa.

During a typical week, more than 62,000 people now listen to UNI’s two public stations, KUNI (90.9 FM) and KHKE (89.5 FM).

The stations’ listeners still routinely come through with support, particularly as the stations are threatened by funding cuts—a frequent occurrence in recent years as the state legislature has sliced the higher education budget in Iowa.

In 2002, listeners to KUNI/KHKE in Eastern and Central Iowa contributed $170,000 in an emergency five-day “Drive to Survive” fundraiser after the University of Northern Iowa was forced to cut $250,000—one-third of its support—to the radio stations.

Even as state funding was stripped away, over 800 listeners contributed more than $185,000 to finish KUNI’s new west wing addition to its studios in 2003.

So, it comes with a certain irony that the biggest change to happen to KUNI/KHKE in the past 30 years is one in which the listeners had little involvement, and one about which most listeners still have not likely heard.

In December 2004, the nine members of the State Board of Regents voted to link KUNI/KHKE and the public radio stations of the other two state universities into a new Iowa Public Radio network. Because the Regents ultimately hold the licenses to the radio stations, they have the power to reconfigure the stations in the way they see fit.

There was some listener input in the decision. Bornstein and Associates, the consulting firm that developed the Regents’ plan for a statewide public radio network, interviewed 165 “stakeholders,” which included a few select audience members of KUNI/KHKE, WSUI/KSUI in Iowa City, and WOI-AM/WOI-FM in Ames. Other stakeholders included the Board of Regents itself, university administrators and faculty members, and staff members of the stations.

The Regents gave the consultants the mandate to develop a scheme for a statewide broadcasting system. The consultants delivered a model that looks similar to Wisconsin Public Radio, not surprising given that the main partners in Bornstein and Associates were longtime figures in Wisconsin Public Radio.

The plans include linking the stations together into three statewide networks: one for talk, one for news and information, and one for classical music. It also includes extending service to more of western Iowa. Presently, about nine percent of Iowa’s population—mainly those in the west—don’t have access to a good public radio signal.

The plan also calls for the establishment of a new administrative unit to be located in office space in Des Moines. The top person will be the Executive Director of Iowa Public Radio, who will be supported by four staff members. Regional managers at the three university station groups will report to the Executive Director.

According to the report, a new statewide public radio executive is crucial to the scheme. “Only a central authority can eliminate the duplication and competitiveness that plagues public radio in Iowa,” the report states.

The idea of a central authority leading Iowa Public Radio is exactly what John Forsyth, CEO of Wellmark Blue Cross-Blue Shield in Des Moines and the new president of the Iowa Board of Regents, wanted. According to the Des Moines Register, Forsyth believes creating a new executive position would “produce significant savings.”

In fact, given the past statements of Forsyth, decreasing state funding and achieving “economies of scale” are fundamental concepts to the Regents’ vision of Iowa Public Radio. Although the Bornstein plan suggests that the stations reduce their university general fund support by $300,000 over the next five years, the plan is ultimately about preparing the stations for the eventual complete elimination of university general funds (which is already the case with WOI in Ames).

Yet, Doug Vernier, who retired from KUNI/KHKE in 2002 after 30 years as general manager, said that creating a statewide network with five new administrative positions in Des Moines makes it “a very tenuous plan.”

“You can do a lot of this without having a centralized bureaucracy. You can require sharing of programs,” he said.

In fact, in the past year, there have been significant efforts for collaboration between the stations. WSUI and WOI now co-produce “Talk of Iowa.” WOI and KUNI have begun sharing their statehouse bureau reporters. And, all of the stations have been linked with a digital fiber optic communication lines, giving them immediate audio connections for sharing programming.

Although he sees some collaboration as good, Vernier says that competition between the public radio stations is healthy. “I’m not sure that the competitiveness that we have now is a bad thing. Our society is based on competitiveness. The [three state] universities compete for students and image, so what’s the difference with this?”

The big question for Iowa Public Radio is whether or not the 200,000 public radio listeners in Iowa want such a change. The Bornstein and Associates report commended the public radio stations at Iowa’s three state universities for already doing a fine job, but insisted that public radio in Iowa “has not reached its full potential” and must become a statewide network to do so.

The report also warned that public reception to its plans for Iowa Public Radio might not be positive. In its timeline for 2005, the report recommends for April-June as the time to “prepare a comprehensive public relations plan for dealing with listener backlash against changes.”