Alaska stations rely on public broadcasting subsidies

The state's 26 public radio stations have long been woven into the fabric of life in rural and urban Alaska, and they could be hard hit if Congress limits how local stations spend federal money -- or if it does away altogether with government funding of public broadcasting.

Alaska's public broadcasters, which include 26 radio stations and four television stations, are keeping a close eye on Washington, where spending has dominated the debate and where some cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are all but assured.

"The more rural and remote you are, the more dependent you are," said Steve Lindbeck, president and general manager of Alaska Public Telecommunications, Inc., the company that operates Anchorage's KSKA-FM and KAKM Channel 7 television. "We would be very vulnerable, but we would be less vulnerable than everyone else in the state."

House Republicans in February passed a spending bill that did away with the $445 million budget of the CPB, which disperses money to 1,300 locally owned and operated TV and radio stations across the country. In Alaska, it added up to $8.4 million in 2009, including $1.3 million for the digital television conversion.

The overall budget bill failed in the Senate, but undeterred, last week the House of Representatives targeted NPR specifically. On Thursday, largely along party lines, House Republicans passed legislation sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., that prohibits local public radio stations from using federal funding to buy NPR programming.

NPR itself receives relatively little direct federal funding, in the form of competitive grants from CPB and some federal agencies such as the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. That federal funding amounts to approximately 2 percent of NPR's overall revenues, the network said.

The largest share of NPR's revenue comes from program fees and station dues paid by member stations that broadcast NPR programs. But many small stations use the federal money they get from CPB to buy NPR programming or pay member dues.

The House singled out the radio network after a recent undercover video that showed a fundraising executive being critical of conservatives, and saying that the network could do without federal subsidies. The House seized on that claim as well as conservative anger about the firing of commentator Juan Williams.

"What we're doing is just saying public radio doesn't end, but the taxpayer doesn't have to fund a local station using these dollars to pay dues and to purchase programming," said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. "We have heard from public radio that they really don't need the public funds," she said. "If they want to purchase that programming from NPR, then they will go out, raise that money, and bring it about with other sources. But they're not going to buy it with taxpayer funds."

The NPR bill is unlikely to come up in the Senate, but even President Barack Obama signaled there will be cuts to CPB, which provides an estimated 15 percent of the funding to public radio and television stations nationwide.

'THE PUBLIC'S ASSET'

For Anchorage's KSKA-FM, federal funding amounted to about 10 percent of its $2.6 million budget, said Lindbeck, who boasts that the Alaska Public Radio Network is the only Alaska-based media organization with full-time, year-round correspondents in Juneau and Washington D.C.

Smaller stations like Petersburg's KFSK-FM, though, will have to start thinking about serious cutbacks. The station, on an island in the southeast part of the state, is the only FM station within reach for the community of 4,000. That often includes people at sea, listening aboard fishing vessels, said the station's manager, Tom Abbott.

His $430,000 budget pays his salary plus that of two reporters and a fourth employee who raises money. About $150,000 of the budget comes from state grants; the station receives about $130,000 in federal radio community service grants. The remaining $150,000 is raised locally.

About 10 percent of the station's budget pays for NPR dues and programming, but the station's focus is local programming. Four volunteer DJs have music shows during the day. The station broadcasts all meetings of the school board and city council as well as a 30-minute local newscast at noon. It's the only daily source of local news in the community, Abbott said.

"I budget to take care of the equipment and facility so our door is open for community," he said. "I really have a philosophy that this is the public's asset and we're just here to take care of it."

But it will be difficult to tap their community for any additional money, radio executives said. Already, his station and others across the state have among the highest per-capita giving rates in public radio. The local community is phenomenal with its support, Abbott said, but there's a limit to how much they can ask.

"It's not as if we're KQED in San Francisco or WBUR in Boston," said Abbott, referring to heavyweight public radio stations that produce programming distributed nationwide. "They've got a population that they can go to, to make up the slack. We don't." Republicans will likely come to regret the attack on public broadcast, said Martin Kaplan, director of the University of Southern California's Norman Lear Center, a nonpartisan research and public policy center that studies the social, political, economic and cultural impact of entertainment.

NPR says 27.2 million people listen to its programs weekly.

"These avenging angels who are going after NPR, especially those who represent less urban districts, are going to be hearing from their constituents about how much they like and depend on public radio," Kaplan said.

Like many in Alaska, he believes there's a good case for federal funding of broadcasting in the public interest because it boosts programming the marketplace doesn't -- or can't -- support.

"What the marketplace is providing is shock jocks and computer-controlled playlists," he said. "What the marketplace is not providing is the ability to put a correspondent in the state capitol, or Washington. For the federal government to have a very, very tiny, catalytic contribution to that, makes perfect sense."

YOUNG: CUTTING FUNDING 'IRRESPONSIBLE'

Public broadcasting has a long tradition of federal support in Alaska, where former Sen. Ted Stevens was among its biggest champions even in the face of threats to its funding by other Republicans. In 2004, NPR awarded him its first-ever Public Radio Leadership Award for his support.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reminded Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, of Stevens' role Thursday, when he engaged in some end-of-the-day banter with her on the Senate floor shortly after the House voted to defund NPR.

Murkowski was congratulating Iditarod winner John Baker, when she got a question from Reid about the origins of the sled dog race. He told her he'd recently heard a report on NPR about the Iditarod, and praised the network for teaching him the race commemorated a vaccine shortage in 1925.

"I didn't know that," Reid said, adding that in his hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, the public radio station is the only one available during the day.

"I, too, will take an opportunity to plug public radio, because you heard the piece on NPR," Murkowski said. "But in my home state and in many of the villages that we're talking about where these teams will go through on their way to Nome, it truly is the public broadcast system that is their means of communication."

Both Murkowski and Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, cast votes in support of a House budget bill that included $61 billion in spending cuts. That bill, considered a largely symbolic move by House Republicans, failed in the Senate, and both say they remain supporters of federal funding for public broadcasting regardless of their vote on that bill.

As someone from remote Fort Yukon, Young also has long supported public radio, said spokeswoman Meredith Kenny. He was in Las Vegas giving a speech, and didn't vote on the House bill that defunded NPR. Had he been present, though, she said he would have parted ways with Republicans and voted against defunding NPR.

He entered a statement in the congressional record signaling his support.

"In many cases, these radio stations are the only broadcast signal that many Alaskans get," Young wrote. "To deny them access to basic news, early childhood education programming, and even emergency alerts, merely to serve a political agenda, is irresponsible."

House Republicans who voted to defund NPR don't like the programming, and have one objective, said Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska: eliminating a source of information that holds elected officials accountable.

"I've been held accountable more than once on their shows," he said of public radio. "I think in a lot of ways those are important vehicles for public officials to be held accountable, because (NPR) is not beholden to corporate ownership of any kind. And if you don't like them and what they're doing, you can actually make that protest, because the board is made up of members. Government funding is just a portion."