Ner; Audio Visit #2 (2)

It's not possible of course to summarize in a minute or two all of the discussion in the three contrarian seminars you would have had to be here to appreciate them. I guess the most important point to make here is that we're interested in your comments about what you learned what you gain not only from the three conference seminars and by that I mean the one conducted by CPB on station development which included a number of case histories of ways in which radio stations have gone into local development plans. The one conducted by NPR on various aspects of programming and the NDR seminar on three challenges to radio managers these days in which we had just lost me from KUTV and Austin talking about you and your community relations. And then. Don Don Holloway from Kentucky on you and your administration some ways to be sure the communication is it is clearer between you and your president or whoever it is you ultimately report to your board.

And thirdly Tom Hans a special assistant to President would tarry I guess write to Congressman Michael McCaul Mik of Washington state. These people were simply a discussion starter is the point here was to allow station managers to to to pick up the suggestions of these people but also to exchange views on these three very important aspects that you face every day in your work. Then in the Wednesday evening sessions which were not programmed at all we simply set up a whole assortment of hotel rooms all on one corridor with people in them to talk about specific subjects that you had said you were interested in. And our general impression is that while these were a little bit spotty from time to time during the evening because people wanted from one to another on the whole both the conference sessions and the informal sessions on Wednesday night turned out to be quite useful and did accomplish what many station managers most wanted a meeting like this namely an opportunity to talk with other managers who have experienced the same problems and see what they're doing. And we're very much

interested in getting the reactions of those of you who were here because we hope to plan this kind of thing heavily into the NAACP convention in October. That's right Jim. Thank you. The public radio conference wound up Thursday morning with a general session that lasted all morning the first part being a report of the seminars by the seminar leaders and then the last hour of the conference was devoted to a question and answer period wherein they the two top men in each of the three organizations were on the podium answering questions from the floor. And there were as expected some exceedingly concise questions asked of the final session. Questions that really needed answering. Here are three of the answers first al-Hasan director of radio projects at CBB replying to a question regarding the strict qualifications for CPB support and the lack of support for all noncommercial radio stations rather than just one hundred and one of them.

There are 80 percent of the stations and you are about the same place that you have the big South Carolina. When we examined all of the stations all over the country at that time two years ago there were about 450. Now there are about 500 in the band of the vast vast majority of them and all the full time staff. They had very minuscule scale you know Charlie so you will remember of my very unfortunate comment to him at an AB meeting two years ago. Stations that have been on the air for you in some cases 50 years have never been on the air on a weekend or an evening or summer vacation. We feel that it's not a wise policy. It's not in the taxpayers interest it's not in public radio's interest to simply take the focus and divide it up 500 ways. We don't think that that's going to go public service. And we feel

that the policy that has been developed by the radio Advisory Council by the NEA our board when it was assisting us and still is assisting us on the radio advisory council in our regular meetings here in Washington. And with other selected managers who have put the input to us that we have developed a policy that is in the public interest and that will strengthen public radio. I continue to be appalled by the fact. That you people. Never talk to your life and say. I don't mean to make that blanket statement that I'd say of the 500 stations. A good many. Maybe more than half have never gone in to see the dean or the president or of the. Supervisor of the school district or the the board of trustees who are technically and legally responsible for the license and for the station that you operate. If you cannot serve the public interest because you don't have a staff and you don't have a budget and you don't have facilities and most of all because you're not on the air. Why

should you have that frequency in the first place. Seems to me that the FCC is remiss here granting a license I see this and broadcasting week after week project an operating budget first year $1000. Revenues existing zero. If there's no commitment tonight at the local level. I think. I'm not. Unfair. To the fact that provide money to provide that. The question was also raised regarding the corporation's restriction that staff claimed as being full time and radio stations are not considered full time. They teach more than three hours a week. That's a very sticky one to the station. Yes there is a lot of gum around that way. Here is a part of Alison's reply to that one. I think that we would find in general that the person has a faculty position and who has faculty responsibilities in general has a full

time job and that often the faculty man is on the faculty an academic year appointment and he he's away several months in the summer to recuperate. And he has long vacations of spring period and the winter period. We don't think that's the way to run a Public Broadcasting Service. You need people who have their motivation in providing a public service as a full time duty. Now I'm not saying that the faculty don't contribute to stations all the stations and I've been out if we didn't have the faculty assistance we get nowhere. I'm not saying that if you didn't have student interned trainees work study people people in your station are receiving credit if you didn't have them you get nowhere. This is one of the wonders of the university you have such diverse sources of talent but I assure you from my own experience and from the experiences of the vast vast majority of the stations and particularly those

stations that are not now followed by the support you don't have full time people who who know that their job is to radio service just don't go. OK finally Gemma's asked for a status report on the FCC s proposed printer and regulation for ascertainment of community needs by noncommercial broadcasters. Here is Jim's reply. I talked with the FCC staff last Friday expecting this. The question is how much. I think I could safely say Charlie that the NE our position is one which in a general way reflects the concern of educational broadcasters who are understaffed and undermanned anyway and are trying to provide an elaborate justification for what they said in their license application they were going to do anyway. On the other hand I think all of us and as responsible broadcasters are quite willing to make some

reasonable kind of representation to the committee as to how we find out what our community needs are and to the extent to which we have responded to them. The report I had from a commission and where we have agreed among CTV NPR in an E.R. that this is one we are to follow up on that we've been calling about every ten days to two weeks not urging them to come out with their documents urging them to please let us take a look at it before they propose what they're going to go after which of course we would still be in a position of responding to it. We thought it would save some time at least find out and alert you to whatever it is they're going to propose. I have skipped one fact here in issuing the commercial commissions docket item said we will issue regulations with respect to noncommercial broadcasting both shortly and now that can mean any time from last week to three years from now. And the indications I have been receiving over the last month or six weeks on this is

that the the thing is tied up in a household. That you know your office will have an opportunity to provide input to this when it gets up to the point prior to publication and all of us will have an opportunity to comment through Bob's office or through the commissioners with whom we work. We project this through rec Lee's office. You don't he is the commissioner responsible for a broadcast. Me and You and I will report. In an effort however to move this along and be are now putting together. A kind of rough what we think might be a way of getting out. I think the question and answer period was an excellent way to wind up with a public radio conference and that's the impression we got from most of the managers there. Also John Maisey wrapped up this year's conference by advising that the second annual public radio conference will be held at the Washington Hilton Hotel here in

D.C. on May 17th 18th and 19th of 1972 so mark those dates on your calendar. Yeah that's actually the conference is probably May 17 and 18. That would mean if we follow the pattern of this year that NPR meeting would be the day before and then the 19th is being held for possible he will Haitian a conference but it may also turn out that the NAACP board meetings will be go after them. They can hang loose for a while right. But it's that weekend in Washington and we hope that everybody more will be able to come next year and this year. Right. But we did have a good turnout that gets us around then to say things that the duly elected members of the national educational radio board of directors. The station manager is you have chosen to work with Jerry and me and to set policy for your membership organization. Matt on Friday following a public radio conference

you know Jerry I wonder we put a summary in the memo to managers of what happened in the board meeting but I just wonder whether people sitting out at stations faced with all kinds of problems of their own on a Monday morning or a Tuesday Wednesday Thursday or Friday morning really feel that anything that goes on in the board has any relationship to their stations. I go back to sometimes they do. They don't feel there is much. Well they don't but yet Jim when we ran our our service survey a couple of months ago that was indicated as being one of the things they wanted more detail reports of any our board meetings right and it struck us. This time particularly as we summarize the actions of the board for you that these things really do directly relate to what you are doing today and tomorrow and the next day and the next month and the next year. For example the board encouraged long range financing for CPB but insisted that a significant portion of the money that is appropriated by

Congress be designated by statute to go to the local stations for basic support. That certainly bears directly on your station's future. Secondly the board instructed the NABC staff concerning proposed legislation that we think AGW is going to come up with about broadcast facilities. I made two points first that in any new legislation provision be made for the eligibility of nonpublic least supported non-religious licensees such as many private colleges that are currently ineligible for AGW facilities grants and secondly that if there is any widening of the facilities programme that there needs to be far more money appropriated First of all to accommodate applications from radio and TV stations for new stations and for upgrading of facilities before any other technologies are contemplated. Both of these actions will mean money in the pockets of some of you out there. Then there was talk in the MP in our

board meeting and action taken to recommend to National Public Radio as the programming agency now that they try to mount another round of local station production grants similar to sounds of radio last year and that this should be an arrangement production grant program open to both CBB qualified and non qualified stations. So here again we don't know what's going to happen to this it'll be transmitted to the NPR board on Quayle or president was sitting in as an observer and participated in the discussion. This is another evidence of your boards working for you by using Gerry and me to as to what we should follow up with and then finally the board has now appointed a task force as you noted in the summary in the memo to managers to study the various aspects of the role of radio and instruction and to make a beginning report on this. You know October here again there are very important effects for your station. We think that the whole matter of the radio stations roll in.

Technological Revolution it's happening in age. Education has not been thoroughly examined. There's a lot of talk about television there's a lot of talk about cassettes but all of us in radio got something to contribute here too and we aren't quite sure what. So this task force which will be working this summer and will have a first report in the fall will perhaps help to crystallize our thinking will be talking about that more at convention time. And in addition to those actions your board revealed with Jerry and me a list of about 30 things that we're trying to do simultaneously. We need help in sorting out the ones that are that are really of most importance to station members and the board is very helpful on this. They talked over plans for the convention to try to make the sessions just as useful to you as possible. They worried about any Ares budget for next year and try to predict how many of you would be showing your support of all these activities by continuing your membership on that subject frankly. We announced at the conference and we're very pleased to note

that a little over half of this year's members any Our members have already signed up as members for next year despite the fact that we will not be operating the program service. Naturally we've expected that some of the smaller stations with smaller budgets might have to leave us because. All they wanted to buy really was a program service. But the support we've gotten so far and we're expecting there are more of your membership status forms in the mail indicate that many of you are beginning to realize that the services of your Washington office if any are going to be awfully important to your station and its growth in the years to come. Just the kinds of things that we've been talking about here in the kind of activity that went on at the meeting and the kind of services that we can provide for you. Many of you we know from your letters and your phone calls feel it's very wise to keep us active as your representative in Washington to keep expressing your view to congressional representatives to the FCC to AGW and also to NPR and

especially perhaps to the corporation particularly when you can't quite understand what it is the CPB is trying to say to you or when you disagree with them or when you get into an argument with them. We're your friend in court and perhaps we do understand sometimes because we're closer to them what it is they're trying to do. But at the same time because we have visited you or because we are after all your membership organization we can interpret your position to them. And we're glad to know that more and more of you are calling us up and asking us questions and taking advantage of whatever information we can supply about whatever happens to be a problem to you and your station at the moment. The range of services which any are in any way perform for your station should certainly be worth a dollar or two a day and that's just about what it cost you in membership dues. Now just one more reminder and I suppose those of you who have already sent a man are pretty tired of this but we must have received from you your membership status form by July 1. It was sent to you back in April if you

mislaid your copy just write us a note saying that you're going to continue isn't any are any AB member. We'll send you another copy of the status form so you can select which of the three methods of dues payment fits your budget best. But please be sure that your membership status form is in our hands just as soon as possible to be sure that we are not forced to terminate your membership services on June 30 with the things that are coming up in this next year in Congress and FCC and 80 w in the corporation that vitally affect you. You'll need to know what's going on and with the problems that you're facing you'll need to know that you have us working for you in Washington. OK Jim before we close we want to tell you this is really the first production program from NPR we try to slip in these tape cuts for you and we make no claim on on AGW supported facilities you know anything like that. This technical quality may not be as good as you'd like for our cast but we don't intend that you broadcast it.

And we thought we better go and get it out to use it in a box. Well that's the end of tape visit audiotape visit number two with you and you'll be receiving another from a senator appropriate time within the next several months. So have a good vacation those of you who can find time to take one either Jerry or I along with Sarah Fredericks and Diane fishnet will be in the office all summer. So any time that you need some help be sure to let us know. This is the national educational radio network.