| Myths Of Public Radio |
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1) Public radio is free; I don’t need to give!
- This is simultaneously fact and myth. Everyone can certainly listen to public radio for free. Producing and broadcasting public radio, however, costs quite a lot. Most of our national shows come with a hefty price tag; Morning Edition alone is charging us $121,987 to bring you their flagship news show this fiscal year. Transmitter rent at LeVeque Tower runs $24,000 a year. Add on fees for all the other national shows, equipment repair costs, office supplies, salaries for staff, licensing fees, and so on…and the sending side of public radio is over $1,000,000 of not¬-free! We rely on listeners to help us pay those costs, and keep bringing you the great programs you listen to every day.
2) WCBE receives all its funding from the government.
- This myth has its origins in distant fact. While public radio has never received all its funding from the government, a very large portion could be publicly funded back in the 1970s. But as the Federal government began cost-cutting measures in the 1980s, support for public broadcasting whittled down. This year, WCBE expects to earn about 12% of our total budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And even that funding is based on the amount of funding we raise locally – so, ironically, the more you give, the more the government will give!
3) Radio is a high-tech industry, so WCBE certainly has all the latest equipment.
- Oh, how we wish this was not a myth! While radio in general exists in a high-tech world, WCBE lives in the low-tech hinterlands. While we’re technologically above distributing our sound via tin cans and string, it’s only by a step or two. Our transmitter is a decades-old tube-style unit. Our main audio mixing board is a bit younger at 20 years of age. We still use a 25-year-old reel-to-reel deck, and nurse along a few old 8-track-style cart machines. In fact, a few of our friends at other radio stations call us a living-history radio museum! But we’re committed to bringing you the best radio content available, so our priority is on programming and the staff to bring it to you. If we ever raise enough extra money locally, we’ll invest it in a better infrastructure at that point.
4) Radio celebrities make tons of money!
- Untrue: WCBE staff have to walk barefoot to the station every day in the snow, uphill both ways. That’s what we tell our kids, anyway. But the truth is that radio is not a high paying profession for the average staffer, whether in the commercial or public sphere. Sure, big national mouths such as Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh make enough money in a year to pay for WCBE’s entire operating budget for a decade – but the rest of us work harder for a lot less! In fact, according to Money magazine, the median salary for a WCBE worker is way less than the median family income for Columbus. Like five figures less. Now I’m realizing Mom was right and I should have been a doctor like Cousin Larry, with his nice house and vacation cottage at the shore and good clothes and how come I don’t call as often as my sister and did I hear about Aunt Milllie’s lumbago and…
5) Regular listeners don’t count – you get all your money from the mega rich.
- That would be nice if it was true; just one or two donations from the mega rich, and the fund drive would be over! We’ve been told that a lot of Central Ohio’s upper echelons do listen to WCBE – but they’re certainly not writing six-figure checks to us. The average donation to central Ohio’s NPR station hovers around $88. But we receive donations of just a few pennies on Small Change Day. Because we don’t have one or two mega-rich donors supporting WCBE, it’s critical to hear from all our listeners during fund drives, donating whatever their budgets allow: $10, $50, $500, or $5,000. The key is simply to give what you can afford!
6) WCBE is controlled by the secret cabal of an ancient mystical order.
- Patently untrue; most of us wonder if anyone’s really in control around here at all (although the Loyal Order of Water Buffalo did attempt a clandestine coup some years ago).
7) WCBE’s huge endowment will make up for any budget deficit.
- Please, if you find that endowment, let us know! Truthfully, we’d love to establish an endowment; it could help to stabilize our budget/revenue needs. But our situation has never allowed it; each year, we’ve raised just enough money through fund drives and underwriting to pay annual expenses. We’d have to get ahead of the game, and raise a nice surplus for a few years, to have the “extra” money needed to start an endowment. Ultimately, how much we raise is really up to you!
8) Commercial radio is free.
- Well, kind of. Like public radio, commercial radio is free to listen to. They just don’t ask for your financial support directly like we do! But you are paying for commercial radio indirectly. The price you pay for most goods includes a mark-up for advertising expenses. (Depending on the model, hundreds of dollars of the sticker price of that new car you’re eyeing help pay for the ads that brought you to the dealership in the first place.) One of our phone volunteers likes to tally up how much those hidden costs for advertising mount up each year; we’re always surprised at how much it comes to!
9) Well, then, you should air more advertisements like commercial radio does!
- It’s illegal. Public radio can’t air regular advertisements, according to FCC regulations. We can air underwriting announcements, which are acknowledgements of money we do receive from businesses. But those announcements can’t use the same terms you hear in commercials. We can’t have any price information in underwriting announcements, for example. Or talk about big sales or discounts. Calls to action, such as “Buy now”, are right out, too. Since they’re not allowed to bombard you with those bombastic terms, a lot of businesses simply won’t underwrite on WCBE.
10) WCBE has posh studios atop LeVeque Tower.
- Pish-posh, we say! A very posh penthouse apartment is on two of the upper floors of LeVeque Tower, but we’re not allowed in there. Our transmitter is housed on the floor above that. The transmitter room’s décor suggests early American cinder block. Because it’s just an equipment room, our LeVeque facility pleases the eye with brick, concrete, old wiring, electronics, and such…and features such creature comforts as…uhm, air. We used to have an old wooden chair up there so the engineer could sit during long repair jobs, but we haven’t seen that in a while. We also have an antenna at LeVeque; it’s the one you can see on the west side of the rooftop with the blinking red light. Dan had to climb it once; “posh” is not the word he kept muttering while he was hanging on up there!
11) WCBE is too new to support.
- Thanks for the compliment, but we’re hitting middle-age. WCBE first went on the air in September of 1956…so we’re a good 52 years old. Despite our age, we’re fit and trim: more listeners than any other public station in the area, and a lean staff of just 10 folks making all the cool programming you love happen 24/7/365. On the downside, we’ve never made very much money, so our equipment’s rather old, too – and either needs to be replaced, or needs lots of TLC to keep it running. Either proposition is a bit expensive; that’s another reason your support is so critical!
12) WCBE doesn’t sound like other public radio stations.
- Darn skippy. Isn’t that the reason you listen to us in the first place? Besides, don’t you remember what it was like in high school, being the “different” kid? It’s similar in public radio; a lot of the traditional-style stations look askance at us at regional meetings and national conferences. We really do try to sound different. The purpose of public radio is to fill the gaps left behind as other stations pursue high ratings and big advertising dollars. Other public stations in town already cover the traditional gaps, such as Classical music. So we’re filling the other gaps: mainstream jazz, roots music, alt-rock, world music, and a more event-driven style of news coverage. It’s all those things you love about WCBE that make us sound different than other public radio stations!
13) Listeners have no say in programming.
- To be fair, that’s a myth at almost any radio station, commercial or public. On the commercial side, ratings hold huge importance for program directors; the better the ratings, the more the owner can charge for ads. There’s nothing wrong with that – commercial radio is a for-profit business, and businesses have a mandate to earn as much as possible for their owners. So listeners, via their listening habits, have a say in commercial radio. On the public side, listeners have more direct input. Your fund drive support is one example. We have to pay producers for their shows; if a particular program isn’t liked by listeners, they don’t donate when it’s on during the fund drive. And if we can’t raise enough money to pay for it, we have to take it off the air. Also during fund drives, we’ve often taken listener polls or surveys, getting your opinions on new shows we’re thinking of offering. Those coffee klatches you hear about are another way of talking with you directly about what’s on the air. So no matter how you look at it, WCBE listeners actually have quite a lot of say in programming!
14) If I don’t give, someone else will step up to keep WCBE alive.
- These three words alone debunk that myth: Columbus Symphony Orchestra. Without solid financial support from the people who use (or believe in) their services, all non-profits are at risk. WCBE is no exception; like the CSO, if listener support ever stops, so will we. Like any other community, we all have to do our part to keep WCBE alive!
15) Everyone at WCBE is very tiny and lives inside my radio; they sneak out at night and eat my food.
- This is mostly myth. While none of us are NBA material, the WCBE staff are nonetheless too large to fit inside a standard car radio or household radio. Our voices travel on WCBE’s carrier wave – the byproduct of a bunch of electrons. The resulting radio waves are received by your radio, which plays the sound on your speakers. The concept was proven by Guglielmo Marconi at the end of the 19th century. No one is sure how radio worked before then.
- As for your missing food, we cannot completely debunk this myth. Radio people are a perennially hungry lot.
16) When I give to WOSU, my donation also supports WCBE.
- Each public radio station in Columbus is an independent, nonprofit entity. WOSU is licensed to The Ohio State University, while WCBE is licensed to the Columbus Board of Education. Each station must manage its own business affairs and raise the funds it needs for operation.
17) WCBE receives funding from our license holder, the Columbus Board of Education.
- Central Ohio's NPR station - WCBE (90.5 FM) is licensed to the Columbus Board of Education. WCBE receives no financial support from the Columbus City Schools. All staff, facilities and equipment are paid for by WCBE.
18) WCBE stands for We’re Constantly Broke Everyday.
- Beginning in 1912, every country approved of and received designated letters to begin radio station call letters with. In the United States, the letters "W" and "K" were to be used. In 1923, The Federal Communications Commission ordained that all new radio stations east of the Mississippi River would use "W" as the first letter and stations west of the Mississippi would use "K".
- CBE call sign meaning = Columbus Board of Education.
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