Where is public trust in today’s public radio?

Over the past few weeks, I have read with interest the comments of letter writers and columnists regarding the inexplicable changes in programming at Maine Public Radio. I commend the Bangor Daily News for its editorial stand regarding the artlessness of both the changes and the way they’ve been announced.

Initially, public radio was brought to the airwaves as an alternative to the sound of commercial radio, which featured the most popular fad-based programming. Public radio’s mandate was to program what was no longer available on commercial stations; quality music of the past and present, quality fact-based information and news broadcasts, reading aloud and radio drama. Such programming forms an incalculable public service to inspire, educate, enrich and elevate public consciousness.

For the thousands who gave their dollars in support, this was obviously a worthy mandate. Programming a mix such as this and keeping the listener listening is more of an art form than a scientific equation.

One can buy “Painting by the Numbers” kits that produce do-it-yourself pictures for those who distrust their own ability to draw. No one considers this art. Commercial stations are married to the numbers of listeners they get. They sell commercials based on these numbers. This is why they are commercial.

Now we have expensive audience research experts as consultants to National Public Radio using the same “paint by the numbers” approach to programming. The more listeners you have the more you raise during fund-raisers, so these experts say. Therefore, watch those scores for numbers of listeners each quarter and put in the most nationally popular, fad-based programming and therefore, in knee-jerk fashion, public radio managers can become just like commercial station managers, using the latest scientific tracking to do their programming. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thinking, creativity, originality or values.

But hold on. These are not commercial stations. They are public stations that use public money: Federal and state tax money, and hard-earned dollars from Maine citizens who dig deep to support MPR because of its public service value.

There are some things that deserve to be preserved and made available because of their intrinsic value to the public’s good. Moreover, such values need to be aggressively promoted. We set aside land for its intrinsic value as a natural wonder. We set aside public money for the maintenance of libraries and museums to house the best that history, culture and art have to offer. We set aside facilities and human resources for schools, colleges and universities to further the public good. Should we not be setting aside the public airwaves to preserve, promote and facilitate the best that is in us as human beings?

How can one equate a program like “Whad’Ya Know?” with the Metropolitan Opera or “Pipedreams” or classical music during hours of work? How much has the station promoted the fact that classical music facilitates concentration, learning and creativity? And how has MPR been building the content of these locally produced music programs?

For the last 10 years, NPR has promoted the results of various audience research studies to its member station managers. The Denver Study, one of the biggest, amassed large numbers of people in an auditorium, played various musical selections and tabulated their reactions. Based on these, the researchers came up with an elaborate system (four pages of guidelines exist at MPR) to program music, so according to these studies, listeners wouldn’t tune out.

However, this study failed to analyze what actually happens when listeners are tuned to the radio during the normal course of their day. The study also failed to account for the power of a strong, talented program host to draw in and charismatically build an audience for good music. It placed people in an artificial environment and then claimed to know how to do music programming in the real situation. This, and similar studies using focus groups, created a bias against the art of programming by using “pseudo” science.

No longer would managers have to look for and cultivate talented radio hosts. They would do it by the numbers. Commercial station managers use Arbitron ratings, but ironically they never in their right minds would eschew the need for strong personality and talent behind the microphone. Charismatic hosting, preferably local, is at the heart and soul of radio broadcasting. Can it be that MPR, having bought into this so-called programming science with its bias against strong art-based hosting, has actually been killing their daytime music programming? Such strict music guidelines would certainly be creativity killers for a talented music programmer.

For this listener, more programs in the genre of Michael Feldman’s “Whad’Ya Know” and other talk shows which are mostly filled with random opinion, is a dissent into inanity. If we have available only what is “commercially” possible because the “most” will listen, much of what defines culture, art and education will be discarded. Universities offer hundreds of courses that “most” students won’t take, but they are essential for those who have those interests. All of us benefit from such courses continuing to be made available to the few.

That brings us back to public radio’s mandate. Public radio in Maine is part of a non-profit corporation accepting public money. Its managers have the responsibility to act as public servants. Maine’s finest public servants usually operate in the best interests of all its citizens.

Charles Beck, vice president for MPR, tells his listeners to tune in to WBACH if we want more classical music. Rus Peotter, vice president for Marketing and Development, invites northern Maine listeners to tune to the Internet if we want the Metropolitan Opera. It is mind-boggling that radio station executives would invite their listeners to tune to the competition. It’s as if they are saying, “we don’t serve your kind anymore.”

Beyond that, there is a twisting and skewering of public radio’s own mandate to provide alternative listening.

First, commercial stations are bought and sold all the time, changing formats along the way. There is never a guarantee that a commercial station will serve a vital public good for any great length of time. Second, WBACH can only be heard in a geographically small area – Augusta and south. The biggest part of the state can’t hear it at all. But because of lower population, we number under 20 percent of total listeners to Maine Public Radio. In a “program by the numbers” mentality, we no longer exist for MPR because we are not statistically populous enough to be considered. Tough luck for us to live north of Augusta. I guess our tax dollars and contributions don’t count.

What kind of public service is this? By this reasoning MPR exists only to serve as an alternative to the most populous part of the state. This surely is a strange definition of a “statewide service.” None of the program alternatives sound worthy of all the hype and spin. It is sad to think there is such a paucity and bankruptcy of values within the halls of decision at MPR.

By succumbing to what is essentially a current fad for talk radio and obsessive statistical analysis, MPR has abandoned its mandate. And strangely, they don’t really need to. Fund raising and membership growth is successful. This is a dangerous slippery slope they are on. Fads fade. Quality programming doesn’t. Visionary leadership looks for and vigorously promotes programming that is truly worthy of our money. Responsible public servants don’t betray the public trust.

Suzanna Myers is a former actress, producer and director of radio theater at public station WBHM, Birmingham, Ala., theater artist in children’s theater, regional theater and school programs in Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia, Alabama and Maine. She is a former teacher and insurance agent currently living in Old Town.