NPR payola scandal. However, there is a difference: NPR programmer and DJs don't go for cash or coke. From the Detroit Free Press:
Scandal shakes public radio: "The sedate, urbane world of public broadcasting was rattled Thursday as prosecutors charged three former employees of Michigan Public Media with illegally accepting golf club memberships, Persian rugs, airline tickets and massages in exchange for on-air considerations at the state's top public radio station."
2 comments:
Is this part of NPR preparing to enter the commercial market?
I was interested that the story stated that WUOM is the most popular radio station in Ann Arbor; however, a check of the Arbitron web site:
http://www.arbitron.com/radio_stations/home.htm
shows that WUOM is not in the market at all, which jives with what I thought I had heard that NPR isn't measured in rating books.
I always find it interesting that NPR often takes both sides of the issue. Sometimes they brag of their vast following, but other times claim they serve a small market.
I think this leads us to the old question if: "NPR, nobody is listening, but they keep talking."
Then why anyone would waste their bribe budget getting a free plug on a station that has a bubious audience size?
Good going with the arbitron check!
Though they are rather coy about it, NPR purports to reach a very selective demographic of the educated, upper income, and priveleged, who otherwise do not listen to mainstream radio or watch television. While this is not the mass based beer and chips crowd served by AM radio, NPR still presents the tantalizing possibility of tapping into vast reserves of disposable income.
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