Public radio's private seduction

As record promoters begin spreading money around the cash-starved world of public radio, will your favorite community station begin sounding like the rest of the dial?

Editor's note: A clarification about this story was published on May 22, 2002.

By Eric Boehlert

May 1, 2002 | Widely considered a bastion of independence on the dial, public radio is a haven where programmers don't insult listeners' intelligence, answer to corporate bosses, or get graded by the volatile Arbitron ratings. For music fans, public stations represent radio's last surviving meritocracy; artists receive exposure because they deserve it, regardless of how little money their record companies spend on marketing and promotions. These stations are supposed to be completely resistant to the "pay-for-play" tactics that prevail at commercial radio, where playlists are sometimes put up for sale and where record labels can spend hundreds of thousands on radio promotion to try to turn one song into a hit.

Public radio is still immune to all that, right? Well, yes -- National Public Radio affiliates are not in any immediate danger of sounding like Clear Channel stations, the commercial radio behemoth that has come to dominate the country's airwaves. But in recent years some public stations have inched their way closer to the mainstream commercial model. That's especially true of a cadre of influential progressive rock stations bucking public radio's traditional news/classical music/jazz approach. Instead, they're spinning smart rock and folk records by Ryan Adams, Dar Williams and the Josh Joplin Group to appreciative adult listeners who, thankful for an oasis from the mind-numbing easy listening and classic rock stations aimed at them on the commercial dial, are willing to pledge money each year to keep the thoughtful rock stations thriving.

"We've helped Ryan Adams, Norah Jones and Patty Griffin, artists selling significant amounts of records," boasts Bruce Warren, program director at Philadelphia's influential noncommercial station, WXPN. Noncommercial stations (or non-comms as they're known in the business) were the first to embrace the bluegrass sounds of the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack and helped spark an extraordinary word-of-mouth campaign back when commercial radio was snubbing the CD. The album, which beat out U2 to win this year's Grammy for album of the year, has now sold 5 million copies.

That influence has not gone unnoticed by the music industry. Last year, eight non-comms in major markets (including New York, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Kansas City) were asked to report their weekly playlists to R&R magazine's Triple A chart (album adult alternative). Record companies quickly took note because this means that non-comms' programming decisions now affect the all-important weekly airplay charts, and for labels to score an adult rock hit they need to have the noncommercial stations onboard. As a result, major labels are lavishing more time, money and attention on the public stations.

"Without a doubt, reporting to R&R increases your status," says record promoter Sean Coakley.

Some in public radio see the music industry's sudden interest in their stations as proof they have arrived. Non-comms are no longer seen as eccentric outposts, but rather proven, professional outlets that can build audiences and sell records. Others, though, fear this sudden wave of corporate attention will only end up tainting non-comms.

"We changed the perception of public radio, but maybe too much," says one veteran public radio disk jockey who requested anonymity. "Because a lot of the problems of the commercial radio have been imported to the noncommercial world."

Perhaps the biggest problem is the system of record promotion that is now spilling over from commercial radio to some public stations. Under this pay-for-play system, record companies are forced to pay independent promoters -- or "indies" -- to get their CDs played on radio, a practice that raises daunting obstacles for alternative record labels. "It costs a lot more money right now to promote records at non-comms and it's a damn shame," laments the head of radio promotion at a small record label. "It's changed, in that public stations won't play my records unless I pay them by hiring an indie."

Some public radio veterans fear that non-comms' recent growth in terms of listeners and fundraising pledges has come at the expense of public radio's real mission, to broaden its audience's cultural horizons. These critics charge that some public stations are aping commercial radio's middle-of-the-road approach: playing fewer independent-label artists, adopting tighter playlist controls and, perhaps most disturbing, working too closely with indie record promoters, the middlemen (and women) who have been blamed for American radio's increasingly homogenous sound.

Next page: The woman with the most "exclusive" control