Our ever expanding field of topics was extended to public radio. Our speaker this morning was WSHU General Manager George Lombardi.

Public supported radio goes back to nearly the beginning of radio. The early stations were created at colleges to explore the education and entertainment value of this media.

WSHU is part of the public radio system that exists in every place in America. There are also systems in places like Guam, Samoa, and Indian Reservations. Not for profit radio began years before The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was formed in the Johnson administration, but that legislation more or less guaranteed that this voice that serves the population so well would continue to exist. While radio stations in the network are now largely self-sufficient by virtue of donations from listeners, there may be smaller markets that depend more on the CPB . The stations vary in size. WSHU is considered a mid size operation reaching 2.7 million people in Long Island and Connecticut.  WNYC, in New York City is very large reaching 17 million people.

One of the more famous system wide programs is “All Things Considered”. This program delivers the news from around the world and around the nation but it handles lengthy facets of the news that the commercial stations will not. In depth coverage develops a story that endeavors to give the whole picture. With that success launched “Morning Edition” was created. Again the focus was on understanding the news and not just reporting it.

Public radio systems have been innovators. They started the first satellite transmission system and assembled a vast listening audience all over the nation and now PRI- Public Radio International is heard in many parts of the world. The affiliates in the system receive most of their funds from donations from the listeners, and while there is some corporate underwriting of programs, they are beholding to them. The loss of an underwriter will not be significant enough to quash a story or a program.

The quality of public radio is impressive. Read more using the link below.

http://www.npr.org/about-npr/192827079/overview-and-history

Ernie Fazio

Thanks to a staff that supports our efforts LIMBA is able to produce interesting programs such as this. Thank you Bill Miller, Ken Nevor, Michelle Zere, Annette Krauss, and Marguerite Moore Fazio