PUBLIC RADIO MAINSTAYS SURVIVE LATEST CRISIS

The morning and evening stars of public radio will keep on shining, but the rest of the galaxy is looking dim.

When the dust cleared Thursday at the climax of National Public adio’s annual planning conference for its 250 member stations, NPR’s two newsmagazine weekday mainstays, “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” appeared to have survived the latest budget bouts brought on by dwindling federal subsidy of the 14-year-old public network.

The fate of the weekend versions of those popular programs as well as NPR’s classical, jazz and dramatic offerings was not nearly so clear.

At least through the end of this year, the weekend version of “All Things Considered” and an upcoming weekend version of “Morning Edition” (it is set to debut later this summer) will still be broadcast. Whether money can be found in the tightening NPR budget to continue those programs in 1986 is still in doubt.

The most radical action at the five-day conference, however, was board approval of a new NPR business plan, set to commence in 1987.

Under the plan, NPR will receive most of its operating funding from its member stations instead of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The CPB, a quasi-federal agency, has supplied NPR with almost all its operating money since the radio network began broadcasting in 1970. Increasingly in recent years, NPR officials have voiced fears that the CPB board has reflected the political biases of the Reagan Administration--fears that they say privately could undermine the independence of the NPR news operations.

Under the new plan, the CPB would continue to make grants of up to $45 million a year to public radio, but most of the money would go directly to the stations that NPR serves. The 250 public radio stations, in turn, would use the money to buy NPR programming.

This rerouting of CPB funding would create a “buffer” of protection between the 10 CPB board members--most of whom have been appointed by the Reagan Administration--and NPR itself.

KCRW-FM (89.9) General Manager Ruth Hirschman explained NPR’s funding dilemma this way:

“Would you rather (answer to) 10 dragons or 250 armadillos?”

The business plan should insure that the 10-member CPB board will not influence NPR’s news programming, according to NPR board member David Creagh.

“It removes the fear of inappropriate political influence from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and places responsibility in the hands of the stations,” said Creagh, who is also general manager of public station KLON-FM (88.1) in Long Beach.

NPR President Douglas J. Bennet and NPR Chairman Don Mullaly lobbied hard for a fixed automatic annual tithe from NPR member stations under the new plan. They wanted every station in the NPR network to pay about 9% of its total federal and non-federal income in exchange for NPR programming.

But their efforts failed and most of the $45 million the CPB has been alloting to public radio will go to the stations to spend or not spend--as each station sees fit--on NPR programs.

“My sense is that most people here feel that the stations will pay enough to continue NPR at least at a minimal level,” independent producer Larry Josephson said.

KLON’s Creagh told The Times that his own station’s use of NPR programming continues to dwindle. Beginning June 1, “All Things Considered” will be cut from two hours to one hour each weekday on KLON, airing 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. after 30 minutes of KLON staff-produced news at 5.

KUSC-FM (91.5), the most listened-to public station in Los Angeles, discontinued “Morning Edition” several months ago and has substituted “Business Times” and the audio version of public television’s “MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” for all but one hour of “All Things Considered” in its afternoon drivetime programming.

KUSC General Manager Wallace Smith told The Times that the new business plan will not immediately alter his station’s schedule, but KUSC’s trend toward less use of NPR programming will probably continue.

And Santa Monica’s KCRW, second-most-popular public radio outlet in the Los Angeles area, will continue to carry the maximum daily schedule of both news programs. KCRW airs six hours of “Morning Edition” each day, beginning at 3 a.m., and three hours of “All Things Considered,” from 4 p.m.

On Wednesday, KCRW’s Hirschman spearheaded a successful drive to save the weekend version of “All Things Considered” from the budgetary ax this year. “Rather than see that program disappear Sept. 30 (final day in the federal 1985 fiscal year), I canvassed the stations and found out 87% of them carry it,” she said. “The total operating budget for weekend ‘ATC’ is only $800,000 a year. It’s the fourth most popular program on public radio (behind “All Things Considered,” “Morning Edition” and “Prairie Home Companion”). We couldn’t let it die.”

If the program survives, it will be because of the efforts of stations like KCRW that want to save it, and not the show’s producers at NPR headquarters in Washington. In terms of funding and programming, the Denver conference ended with the stations that NPR has served since 1970 in firm control of the network--not vice versa.

“NPR is like your arthritic alcoholic daddy,” Josephson said. “You don’t want to throw it to the wolves, but you also don’t want to give it access to your checkbook.”