A MASS EXODUS? : KUSC-FM WILL DROP NPR AFFILIATION IN THE FALL

Southern California’s most widely listened-to public radio station announced Thursday that it will drop all association with National Public Radio this fall, leading what could amount to a mass exodus of other public stations from the nation’s leading public radio network.

KUSC-FM (91.5) and its two satellite stations in Thousand Oaks (KCPB-FM, 91.1) and Santa Barbara (KSCA-FM, 88.7) will quit the financially-strapped NPR system as of October, KUSC general manager Wallace Smith said.

In his three-page “resignation” letter to NPR president Douglas Bennet, Smith cited “financial and programming considerations” for the decision to quit. But, though he couched the stations’ mass resignation in those desultory terms, emphasizing KUSC’s own recent money problems, Smith’s other reasons for leaving the NPR fold actually date back two years to the financial crisis that very nearly put the 250-station network out of business.

In 1983, NPR revealed that overspending and poor management had put it over $7 million in debt. Harsh cutbacks and tighter budgeting since then has reduced the debt, but the network best known for its two daily news magazines, “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition,” has never totally recovered.

Bennet, who had not yet received the resignation letter Thursday, issued this formal statement after the letter was read to him:

“Public radio listeners in the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara markets will continue to hear ‘Morning Edition,’ ‘All Things Considered,’ and other NPR programming on member stations KCRW-FM (89.9), KLON-FM (88.1), KCSN-FM (88.5), KVCR-FM (91.9), and KCBX-FM (90.1) and we are confident that their audiences will continue to grow rapidly.

“We also understand the diversity of the Los Angeles market and the financial facts of life that confront KUSC. In July, NPR added 18 new members across the nation and we regret that KUSC will not be with us at this promising time.”

For his part, Smith said he believed the escalating costs of being an NPR member plus the availability of alternative programming would eventually mean more and more NPR drop outs.

“I believe we are the first major station to drop membership, but several affiliates with dual membership (public stations with both an AM and an FM license in the same city) have dropped it (on one of their stations),” Smith said. He cited stations in Ohio and New York as recent examples.

Smith said that KUSC’s overall costs of NPR membership have remained relatively steady. KUSC paid $81,800 last year and $70,000 this year, but he said a new federal subsidy distribution plan would boost the station’s NPR fees.

“And our use of their programming has gone to zero,” he said.

Smith’s policy decision to gradually wean his stations from all NPR programming during the last two years has made continued membership in the system an unnecessary cost, he said. Last month, KUSC totally dropped “All Things Considered” from its format--the last vestige of any daily NPR news magazine broadcasting.

Three months ago at the annual NPR planning conference in Denver, NPR executives revealed to their member stations that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had so drastically cut NPR’s 1986 federal subsidy that most of its arts and performance programming and the weekend edition of “All Things Considered” would have to be phased out.

KCRW General Manager Ruth Hirschman led a successful drive to restore weekend “All Things Considered,” but the NPR money woes continue to threaten the network’s program offerings.

Smith and several other station managers from throughout the country contend that NPR has continued to refuse to tighten its budget as much as it could. Smith was one of five station managers who teamed four years ago with Minnesota Public Radio chief Bill Kling to form American Public Radio, NPR’s chief rival.

He said all three of his stations will continue to use APR programming, including that network’s most popular show, the Saturday evening offering “A Prairie Home Companion.”