Station Resource Group in coordination with CPB recently released its final report in their "Grow the Audience" series.  Just the title of it explains the most important priority in public media now: growth.  One has to question whether public media is venturing too far into commodification (too late), pressuring stations to perform better at whatever the cost.  It is obvious in commercial radio that appealing to the lowest common denominator brings the most ratings.  For years NPR has been the alternative to this formulation, offering programming that may be considered a little more thought provoking.  It is almost intuitively seen that some listen to NPR merely because it is the only alternative to commercial radio.  But what happens when NPR tries to step over that line to take a dip of the commercial audience that simply don't consider themselves public radio listeners.  Let's face it, many people in American culture have differing tastes when it comes to news, eg, what is Paris Hilton up to, or image of Jesus shows up on a pancake.  Can NPR appeal to these people without losing its "intelligent" audience?  Does NPR assume these listeners won't drop NPR simply because there is no other alternative on the radio (except for LPFM--and maybe that is why NPR sides against LPFM?).  The report proposes the desire to double the number of people using public media each week in the next decade; that's quite a goal. 

The worrisome detail in public radio's history is it has gutted what was once community and college radio--stations with different personalities every place you venture in the US.  NPR affiliates were once these type of stations until station managements cleaned house.  NPR affiliates are like McDonalds franchises nowadays: no matter where you go, you can expect the same.  Although, some NPR affiliates have a community-tinged local approach.  This is slowly disappearing under the pressure of the likes of "grow the audience".  Its unfortunate that the final report does not mention "localism" since the FCC has talked so much about this in the last few years.  And for music recommendations:  expansion of classical, jazz, and AAA.   Although classical and jazz are respectable staples, what about independent artists and new genres of music, or anything appealing to young adults?

The further commodification of public radio is an even louder cry to license more community and LPFM stations. 

Link: Grow The Audience/SRC