Mar 25, 2011 letter to editor

In the March 23, 2011 News-Record op ed “public radio provides ‘sense of place,’” the general manager of listener sponsored, Wake Forest University owned WFDD pleaded her case for continued tax payer funding for NPR. Tax payers should not be asked to pay for a ‘sense of place’ at a privately owned radio station.

The manager’s own numbers make the case for defunding “public radio”. In the fall of 2010, WFDD had 92,000 listeners: less than 4% of their service area’s population.

Defunding NPR would cost WFDD $171,000 per year. Let their few listeners pony up the $1.86 more per listener per year to make up the loss from tax payers. Or, cut this ten percent of their operating costs.

The manager states that public radio’s technological and programmatic interconnectivity is so fragile that this loss from taxpayers to WFDD is “the equivalent of removing a weight bearing wall” from a house.

Business with few consumers that cannot cut 10% of its costs or raise $1.86 per year per customer is a straw house built on sand.

Defund NPR. Let public radio rebuild its house with brick on a rock foundation: fundamental capitalism not an entitlement to a sense of place.