Len Fehskens replies to Karl Miller:

>>If responding to listener's "wants" is the point...then I don't see that
>>it should qualify for tax exempt status.
>
>So you have annoy listeners to be tax exempt? I thought it was determined
>by a non-profit business model.

Well, you certainly made a leap.  How about this? Public broadcasting,
when it began, was supposed to provide a refuge from the "vast wasteland"
(former FCC chairman Newton Minnow) of commercial broadcasting.  In many
areas, it obviously has the same ethic, if not the same programming, as
commercial broadcasting -- ie, as many viewers as it can rope in.  For
heaven's sake, on *my* public TV station they're running Lawrence Welk.
On my NPR radio station, they're cutting back on all music programming to
run repeats of NPR news, Car Talk (a show that commercial radio would love
to run), Talk of the Nation, but not, of course, Fresh Air (too left-wing;
never mind the fact that all the political shows on my local radio are
right-wing -- that's apparently ok) or Performance Today (no mass
interest).  Locally, the NPR station cut a program by one of the great
American scholars and performers of Bach -- Sean Duggan.

I don't doubt that these changes will bring them more money, but why
is this a public radio station with tax-exempt status? It seems to me
a commercial station with a niche market.

Steve Schwartz