Kevin Sutton wrote:

>Karl Miller:
>
>>Should public education give the public only what it wants?
>
>No. But public education and public radio are not the same thing, nor
>do they have the same goals.  NPR had at one time early on, a heavy
>educational goal.  Public television still has that goal fairly well
>in place as far as I can see, but radio has changed.

I certainly do find some programming on PBS to be educational, but much
of it seems odd to me...like Lawrence Welk reruns.

>So, I say again, since the public pays for public radio, they should get
>what they want.

Since the public pays for education should the public determine the
content of education?

You mention that radio has changed, and I agree. My question is, what
is there about NPR that could be seen to justify tax exempt status?
When I started up my little CD company, we decided to incorporate as
a non-profit and we filed for, and got, tax exempt status.  There are
several criteria to qualify for tax exempt status, however, providing
entertainment is not a criteria which can serve as a justification for
tax exempt status.

While the content of public broadcasting varies from station to station,
I believe it would be interesting to see what percentage of tax exempt
stations offer classical music, and represent the full range of classical
music and provide related educational programming.

Does anyone know any statistics on this subject...keeping in mind that
one person's notion of the full range of classical music might differ
from another person's notion.  For me, the full range means...for
example...in the "old days" my program director supported me when I did
a series of broadcasts on the history of electronic music...even when I
included Berio's Visage.

Karl