Donald Satz wrote:

>I read that Ray Kroc's widow has left $200 million dollars to NPR.
>The folks at NPR report that the amount is twice their annual budget,
>so the gift should have some dramatic effects on NPR porgramming.  Will
>NPR now give less priority to market forces?  Will fund drives decline?
>Will classical music programming climb to to the levels of previous
>decades?

Maybe less impact than hoped for, at least at first.  One of the stories
I had heard about the donation was that NPR plans to put most of it into
their endowment, so that it generates funds as an annuity.  The total
available each year is thus likely to be a fraction of $200M.

Certainly it would be great for us if NPR were to increase their level
of classical music programming because of this.  But again, there are
probably more CM programs available than one hears at a typical NPR
station, because the decisions as to what to program regarding music vs.
news and chat tends to be made at the local station level.

Bill H.