Is NPR also unfairly working to acquire new affiliates?

Reader comment on: The Right on Public Broadcasting

Submitted by rintin (United States), Oct 31, 2010 23:30

As I read about the issues of whether NPR should be more accountable to the tax payers, one point I've seen some people have made on comment boards has to do with the organization Public Radio Capital (http://www.publicradiocapital.org/). It appears that PRC was set up by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and that their mission is to facilitate the transfer of licenses from existing non-commercial stations that aren't broadcasting NPR programs to ones that will broadcast NPR. This is certainly true of their most recent project to transfer ownership of KTRU from Rice University to the University of Houston.

As a strict believer in free market capitalism I'm concerned by the notion that NPR actively expanding their base of operations in a market that is closed to most competition. They're the only organization that operates left of the dial that I know of that has the power and resources to swing a 9.5 million dollar deal.

Something seems sour about what the are up to. I hope that some news organization will do some good investigative reporting into PRC to help reveal what is really going on behind the curtain.

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