Hearing new voices

Sue Schardt is the executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio and mastermind behind Localore, a $2 million, 12-month initiative to support 10 independent producers to partner with local public media stations.

“From a money standpoint,” Schardt says, “public radio is a subsidized economy, so it’s a closed economy.” That has its benefits, but it also has its inefficiencies. One of those is the way the subsidy trickles down: Fully 75 percent of the $445 million Congressional appropriation to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting goes toward television. Of the quarter left for radio, Congressional legislation requires that most of be spent on program licenses. In practice, local stations spend the vast majority of their funding (from CPB or elsewhere) on licensing national shows, like All Things Considered or Morning Edition. Localore, on the other hand, presents stories, voices, and perspectives that don’t always make it onto the NPR airwaves. One big lesson of the project, Schardt says, is the importance of bringing in local investors. “That fires up local networks, and the radio station becomes a hub for churches, small businesses, libraries, and bars,” she says. “Localore [and] these networks, within local communities, had a shared value proposition, which totally redefines what the radio station is. It becomes a leader, in some ways, of urban rebirth or revitalization.”