voiceofsandiego.org: Station Identification: KPBS Faces 'Time of Tremendous Change'

Great article about what the future holds for the local NPR station.  Frankly, I'm glad Doug, the former general manager, is moving on, I think he was a drag.  Although it's hard to know if he's to blame or if it's because they're hamstrung by being an entity of SDSU, but my limited interaction with him led me to believe that he was stuck in the pledge-drive mentality.  Being under SDSU has to be one of the largest issues, though, considering KPBS doesn't have a board or really anyone in charge.  How many non-profits do you see being successful with that kind of structure?  Not to mention clearly huge bloat in the budget.  What they spend to put on their programs vs what a place like Voice spends is unbelievable.

A good example of the conundrum going on these days: how do local stations (or even newspapers) stay relevant.  If you're going to do local content, you have to do it great.  And if you're going to regurgitate national or world content, then you're useless - just give me the feed straight from the people that do it better.  As far as I'm concerned, KPBS is basically an NPR feed, and what they bring to the local table is not great.  I'd rather just hear the NPR feed, which is a far cheaper model.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/articles/2009/01/05/economics/868kpbs010509.txt