For decades, federal funding has helped public radio stations across the country serve their communities. At KETR, that support most recently amounted to about $120,000 each year.
That funding ended last year, and KETR has received no federal support since.
On this North Texas Giving Day, we want to be candid about what that means for KETR, what we're doing about it, and why support from listeners and communities across Northeast Texas matters more now.
We haven't replaced $120,000
There isn't another $120,000 waiting to take the place of federal support.
KETR is working to develop new sources of sustainable revenue, including increased support from listeners, donors, businesses and other partners. We don't yet know how much of the lost federal funding can ultimately be replaced.
In the meantime, we've begun reducing expenses.
Some relatively expensive syndicated public radio programs have already been eliminated from KETR's schedule. We've identified other expenses and programs that may need to be reconsidered in the months ahead, depending on the success of our efforts toward sustainability.
Those decisions are part of operating responsibly in a new financial reality.
But there's a limit to what can be accomplished through subtraction.
MAKE A GIFT TO 88.9 KETR NOW
What are we trying to protect?
KETR is a public radio station, but that description encompasses much more than the programs that arrive here from NPR and other national producers.
Every week, KETR produces work that begins right here in Northeast Texas.
We cover city councils, county government, schools, elections and public budgets. We interview the people making decisions in our communities and try to make complicated local issues understandable.
We cover Commerce Tigers football and East Texas A&M athletics.
We introduce listeners to Texas musicians, writers, artists and other people doing interesting work in our part of the state.
We provide information during severe weather and emergencies.
We give university students an opportunity to learn broadcasting by working inside a real, professional radio operation serving a real audience.
And through programs including The Lede and Notably Texan, we create original programming about this place and the people who live here.
There is an important distinction between that work and much of the programming KETR distributes.
If KETR stops carrying a national radio program, that program still exists. Listeners may be able to hear it somewhere else, find a podcast or stream it online.
If KETR stops covering a local government meeting, interviewing a Northeast Texas musician or telling a story from one of the communities we serve, there may be no one else waiting to do it.
That increasingly shapes the way we're thinking about KETR's future.
Somebody has to keep paying attention
Operating KETR requires considerably more than keeping a transmitter on the air.
It requires people. It requires studios, computers and microphones; transmitters, towers and engineering; streaming and music licensing; emergency-alert equipment, software and electricity.
And it requires the capacity to send somebody into the community, ask questions, listen to the answers and turn what they learn into something useful for everyone else.
There are more stories in Northeast Texas than KETR currently has people to tell.
There are more public meetings we could cover. More communities we could reach. More musicians we could record. More students we could train. More local history we could preserve. More questions we could ask.
The limiting factor isn't a shortage of things worth doing.
It's capacity.
For years, federal funding helped provide some of that capacity. KETR has now been operating without approximately $120,000 in annual support that it once received, and that loss ultimately has to be absorbed, replaced or reflected in a smaller operation.
Which of those things happens will depend, in part, on the people and communities KETR serves.
North Texas Giving Day
North Texas Giving Day is today, September 17.
A gift to KETR helps support the entire public-service operation behind 88.9 FM: the local reporting, original programming, community information, music, sports, student opportunities and the technical infrastructure that makes all of it possible.
We're not promising that one fundraising day solves a $120,000 problem.
It won't.
We're asking listeners who believe Northeast Texas benefits from having its own public radio station to help us build what comes next.
Because ultimately, that's what supporting KETR makes possible:
The capacity for somebody to keep paying attention.
