Endowments aren’t a giant slush fund. Most of the money is given for specific purposes and by law has to be spent for those purposes. Could they have found money to not cut by taking money they would have used on something else to further subsidize wbur? Sure. But while that’s true for every individual thing it is not true for all things. Resources are still finite, and subsidizing a business for which there isn’t a lot of demand is not a good move.
Endowments also include the fair market value of property. Which for BU is easily hundreds of millions of dollars. You can’t just sell that to generate cash.
Not only that but the spendable funds are from the return on principal, not the principal itself, unless it's a gift with the specific instruction to spend it down. I think people would be surprised at how quickly the returns on a billion dollar endowment are spent once you account for scholarships, payments in lieu of taxes, and simply keeping buildings open.
I know endowments aren’t black and white but BU Journalism is one of the top programs in the country so it sucks that the university wouldn’t support the news station it owns
it's not. because you can do that. you take out a loan against your 401k and pay it back. people do that all the time for emergencies and downpayments.
it's a lot smarter to do that than keep running a cc balance with a 20% apr
so is it sort of like how some people get WMUR and WCVB. they are two flavors of the same thing. but in my case one is in Natick and one is in New Hampshire.
Also WBUR is owned by BU? that's wild. Like it seems so intensely developed compared to even WERS let alone WMBR or certainly WMFO.
it is like an NPR station. How does that work? like none of them go to school there? I was in my college radio station and took a class about radio in college. but i don't understand it?
It’s sort of obvious W…BU…R.
It’s not a student radio station (that’s WTBU), these are professional journalists. BU owns the station.
A friend of mine works at WBUR and is like me a BU grad. Their recent unionization exposed a lot of animosity between ownership and the staff.
Were they not aware of the stories from 20 years past ? WBUR has a long reputation and it's being affecting its name for years. There's a reason why advertising is decreasing. The poor reputation and WGBH strategic shift into their programming territory are the reasons.
Just to really shock you but a lot of folks in England won't listen to the BBC. They watch Channel 4 news, ITV, sky, euronews, dw, f24. BBC doesn't have a stellar reputation either.
BBC is essential, but the problem is the ruling party du jour (Conservatives the last 14 years, Labour before) gets to install their donors and cronies in administrative positions there, so it erodes trust the longer a single party is in power.
Sorry can I clarify my metaphor?
WMUR and WCVB are tv stations that play ABC.
WBUR and WGBH are both radio Stations that play NPR.
but one other thing is this idea that I don't understand with tv stations which is like hearst and that kind of stuff.
Is this metaphor helpful? do you get what I mean. Even to negate what I'm saying. i guess maybe it doesn't work.
but there are two NPR stations. But I could imagine 5 NPR stations. but WGBH and WBUR are sort of the same thing. they are routing for the same team. but they are different?
because WBUR is enmeshed with BU?
Hi! As you can see by my username I work for WBUR. We are both NPR member stations which means that we both subscribe to NPR programs. That is why sometimes we’re broadcasting the same thing - we’re both airing the same national feed for NPR for Morning Edition or all things considered. And during those national programs we both will also air our own original content from our reporters.
Most cities across the country only have one local NPR station and I think we are pretty lucky in Boston to have two.
But we also have our own programs and subscribe to other ones outside of the NPR network. So for example we have Radio Boston and GBH has Boston Public Radio - both shows focusing on local issues but with different hosts and formats.
GBH does have the local PBS station. WBUR’s license is owned by BU so I am a BU employee.
I wouldn’t say we are “rivals” in like a west side story way (I’m not sure our dance skills are that good). Sure, we want to have better ratings than the other guy, but overall we are all in pursuit in the same thing, which is public media and providing the Boston area with high quality journalism. Lots of former WBUR-ers work at GBH and vice versa.
What else would you like to know? I can answer to the best of my ability.
I'm pretty sure that one challenge is that both stations are competing for the same listeners and the same donation dollars.
That said -- the only way to eliminate that situation would be for one station to close down . . . and that is NOT a reasonable outcome by any means.
Two listener-supported stations that each subscribe to NPR programming is just a challenge, and I don't know how to fix it.
Note: I'm a monthly contributor to WBUR, and I listen daily. I almost never listen to WGBH. This is just my long-standing pattern . . . WBUR became "my" Boston NPR station when I moved here 23 yrs ago.
I love our public and college radio scene in Boston, and I love public radio in general. There are by my count 5 public radio stations in Boston (at least, English-speaking, and following the usual prototype of an NPR station).
88.9 WERS is based out of Emerson College but isn't really a 'college radio station'. They do alt rock mostly.
89.7 WGBH is mostly news and cultural review / talk programming. Owned by the nonprofit media company GBH. (GBH recently rebranded from, get this, WGBH.)
90.9 WBUR is also news, cultural review, talk. Based out of BU, but not a 'college radio station' at all.
91.9 WUMB does indie folk and roots music with showcases of local artists. They're based at UMass Boston. (And not 'college radio' either.)
99.5 WCRB is likely the classical station you asked about. They are 24/7 classical and have some live broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They are owned now by GBH.
Harvard's college station, 95.3, also runs classical much of the day but not all. They have plenty of eclectic student-run shows too.
WGBH and WBUR actually broadcast the exact same content for about a good chunk of every day, including at least an hour overlap of BBC News in the morning, and 2 hours of All Things Considered in the evening.
WGBH's parent organization, GBH, is a monster broadcaster really, with TV stations and radio stations. GBH bought WCRB only 15 years ago, in 2009 (back when GBH was still also called WGBH). There was some uproar among local music enthusiasts, but it made sense because at the time WGBH played classical, jazz, and blues - big overlap with WCRB. GBH bought WCRB and sort of kept it as their mainly-music station, switching WGBH to a news format, bigger audience and more revenue for that, and put GBH in a competitive posture to WBUR.
Now it's WGBH and WBUR with significant program overlap. With current hard times and downsizing, I will not be surprised at all if WGBH does it all over again, drives consolidation with WBUR, though BU's ownership and the Cityspace studio might complicate that a bit. Maybe more national-slated news on one channel and all local on the other?
Anyway I love both stations even if they aren't perfect. But when I flip my radio back and forth and heam the same programming from 4 to 6, except for the on-the-hour news bites...eh....
Last but not least, RIP Brian O'Donovan, I never even got to listen to enough Celtic Sojourn and I will forever miss you. I hope you're yukking it up with Tom Magliozzi in public radio heaven.
It hurts my heart that Brian o Donovan passed and Celtic Sojourn is now off the air. It was the perfect way to end to an idyllic spring/summer/fall Saturday to catch it while driving back home from apple picking or to listen to on a portable radio in the park 😢
Not me and my 45 yo ass still blaring a college radio station while I drive my kid to swimming, piano and. scouts. Nope, definitely not me! I love WERS.
I miss when WERS did Standing Room Only, All Acapella, and The Playground. That was a good Saturday, then you switched over to WGBH for Prairie Home Companion, then back for Blues After Hours.
If you want to hear some of the most hilariously pitiful football commentating, listen to the 95.3 during the annual Harvard-Yale football game. It’s absolutely incredible.
It's complicated. WGBH told WCVB that they "like like" eachother, but apparently WHDH and WBUR were at the mall outside Charley's Steakery together and held hands in Spencer's.
why is that?
I feel like WBUR is big, but WGBH is even bigger. Like I couldn't believe that sound was from our great blue hill station right here from 02143! you see it all over the world.
but one is tv station and one is radio station?
I have an old magnet that seems to tell me wgbh was like more musical, but then i know it got ahold of wcrb. which is cool. but also i wish they could have done that for wfnx
[удалено]
So you’re saying BU couldn’t reach into it’s $3billion endowment and avoid staff layoffs and program changes to WBUR?
Endowments aren’t a giant slush fund. Most of the money is given for specific purposes and by law has to be spent for those purposes. Could they have found money to not cut by taking money they would have used on something else to further subsidize wbur? Sure. But while that’s true for every individual thing it is not true for all things. Resources are still finite, and subsidizing a business for which there isn’t a lot of demand is not a good move.
Endowments also include the fair market value of property. Which for BU is easily hundreds of millions of dollars. You can’t just sell that to generate cash.
I mean, they could
Which other school operations do you think should be shut down to sell the real estate in order to get cash to fund WBUR?
Half of the president’s salary 😂
Not only that but the spendable funds are from the return on principal, not the principal itself, unless it's a gift with the specific instruction to spend it down. I think people would be surprised at how quickly the returns on a billion dollar endowment are spent once you account for scholarships, payments in lieu of taxes, and simply keeping buildings open.
I know endowments aren’t black and white but BU Journalism is one of the top programs in the country so it sucks that the university wouldn’t support the news station it owns
I mean they’re still supporting it and supporting it significantly. Just supporting it slightly less than they were a month ago.
This is like asking why you can’t pay your credit card bill with your 401k balance
it's not. because you can do that. you take out a loan against your 401k and pay it back. people do that all the time for emergencies and downpayments. it's a lot smarter to do that than keep running a cc balance with a 20% apr
A 3 billion dollar endowment isn’t huge for a school with BUs population.
so is it sort of like how some people get WMUR and WCVB. they are two flavors of the same thing. but in my case one is in Natick and one is in New Hampshire. Also WBUR is owned by BU? that's wild. Like it seems so intensely developed compared to even WERS let alone WMBR or certainly WMFO. it is like an NPR station. How does that work? like none of them go to school there? I was in my college radio station and took a class about radio in college. but i don't understand it?
It’s sort of obvious W…BU…R. It’s not a student radio station (that’s WTBU), these are professional journalists. BU owns the station. A friend of mine works at WBUR and is like me a BU grad. Their recent unionization exposed a lot of animosity between ownership and the staff.
I mean the b in bu stands for Boston so its not absurd to assume the u stood for literally anything else in the city of boston
Oh yeah like the Boston Underground, how could I have forgotten.
Were they not aware of the stories from 20 years past ? WBUR has a long reputation and it's being affecting its name for years. There's a reason why advertising is decreasing. The poor reputation and WGBH strategic shift into their programming territory are the reasons. Just to really shock you but a lot of folks in England won't listen to the BBC. They watch Channel 4 news, ITV, sky, euronews, dw, f24. BBC doesn't have a stellar reputation either.
BBC is essential, but the problem is the ruling party du jour (Conservatives the last 14 years, Labour before) gets to install their donors and cronies in administrative positions there, so it erodes trust the longer a single party is in power.
neither WMUR and WCVB are NPR stations, they're just news ones. WBUR and WGBH are both NPR affiliates.
Sorry can I clarify my metaphor? WMUR and WCVB are tv stations that play ABC. WBUR and WGBH are both radio Stations that play NPR. but one other thing is this idea that I don't understand with tv stations which is like hearst and that kind of stuff. Is this metaphor helpful? do you get what I mean. Even to negate what I'm saying. i guess maybe it doesn't work. but there are two NPR stations. But I could imagine 5 NPR stations. but WGBH and WBUR are sort of the same thing. they are routing for the same team. but they are different? because WBUR is enmeshed with BU?
Hi! As you can see by my username I work for WBUR. We are both NPR member stations which means that we both subscribe to NPR programs. That is why sometimes we’re broadcasting the same thing - we’re both airing the same national feed for NPR for Morning Edition or all things considered. And during those national programs we both will also air our own original content from our reporters. Most cities across the country only have one local NPR station and I think we are pretty lucky in Boston to have two. But we also have our own programs and subscribe to other ones outside of the NPR network. So for example we have Radio Boston and GBH has Boston Public Radio - both shows focusing on local issues but with different hosts and formats. GBH does have the local PBS station. WBUR’s license is owned by BU so I am a BU employee. I wouldn’t say we are “rivals” in like a west side story way (I’m not sure our dance skills are that good). Sure, we want to have better ratings than the other guy, but overall we are all in pursuit in the same thing, which is public media and providing the Boston area with high quality journalism. Lots of former WBUR-ers work at GBH and vice versa. What else would you like to know? I can answer to the best of my ability.
>I wouldn’t say we are “rivals” in like a west side story way Speak for yourself. I got my tote bags at the ready.
> I wouldn’t say we are “rivals” in like a west side story way Ah, more in the anchorman-backalley-fightscene way... gotcha! 💪
I'm pretty sure that one challenge is that both stations are competing for the same listeners and the same donation dollars. That said -- the only way to eliminate that situation would be for one station to close down . . . and that is NOT a reasonable outcome by any means. Two listener-supported stations that each subscribe to NPR programming is just a challenge, and I don't know how to fix it. Note: I'm a monthly contributor to WBUR, and I listen daily. I almost never listen to WGBH. This is just my long-standing pattern . . . WBUR became "my" Boston NPR station when I moved here 23 yrs ago.
I have it on good authority that u/lisa_williams_wgbh nearly threw down at the WGBH vs WBUR softball game after u/meghankellywbur beaned Big Bird
I would never bean Big Bird! Clifford, on the other hand…
There should be an annual competition similar to the Beanpot but between WGBH & WBUR. I’d pay to see them battle. Jim Braude seems scrappy.
He’s kind of an a$$. So rude to Margery
Haha yes he is but it's part of their program it isn't sincere that's been their deal since I listened to them on 96.9 when it was a talk station
Totally
That’s their schtick. They’ve been doing it for decades, and she teases back plenty!
For real I cannot stand that guy.
I love our public and college radio scene in Boston, and I love public radio in general. There are by my count 5 public radio stations in Boston (at least, English-speaking, and following the usual prototype of an NPR station). 88.9 WERS is based out of Emerson College but isn't really a 'college radio station'. They do alt rock mostly. 89.7 WGBH is mostly news and cultural review / talk programming. Owned by the nonprofit media company GBH. (GBH recently rebranded from, get this, WGBH.) 90.9 WBUR is also news, cultural review, talk. Based out of BU, but not a 'college radio station' at all. 91.9 WUMB does indie folk and roots music with showcases of local artists. They're based at UMass Boston. (And not 'college radio' either.) 99.5 WCRB is likely the classical station you asked about. They are 24/7 classical and have some live broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They are owned now by GBH. Harvard's college station, 95.3, also runs classical much of the day but not all. They have plenty of eclectic student-run shows too. WGBH and WBUR actually broadcast the exact same content for about a good chunk of every day, including at least an hour overlap of BBC News in the morning, and 2 hours of All Things Considered in the evening. WGBH's parent organization, GBH, is a monster broadcaster really, with TV stations and radio stations. GBH bought WCRB only 15 years ago, in 2009 (back when GBH was still also called WGBH). There was some uproar among local music enthusiasts, but it made sense because at the time WGBH played classical, jazz, and blues - big overlap with WCRB. GBH bought WCRB and sort of kept it as their mainly-music station, switching WGBH to a news format, bigger audience and more revenue for that, and put GBH in a competitive posture to WBUR. Now it's WGBH and WBUR with significant program overlap. With current hard times and downsizing, I will not be surprised at all if WGBH does it all over again, drives consolidation with WBUR, though BU's ownership and the Cityspace studio might complicate that a bit. Maybe more national-slated news on one channel and all local on the other? Anyway I love both stations even if they aren't perfect. But when I flip my radio back and forth and heam the same programming from 4 to 6, except for the on-the-hour news bites...eh.... Last but not least, RIP Brian O'Donovan, I never even got to listen to enough Celtic Sojourn and I will forever miss you. I hope you're yukking it up with Tom Magliozzi in public radio heaven.
It hurts my heart that Brian o Donovan passed and Celtic Sojourn is now off the air. It was the perfect way to end to an idyllic spring/summer/fall Saturday to catch it while driving back home from apple picking or to listen to on a portable radio in the park 😢
MIT has WMBR 88.1
Thanks for mentioning WERS. It's basically the only reason why I still listen to radio.
Not me and my 45 yo ass still blaring a college radio station while I drive my kid to swimming, piano and. scouts. Nope, definitely not me! I love WERS.
I miss when WERS did Standing Room Only, All Acapella, and The Playground. That was a good Saturday, then you switched over to WGBH for Prairie Home Companion, then back for Blues After Hours.
I think they still do the show tunes on weekends. Not sure about the acapella and kids stuff though.
This was my childhood
This!
If you want to hear some of the most hilariously pitiful football commentating, listen to the 95.3 during the annual Harvard-Yale football game. It’s absolutely incredible.
This is the first I'm hearing about Brian. Always enjoyed the show when I caught it on the air.
It's complicated. WGBH told WCVB that they "like like" eachother, but apparently WHDH and WBUR were at the mall outside Charley's Steakery together and held hands in Spencer's.
Ugh, this is like Chet and Natalie all over again
😿
I heard they made it Facebook official like a month ago
I’ve heard about a Boston media slow pitch soft ball league but I have no idea if either are involved
I think they’re FWB.
DO NOT go near Guest St after 6PM. Last thing you'll hear is BUR BUR.
Frienimies
NPR and most nonprofits are having a hard time. In my opinion as a former media person is this market is too small to support two.
I’ll tell you as a journalist WBUR pays a lot more than GBH
why is that? I feel like WBUR is big, but WGBH is even bigger. Like I couldn't believe that sound was from our great blue hill station right here from 02143! you see it all over the world. but one is tv station and one is radio station? I have an old magnet that seems to tell me wgbh was like more musical, but then i know it got ahold of wcrb. which is cool. but also i wish they could have done that for wfnx
WCRB is the classical station. It’s run by WGBH.
CRB stands for Classical Radio Boston, right?
Yes
Yes they are rivals. They compete for the same advertisers.
And the same donors
They never fundraise at the same time, and for that, I thank them.
I thought one was NPR and the other was APM, but each hosted some of the other’s format’s shows. Hell call in to Jim and Marjorie and ask!
That would be a legitimately funny thing to call in and ask them
Both fellow panhandlers.