News Corp Dumps Local Fox Affiliates

CPRN launched in 1998 with assistance from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which ponied up a grant that Current, a publication specializing in public broadcasting, estimates at $850,000. But with two other classical networks available (Classical 24 and the Beethoven Satellite Network), the demand for a third fell far short of overwhelming. At the end, says Erica Stull, CPR's vice president of community outreach, only about twenty stations took the feed, including KUSC and its Denver partner station, KVOD.

No layoffs are anticipated, at least not immediately; Stull notes that CPRN personnel will fall under the KVOD umbrella. She adds that the project leaves a positive legacy. "The idea was not really to create some kind of national juggernaut, but to make a better classical public-radio service, and we've done that," she emphasized. "And we've learned a lot along the way."

Such as? "Local works better," she says.

This comment is sure to get a rise out of CPR critics, who complain that the statewide service airs far too little programming aimed at specific communities, choosing instead to utilize a one-size-fits-all-approach that fails to recognize the distinctions between, for instance, Denver and Grand Junction. But either Stull sees Colorado as a single entity from one state line to the other, or she believes that CPR is doing a better job of tailoring shows for specific regions than detractors do. "The sense of community on a public-radio station, whether it's news or music, is very important to us," she says.

That's good to know.

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Pressed: Tough times in the newspaper business don't only affect the largest publications. They're also causing difficulties at the most modest, as Matthew Faas knows all too well.

Faas, who once worked as an account executive with the Denver Newspaper Agency, came up with the idea of helping students at schools create their own biannual newspapers and then sell them as fundraisers to family members and so on. After forming a business called One Word One Love, he lined up College Invest as a sponsor and pitched his concept to principals and school boards. Pioneer Charter School and Harrington Elementary both signed up in 2007, and the efforts looked good and were well received. According to Faas, Harrington brought in $6,000 from last year's issues. "We raise much-needed funds through something that has everything to do with education," he points out. "We only publish twice a year, so it's not a stress for time on the schools or stress for funds on the local businesses." Moreover, "the schools don't pay a dime to participate."

Sounds good — but Faas has been unable to broker larger-scale deals with institutions such as the Denver Public Schools Foundation, and of late, he's struggled to find advertisers for sequels to his Pioneer and Harrington editions. No wonder, since the Denver dailies are having precisely the same problem.

The former minor-league baseball pitcher retains a can-do attitude he associates with the kids who've contributed to his newspapers, but he acknowledges that keeping the project going in this economy is a long shot.

So, increasingly, is the journalism game in general.