Q and A with NPR's Vivian Schiller

After one year as president of National Public Radio, Vivian Schiller talks about why NPR is more important than ever—and why big donors should listen up.

Following two decades in the media, mostly at CNN and the New York Times, Vivian Schiller became the president and CEO of National Public Radio at the end of 2008. Schiller spoke with Worth about the changing business of journalism.

What is NPR? 

We are a news organization. Our listeners enjoy music and programs like Car Talk and Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me! But their real connection to NPR is that it gives them the information they need to start their day.

How is NPR structured?

We’re a membership organization. We create news and other programming and provide it to our member stations. More than 800 stations reaching 27million people a week run NPR programs.

So what does the president of NPR do?

 I cultivate relationships with member stations. I spend a lot of time with my board of directors, a lot of time with our major funders and foundation support. I meet with advertisers who provide underwriting.

And what do you get paid for that?

My base salary is $450,000.

What’s NPR’s mission?

To fill the information void. We have more foreign bureaus than ABC, CBS, NBC. We have reporters on beats most newspapers don’t cover, like education and religion. In many communities the NPR station is the only locally owned and operated news organization. We’re the only ones looking out for the interests of that community and not the bottom line of some corporation hundreds of miles away.

How do you pay for that?

Our biggest revenue stream is fees from member stations, which have multiple revenue streams, the largest of which is listener support—$ 300 million a year from about 2.5 million people.
NPR’s next biggest revenue stream is underwriting by companies that advertise in other media.
Next is philanthropy.

Way, way down the list is some money we get from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. There’s a big misunderstanding that we’re substantially funded by the government. We’re not. It’s a few million dollars a year on a budget of $157 million.

This is a rough time for media. How’s NPR doing?

We’ve had some trouble in the last year. We had to make cuts. But I’m very optimistic about the future.

Why?

You know what’s up in this bad economy? Listener support. The vast majority of stations are having record pledge drives.

How do you explain that?

People understand how important NPR is. They’re saying, “My local newspaper is closing, my local news is unwatchable … I better support this.”

You’ve never fundraised before. Are you good at it?

I love talking to donors about what we’re doing. But [asking for money] is a barrier that I need to get over. I’m learning.

What about large donors?

NPR has not done a good job of reaching serious philanthropists. There’s an underdog mentality at NPR that makes people feel scrappy, which is one of the finest qualities that a journalist could have. But it also means that there’s a bit of an inferiority complex, a sense that NPR is not in the same league with other news organizations. That mentality keeps us from saying we have a huge impact on this country and we deserve major support.

Some pundits argue that for-profit media should consider becoming nonprofits. Do you agree?

It’s as if you snap your fingers and call yourself a not-for-profit and all your problems go away. Yes, there are some tax benefits, but those don’t add up to a hill of beans and they’re not going to save an organization with a lousy business model.