The man who turned a small college radio station in the suburbs of the Twin Cities into one of the few state pubcasting networks not owned by a governmental agency, then became a national programming power and the first man to get rich off of public radio thanks to Garrison Kellior (with Kellior also becoming rich), Bill Kling is leaving Minnesota Public Radio and its parent American Public Media Group as CEO at the end of next June after 44 years:
http://www.twincities.com/ci_16045899?nclick_check=1 Kling intends to spend his time working on new regional public media news shops nationwide, similar to a plan he has started at MPR. As MPR's two networks cover every inch of Minnesota and parts of surrounding states, Kling has long been a figure of controversy in the non-com radio biz--he's been accused of trying to keep rival stations from going into business and caught a lot of hell for buying St. Olaf College's big-powered but little-listened classical music WCAL and turning it into modern-leaning AAA KCMP "The Current" (even though the Current has consistently pulled higher ratings than WCAL--Minnesota is the only state has an "Independent Public Radio" group of non-MPR non- coms). He's also been attacked for going after stations outside of Minnesota (including LA's KPCC and Miami's WCMU, now "Classical Music Florida"). And he caught a lot of flak for starting for-profit companies to sell "Prairie Home Companion" merchandise, among other things, and allegedly taking the proceeds for himself rather than MPR when they were sold. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
