Watching Iowa

It is really worth watching the pace of change at Iowa Public Radio. Todd Mundt and Cindy Browne and the various station staffs have faced some challenging financial priorities and now have sleeves rolled-up to make their radio services more efficient and better defined.

This is hard work because Iowa has a powerful public radio tradition and what all of that means: loyalty by listeners, legacy programs and ways of doing things; in other words all the momentum of how things were before.

Which brings us to what content guru Mundt has unveiled: a statewide news and information service which hits the airwaves on New Year's Day. And, soon, 24/7 schedules for classical/cultural and AAA/roots/folk/blues services. Gutsy stuff. The Iowa Public Radio Blog tracks the changes, the debates and the progress.

Mundt's forthright statement of how he wants to proceed is rare in its clarity. No one said this would be easy at all:

...In making this round of changes, and in beginning the planning for our Classical and our Triple A services, I致e set one firm rule for myself: if I need to end a local program or a network program, if I need to cut out a block of programs, whatever I need to do, I will do it, and I will do it now. Of course, circumstances can change, and a program I think is a valuable addition to our schedule today might not be valuable a year from now. But I won稚 squeeze programs out of existence; I won稚 marginalize them and then kill them; I won稚 bleed them to death after inflicting a thousand cuts; and I certainly won稚 allow them to remain in the schedule, just because they致e been there forever. If a program needs to go, I値l cut it now and take the heat - from fellow managers, from staff, from listeners, from the media."