Public Radio

They were a couple of auto mechanics with a pronounced Boston brogue and, improbably, degrees from MIT. They hadn't a clue how to perform on radio, much less public radio. So Tom and Ray Magliozzi just decided to have a good time. The result was "Car Talk," which shattered the perception that public radio is inaccessible to the masses and became National Public Radio's top-rated weekend show. "They never developed that affect of sonorousness and seriousness and gravitas public radio is known for," said the show's executive producer, the man Tom and Ray would identify on air as Doug "Not-a-Slave-to-Fashion" Berman.

Music is the most mathematical art form, but for classical music station KUSC-FM (91.5), the radio world's arithmetic has turned hostile, spelling nothing but trouble for its ratings. Arbitron, the company that surveys radio listeners to calculate how many tune in to each station, says KUSC has lost more than half its core audience over the last 20 months. Ratings declined moderately during 2010 and the first half of 2011, then went into a tailspin. According to Aribtron's reports, KUSC's average core audience has sunk from nearly 26,000 listeners in 2009 to 9,500 in its latest report - a 63% fall.

As they head into what could be their final debate, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and her Republican challenger, Carly Fiorina, are appealing to voters on parallel tracks, each chipping away at the other's character on the airwaves and each trying to persuade voters that she has a superior approach to turning the economy around. The two candidates are to face off Wednesday at 1 p.m. in an hour-long radio debate on the Patt Morrison program on KPCC-FM (89.3) and on other public radio stations around the state.

Eight a.m. used to be crunch time for Madeleine Brand. She'd rise at 4:45, arrive each weekday at Pasadena radio station KPCC by 6, and be fully immersed in a frenzy of rewriting and editing during the critical last hour before 9, when "The Madeleine Brand Show" went live. But on this drizzly Wednesday morning, clad in sweats, a loose wool cardigan, red clogs and not a scrap of makeup, Brand, her hair pinned into a messy bun, relaxes at a local hipster cafe over an 8 a.m. coffee.

Southern California's biggest public television station threatens to pull out of the PBS network and the public television world trembles. An older audience is slowly fading to black. Replacement viewers aren't on the near horizon. And the rest of cable TV has filled so many niches ? art, science, nature, film, the outdoors and more ? that it's not so clear these days whether public television has a perch for the long run. The precarious position of stations such as L.A.'s KCET stands in high relief when compared with the relative health and dynamism emanating from National Public Radio and its affiliates these days.

Coming Sunday: Nonprofit broadcasting is beginning to look a lot like the for-profit kind, and Southern California, with five major public radio stations, has become ground zero in the shifting landscape.

With Ruth Seymour's firing of Sandra Tsing Loh at KCRW-FM and now Bob Edwards' demotion at NPR's "Morning Edition" ("Stormy Days for NPR," by Allan M. Jalon and Steve Carney, March 29), it appears that public radio is running out of feet to shoot. Lon M. Burns Manhattan Beach

Public radio station KCRW-FM (89.9), based in Santa Monica but heard throughout much of Southern California on other frequencies, expanded its reach even farther Monday: It went on the air in Santa Barbara at 106.9 on the FM dial, using an outlet that previously featured religious fare.

The first step in an ambitious, two-pronged plan to establish a new statewide radio news network will be taken today with the broadcast premiere of "CALNET," a half-hour California news magazine patterned roughly after National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." The Monday-through-Friday news program debuts at 5:30 p.m. over KLON-FM (88.

Public radio station KPCC hired former Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton as vice president of content, responsible for the station's broadcasts, website and live events. Southern California Public Radio President Bill Davis announced the move Tuesday, saying he hired Stanton as part of a push by the station to improve its quality and extend its reach in Southern California. Whereas the other top public radio stations in the Los Angeles area focus on music or a combination of music and news, KPCC-FM (89.3)

Navigating the waters of traditional radio these days might appear as dangerous as taking on a Nor'easter in a paddle boat, but that isn't stopping former "Morning Becomes Eclectic" host Nic Harcourt from heading back into that unpredictable front known as morning radio. On Friday he'll take over the morning-drive slot at Cal State Northridge-based KCSN-FM (88.5), the scrappy, college-based operation that's continuing its campaign to become L.A.'s little rock radio station that could.

They were a couple of auto mechanics with a pronounced Boston brogue and, improbably, degrees from MIT. They hadn't a clue how to perform on radio, much less public radio. So Tom and Ray Magliozzi just decided to have a good time. The result was "Car Talk," which shattered the perception that public radio is inaccessible to the masses and became National Public Radio's top-rated weekend show. "They never developed that affect of sonorousness and seriousness and gravitas public radio is known for," said the show's executive producer, the man Tom and Ray would identify on air as Doug "Not-a-Slave-to-Fashion" Berman.

Public radio and television stations may no longer be a safe haven from political advertising. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out a federal statute that prohibited public radio and television stations from accepting political advertisements. In its 2-1 decision Thursday, the court kept intact rules banning advertising for for-profit entities on public stations. Some media advocacy groups blasted the ruling, concerned that public radio and television stations will become just another platform for political attack ads. "Polluting public broadcasting with misleading and negative political ads is not in keeping with the original vision of noncommercial broadcasting," said Craig Aaron, president and chief executive of Free Press.

Public radio station KPCC hired former Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton as vice president of content, responsible for the station's broadcasts, website and live events. Southern California Public Radio President Bill Davis announced the move Tuesday, saying he hired Stanton as part of a push by the station to improve its quality and extend its reach in Southern California. Whereas the other top public radio stations in the Los Angeles area focus on music or a combination of music and news, KPCC-FM (89.3)

Ten NBC-owned television stations across the nation will team with nonprofit news outlets in an attempt to beef up their enterprise and analytical reporting, the network announced Monday. NBC outlets in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia will work with non-commercial outfits in those cities — KPCC public radio, the Chicago Reporter and WHYY public radio and television, respectively — while all of the network's owned-and-operated stations will get early access to investigative reports from the independent, nonprofit newsroom Pro Publica.

Big Bird, Elmo and their pals made huggable toys and helped turn "Sesame Street" into a durable worldwide brand. One man who got much of the credit was Sesame Workshop Chief Executive Gary E. Knell. He strengthened the financial platform for the venerable children's show, even amid exploding competition. Now Knell faces what appears to be an even tougher task: securing the long-term fiscal underpinning of NPR, where he takes over Dec. 1 as president and CEO. Since no one appears to be champing at the bit for dolls of Nina Totenberg and the "Car Talk" guys, Knell must devise some other way either to "liberate public radio from untenable reliance on fed dollars" — the unexpected recommendation expressed recently by his predecessor — or persuade skeptics in Congress that the national radio network deserves taxpayer support.

The voice coming out of the radio sounded folksy and a bit worn-out, speaking words so honest they almost made you feel embarrassed to be listening in. But all Don Holzschuh, a trucker from Iowa, did was tell the truth: The bills could pile up so high, sometimes it was hard to make it on his income of about $50,000 a year. When interviewer Kai Ryssdal suggested the recession had been over for a couple of years, Holzschuh snorted out a short chuckle. "I'm one nostril above the water," he said.

The two guys who headline public radio's long-running show on "science, wonder and discovery" can't wait for their first national tour. Declares Jad Abumrad, the hipster and technical whiz: "We're going to have the full-on groupies and the destroyed hotel rooms. Everything. " Rejoins his mike-mate, one-time ABC television science reporter Robert Krulwich: "I'm looking more for the wrapped fruit. " That sort of counter-punching and drollery is just one of the charms of "Radiolab," a favorite on more than 300 public radio stations and now on the verge of selling out stage shows in New York, Seattle and Los Angeles.