NPR Updates Fees Model for Member Stations

NPR’s board of directors approved a new method for calculating its member stations’ fees for programming and other services, moving to a model based on station donor revenue.

According to current.org, the shift from the current model, which bases fees on stations’ total revenue and audience for NPR’s newsmagazines, will result in changes to annual payments for many members. Some will pay less, while others could eventually pay much more. The changes will take effect in fiscal year 2021 but will be phased in over at least three years.

Under the new model, “NPR’s success is tied to station success and vice versa,” Loren Mayor, NPR’s president, operations, told Current following the board vote. “… We want to therefore do everything we can to be helping drive station’s membership dollars.”

Mayor said NPR wanted to change the fee model to be more “forward-looking.” With its partial basis on broadcast listening, the current model doesn’t “fully reflect a multiplatform world,” she said.

The network was “looking for a good proxy for NPR’s value and something that would be relatively simple to understand and to calculate,” she said. NPR was also looking to create a more equitable structure by having stations with similar membership revenues pay comparable amounts for the same services.

NPR will aim to limit disruption over at least the next three years by capping fee hikes for stations at 10% and decreases at 3% during that time period. NPR’s revenue from member fees will grow 3% annually, and it may adjust the caps to maintain that growth. After lifting the caps, NPR would not be guaranteed a set annual increase —its income from stations would go up or down as station membership revenue fluctuates.

Among stations with annual membership income above $4 million, the median change in fees is a 9% increase, according to NPR; among stations with income below $250,000, an 8% decline.