The National Association of Broadcasters has recently launched a site that is dedicated to one of my personal favorite aspects of radio: giving back to the community. When you visit the NAB Broadcasters Public Service website, it explains itself on the front page as follows:
The National Report on Broadcasters’ Community Service vividly tells the story of how radio and television broadcasters are improving the quality of life in their local communities and documents the unrivalled amount of public service generated by broadcasters on both a state and national level. The examples included here are just a sampling of the numerous stories replicated throughout the nation every day by your local radio and television stations.
The website contains a lot of interesting information including general stats on how much money has been raised for disaster relief, how much dollar value in airtime has been donated to charity, the ability to view total statistics by state, topic, or medium (radio/tv), and a broadcaster action center which allows stations to track their own public service initiative. In addition, the full report (6MB pdf) is right there placed for easy downloading.
Community is an element of radio which regular readers know I am a huge fan of. It is one of the things that truly does set radio apart, even as we watch the rapid evolution of how that community spirit is communicated. Now anyone can take a look and see for themselves how much radio gives back to the communities it is embedded in.
Photo courtesy of Jeff Kubina, used under its Creative Commons license
Radio 2020 