Last week that suspension became permanent when Lydon and McGrath parted ways with the station and their six-year-old show. The popular WBUR-FM host and his producer wanted an ownership stake and a revenue split in the two-hour program, which attracts 400,000 listeners around the country and is syndicated by National Public Radio to approximately 75 stations.
Instead of giving them equity in the show, WBUR offered to hike Lydon’s salary to $230,000 and McGrath’s to $150,000, plus annual bonuses, making them among the highest-paid host and producer in public broadcasting. In addition, management proposed further salary increases by 2002.
Critics have charged Lydon with being greedy, arguing that his demands for ownership and revenue sharing are inappropriate in public broadcasting. Adoring fans, on the other hand, think he deserves a hefty piece of the action.
Lydon frames the issue differently. On his Web site (www.christopherlydon.org), he writes, “The Big Lie is that it’s about money, when it’s truly about creative authorship.” Lydon maintains that many public broadcasting biggies “effectively own their own companies and produce their shows in partnership or contract with public radio and television…. Public broadcasting is not the civil service, and it’s not a priesthood. It does not require a vow of poverty or a foreswearing of entrepreneurship.” On Friday, NEWSWEEK spoke with Lydon about the dispute.
NEWSWEEK: What’s really going on?
Christopher Lydon: We’re having an unfortunate spat over intellectual property-who makes a program, who gets to sign the painting and who really gets to exercise the vision, in this case, a radio program that has formed a community. [W]BUR has taken the position that “The Connection” belongs to them because they invested in it. Mary and I say nobody invested in it more than we did. I worked 80 hours a week on this program for six years and put my experience, imagination, reading, enthusiasm and my life into it, and so has Mary and a marvelous staff. We’re not shy about saying we have sweat equity in the product, but also that it is us. People who are listening to the program in our absence now say, “We get it now, it was you. Without you, it’s dead.” The issue here is really about the business models in the information economy.
What are the contrasting business models?
BUR is basically operating on a kind of caricature of capitalism in which they’re the mill owners, they own the machinery and the building and the brand name and people file in and out and turn the screws and go home. We’re saying, “No, in the modern world, brain power is more important than the building and the brand.” It certainly has to be reckoned with as part of where value is created. But thank you very much; we want to be at the table as managers of our own invention.
Obviously you don’t think that private ownership of programming is inconsistent with public broadcasting. What’s your reasoning?
The main promise of public broadcasting is not that employees shall live like monks, it’s that they shall deliver unusual and provocative and independent programming without an onslaught of selling, and I’m all for that. Ownership is a bit of a code word-ownership of what? What we asked for was a spirit of partnership and a spirit of shared sovereignty but also let the leadership, guidance and shaping of the future fall into the hands of the people with the original vision who execute the program every day.
Doesn’t that include money?
Some sharing of the financial upside of the income from new media, new markets and new revenue streams was definitely part of it.
Do you think this concept of partnership hurts or helps the concept of public broadcasting?
I think independent productions and entrepreneurial spirit are absolutely required in public broadcasting and are the rule in public television in the sense that Charlie Rose and McNeil and Lehrer, and “This Old House” [Bob Vila] own big pieces of their product and come at it with start-up energy, and so do we. There came a point in producing “The Connection” that we looked at each other and said, “Hey kids, this is a start-up.” We act and walk and talk and squawk like a start-up. We’re in early and out late, we live our work, we love each other. We wanted a business relationship with BUR that simply reflected that reality. They gave us a terrific opportunity, first-class studios and an initial nudge, and we took the ball and ran like blazers with it.
Some people say that when you’re in public broadcasting you shouldn’t ask for these things.
Some people think we work for free, that it’s an all-volunteer service, that we were born rich and we don’t have phone bills and normal expenses. I don’t think people who listen to “The Connection” and who found a fellowship there begrudge us a professional pay for it.
What kind of compensation do you think public-broadcasting personalities should have? Should it be similar to the private side?
I suppose not really. People should be paid for value. If Ted Koppel’s productions produce x millions of commercial income for ABC, I think he should have a healthy chunk of it, and, indeed, he does. In a nonprofit, lower-price medium, public radio with a smaller audience than Ted’s, if we generate y millions, I think we should have some share of that but of course it’s going to be smaller. That seems only fair.
What are the most unfair charges that have been leveled against you?
All’s fair in a good family fight. I’m not saying anything is unfair, but the business of money has been greatly distorted.
How so?
When I went to work for Jane Christo [WBUR’s general manager] in 1994, I just hated to talk about money. She said, “What’s your problem? Tell me what you want, and you’ve got it.” I said, “I’d be grateful if you matched my salary from public broadcasting.” She said, “Done,” and from that day until this, she and I have never discussed salary. Every nickel I was paid came at her initiative, from her schedule without even a conversation. The truth is she threw money at Mary and me at the end of last year hoping it would put us off the trail of what we wanted, which was a partnership. We never asked for money, and probably, in hindsight, it was a mistake to take it.
Are you saying that money has nothing to do with this dispute?
Who doesn’t want more money? I want $100 million and a plane to Cuba! It was clear what we were talking about was shared captaincy, the sovereignty of our idea, the execution of our vision, not money.
How do you respond to accusations that you have acted arrogantly?
Pompous and arrogant seem to be my title. I can live with it. A lot of other people think I’m interesting and imaginative, so you can’t win them all. But I think even some people who call me pompous and arrogant say it with a certain affection and indulgence.
You’re a former New York Times and Boston Globe reporter and now the tables have turned and you’re the subject of the press. What is that like?
I once ran for mayor [of Boston]. I’ve been interviewed before. Sometimes I think it’s more fun to be asked the questions than to be asking them. BUR has twisted this story and not all the reporters have seen through it, but nothing’s perfect, and I’m not complaining about the coverage.
Five members of “The Connection” staff resigned when you and Mary McGrath were suspended. Are they working with you now?
All five are, and we’re working on a new radio program that will be on the air soon, I expect. We’re all engaged in it every day in very high spirits.
Will it air on public radio?
You’ll have to wait and see. It could be a mix.
Will your new program be similar to “The Connection”?
It will come out of the spirit of “The Connection.” It will be electrically caller-driven, interactive and substantive. It won’t be about me. It’ll cover a huge range of topics. It’s going to be about poetry and books and music and news.
Doesn’t it sound like a similar format to “The Connection”?
The energy in it, the idea-driven quality of it, will all resemble “The Connection.” You’ll know it’s me, and you’ll know it’s the callers.
What is the fate of “The Connection”?
I don’t know. People tell me “it’s painful to the ears” as Henry Higgins said.
If your story was on your show and it wasn’t yours, how would you cover it?
We’d be talking in a wide-open fashion about who owns the intellectual and spiritual product that shows up everywhere now in the information economy. I hope it would be a conversation very much like what is on christopherlydon.org. We’ve had 500,000 hits in the last week. People are smart and care, and they don’t all love me, but they all get this question: Where did “The Connection” come from? It was a conversation, a community and a certain standard of curiosity. Who is rightly the custodian of that brand-new thing in our world? We never wanted to be greedy about it, but we wanted to stake our claim to having helped create it.
Who would be on this program?
We might talk with Jane Christo and Sue Miller, the novelist who is part of P.E.N. [the international writers’ organization] and an active part of a big discussion among writers about who owns copyright. Do you have to give up copyright as a freelancer contributing to The New York Times or The Boston Globe, for example. Or Harvey Silverglade, the lawyer, who is very hip to these issues. As always we’d throw it open to the callers, and we’d have a hell of a good go about it.
