Playhouse will soon see the last of its NEA program-acquisition grants. The endowment's new rules limit applicants to one proposal per year, and NPR is not likely to use its one funding opportunity to support drama. Whether NPR will pick up the cost of acquiring drama remains to be seen. One prominent drama producer, Yuri Rasovsky, opposes Trudeau's proposal and is encouraging his colleagues not to participate. He argues that negative results, accurate or inaccurate, could put radio dramatists out of business by confirming program directors' belief that drama leads to tune-out.
Radio drama is the surest, albeit the happiest, way to penury and obscurity.
But Valerie Henderson, executive producer of the Public Media Foundation and one of the project participants, says she is sure the research results will be positive. Public radio listeners today don't have the chance to appreciate drama because stations air it at inconvenient times and inconsistently, she says. They also confuse and lose listeners by shifting its time slot too frequently in an attempt to find the optimum niche, she says. Stations have to hang in there and build audience. Other ways to get drama out of the doldrums, producers argue, include better promotion of programs and production of higher-profile projects.