01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, September 19, 2004

Boston's WBUR and its owner, Boston University, have betrayed the supporters of Providence's WRNI, whose parent is WBUR.

On Friday, with no warning to those who had launched and sustained Rhode Island's only National Public Radio station, WBUR announced that WRNI was up for sale -- starting tomorrow! -- to any buyer, commercial or otherwise. People in the media-brokerage business say that a purchaser could probably be found within a month. (Two of the many possibilities: religious or Spanish-language broadcasters.)

This comes after WRNI backers had raised over $3 million (through the Foundation for Ocean State Radio) to launch the station, in 1998, to serve Rhode Island and nearby communities. They have since raised much of the money needed to support it. Now the Boston station, or the BU administration, will use that money for their own purposes. (BU paid for the licenses on which to broadcast WRNI out of Providence and Westerly; it looks as if the university will make a big profit on this investment.)

All this comes after numerous assertions by BU/WBUR and especially its general manager, Jane Christo, that BU/WBUR was committed to WRNI for the long run. So much for their word...

The people who have been so generous in funding the start-up and operation of WRNI have been treated shabbily -- by a nonprofit, to boot. Now they must try to raise the money to buy the Rhode Island station (competing with well-heeled national radio chains) or in some other way keepan NPR outlet for this market. If the WRNI backers buy the station, it will mean, in effect, buying it twice: once through their fund-raising in the '90s, and now, providing BU with the windfall it will presumably demand.

Couldn't BU/WBUR at least have given WRNI backers a few months' warning so that they could try to save Rhode Island's NPR outlet without the frantic circumstances of almost immediate sale pressure? Well, presumably, BU/WBUR believed that it could get a higher price by a fast sale.

National Public Radio provides much worthwhile information, commentary and entertainment, and we urge all who admire it to find a solution to the unfortunate situation caused by BU. It would be sad if Rhode Island were again one of only two states (Delaware's the other) to lack its own public-radio station.