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Marketplace

About » FAQ

Q: Where on the site can I find X url or Y song title?

A: Usually, links or story-specific contact information mentioned in our broadcasts can be found on the corresponding newscast transcript page, as well as on the main page under "Links of Interest." If you're looking for the title of one of the pieces of music we use during the show, it will probably be listed in the daily newscast rundown (this is an experimental work in progress, so bear with us). For an index of newscast transcripts for the year, go to http://www.marketplace.org/shows/.

Q: How many listeners do you have?

A: Marketplace's two programs, the early morning Marketplace Morning Report and our flagship afternoon show Marketplace, are heard by an audience of over 8.1 million unique listeners in the course of a week, on more than 330 public radio stations nationwide. Since its premiere in January 1989, the Marketplace audience and station carriage have grown more than tenfold. Marketplace is also distributed worldwide by American Forces Radio.

Q: Why does Marketplace originate in Los Angeles, not in New York like most other business programs, or in Washington D.C., like most other public radio national news programming?

A: Since so much other national programming starts from the "right coast," Marketplace's creators decided to break with tradition. We hope our California/West Coast base helps us stay innovative and protects us from "inside-the-beltway" thinking. Marketplace is the only daily national business news program originating from the West Coast.

Q: Why does the broadcast always start with, "From the Frank Stanton Studios in Los Angeles, this is Marketplace?"

A: The Frank Stanton Studios honor a man revered as one of the greatest defenders of First Amendment rights for broadcast journalism. Read Frank Stanton's bio.

Q: Who owns you?

A: Marketplace is produced in Los Angeles by American Public Media in association with the University of Southern California.

Q: Where does your funding come from?

A: Marketplace receives funding from a mix of private, public, foundation and listener support. Public radio stations "subscribe" to Marketplace by paying a carriage fee. We also receive support from a variety of foundations and funds, and from several journalism service providers.

Q: Don't your funders try to influence the content of your program or the way in which you report stories?

A: It may surprise you, but the answer is a flat no. None of our funders have ever tried (nor would they be permitted) to influence the content in any way. When there are stories critical of GE, CPB, or negative stories in Germany or Japan -- we report them absolutely straight. As General Manager Jim Russell says, "We're not for sale. Period."

Q: When you "Do the Numbers" each day, what are the songs you play?

A: "Stormy Weather" when the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down; "We're in the Money" when it's up. When the market is mixed, the song is "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got that Swing.)"

Q: Why don't you add [whatever your favorite statistic is] to the numbers you report?

A: We could mention the FTSE, or the Swiss Franc, or the Milan stock exchange, or platinum futures each day. But we are forced by our medium, radio, to pick and choose which statistics we regularly report. We try to avoid presenting "raw data" without context, and long streams of numbers are not radio's forte.

Q: I heard Marketplace do a story on [insert the name, such as "wild rice harvesting in Minnesota"] last week. That's not business news, so why did you broadcast it?

A: We feel every story can have a business angle. Try naming a story unrelated to the economy or personal finance. Marketplace isn't really a show about money; instead, it is a program which looks at the entire world through the lenses of business, economics and finance.

 ©2008 American Public Media