Looking at community radio policy from a global perspective, Canada is the exception rather than the rule when it comes to how it approaches non-commercial radio. The countries that appear on the slide, and several other industrialized countries, have a more consistent approach to non-commercial media. They don't make a clear regulatory distinction between public media on one extreme and community media on the other. They see them all as non-commercial media contributing something important to the broadcasting system.
While I could go through any of those countries and explain how they fund community media in their own way, the United States is of particular interest. In the United States, as you're probably aware, there are two separate entities that are the prime movers in non-commercial media. One is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is the funding mechanism. A separate organization for radio, National Public Radio, is the main provider of content to radio stations.
Because there are no clear regulatory distinctions between community and public, a station in Denver like WGNU receives about 15% of its revenue from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, yet it broadcasts no National Public Radio programming whatsoever. It identifies itself as independent community radio, but because of its local service imperative it receives funding through this mechanism.
On the other extreme is WGBH in Boston, which I think some of you get on cable in different parts of the country. It clearly describes itself as public radio. Its schedule is made up almost completely of National Public Radio and other public radio programming, but it receives a similar proportion of CPB funding.
The separation in Canada, this false dichotomy, between the two sectors is a bit artificial. In the United States they support nearly 800 stations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting--rural, urban, ethnic, and all sorts of different formats.