Maine Public Broadcasting Network

MPBN's radio service carries a mixed format of news and information from NPR, PRI, and other sources. Local programming includes Maine Calling, an interactive radio program hosted primarily by Jennifer Rooks and produced by Jonathan Smith. Various guests, often from Maine, are invited to participate in the discussion and audience members are encouraged to participate through calling in or through other forms of media. Accompanying NPR's All Things Considered, is Maine Things Considered, Maine's only daily statewide news program.

In May 2016, the Maine Public Classical service was launched on the HD2 channels of the primary stations, as well as several new transmitters. The main network was eliminating classical music programming, with a three-hour weekday block between 9 a.m. and noon switching to news and talk shows. But the new network was aimed at giving listeners who enjoyed classical music a channel devoted to it, along with some jazz and other musical genres not usually heard on commercial radio stations.[14]

MPBN's television service carries the basic PBS program schedule, along with a handful of local programs, such as The Maine Experience (a feature magazine series), Maine Watch (a weekly public-affairs program), and live coverage of the annual Maine state high-school basketball playoffs.

In 2000, the live Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts on Saturday afternoons, which had been a mainstay of classical music broadcasting for more than twenty years, was discontinued. Despite Maine Public Broadcasting's claims that the opera was being dropped due to lack of popularity among listeners, a citizens' protest forced the state network to reinstate the Saturday afternoon opera a few months later.[15][16]

In the course of 24 months in 2000 and 2001, in what appeared to be a plan to significantly reduce local music programming, longtime classical music hosts Victor Hathaway, Virgil Bissett, Helen York and Dave Bunker left the station. Bissett retired, Bunker moved to southern Maine after his wife gained employment there. Despite Bunker's willingness to continue his popular morning music show from the Portland studios of MPBN, he was let go and Leitha Christie hired in his place. York resigned in protest.[17]

In May 2005, Maine Public Broadcasting joined a few other PBS stations in showing the controversial "Sugartime!" episode of Postcards from Buster. The program (a spinoff of Arthur) is about a cartoon rabbit named Buster Baxter, who travels the country with his father and interacts with children from different cultures and in different family structures. PBS headquarters had pulled the episode from its national broadcast schedule after receiving a critical letter from newly installed Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, who was upset that Buster was visiting a Vermont family headed by two women. WGBH, the Boston-based PBS affiliate and original producer of the program, subsequently made the episode available to stations that still wished to air it on an individual basis.[18]

Maine humorist Robert Skoglund was host of a weekly jazz and humor program called The Humble Farmer on MPBN starting in 1978.[19] The show was canceled in 2007 after a series of disagreements over whether some of Skoglund's comments were in violation of the station's policy of neutrality on political issues.[20] In 2003, in what came to be known as the War Rant, Skoglund spoke about a "weasely-faced war monger from way down south who didn't even get most of the popular vote," identifying the person as the author of Mein Kampf.[19][21][22] In 2006, he read passages from Encyclopædia Britannica about Fascism under Mussolini.[19][23] MPBN management regarded these to be veiled comparisons to George W. Bush and admonished Skoglund to refrain from political commentary.[19] On November 3, 2006 Skoglund submitted a prerecorded program in which he read a letter from a Maryland listener who described the effects of tax cuts in that state.[19][24] MPBN regarded this as advocating a position on Maine's upcoming Taxpayer Bill of Rights referendum question and chose to not air the program.[21] MPBN VP for Programming, Charles Beck, then sent Skoglund a letter outlining guidelines and warning him that further comments perceived as political would lead to the show's cancellation.[19][25] Arguing that the strict guidelines were setting him up to fail,[19] Skoglund discontinued all commentaries, speaking only to identify songs and musicians.[19][20][21] In 2007, MPBN required on-air staff to sign a revised policy agreement on political neutrality. Skoglund refused to sign and his program was cut June 13, 2007.[20]

In December 2008, due to the economic crisis and a lack of state funding, MPBN announced plans on temporarily closing down WMED-TV and -FM in Calais, and WMEF FM in Fort Kent, for at least six months, beginning January 2009.[26][27] In addition, MPBN's radio and television stations would leave the air for five hours each night, as an energy saving measure.[28] However, many viewers and listeners complained to MPBN for their actions. Another concern is for MPBN's role as the state's primary carrier for the Emergency Alert System, which will be hampered during the times it is not on the air, as well as in areas where aerial service has been discontinued.[28]

In part of the response from viewers and listeners in the affected regions, MPBN delayed their closures until February 28, 2009, at earliest.[29] On February 12, 2009, MPBN officially rescinded plans to close down the transmitters, after responses from its viewers and listeners, as well as stakeholders, legislators, and then-Governor John Baldacci.[30]

In 2012, Governor Paul LePage proposed eliminating all state funding for MPBN from the budget, referring to such aid as "corporate welfare".[31] The Republican-controlled Legislature rejected this proposal and instead passed a budget directing MPBN funding be changed to a fee-for-service model instead of a general appropriation over the next five years.[32]