Boston Breakup   

Radio talk show host Christopher Lydon leaves WBUR after contract dispute.

AFTER THE HE SAID/SHE SAID dust-up cleared in Boston, public radio station WBUR was left with its successful interview talk show "The Connection," but without its much-respected host, Christopher Lydon, and senior producer Mary McGrath.
The dispute between the station and the employees became so public and so charged that both WBUR.org and ChristopherLydon.org contain statements on what went down. There's not much agreement, but basically, Lydon and McGrath wanted to share ownership of "The Connection" with the station. For six-and-a-half years, WBUR has aired the show, which garnered about 400,000 listeners weekly nationwide, with Lydon and McGrath at the helm. "The Connection" is a two-hour program, with guests and talk from listeners, that focuses on a range of heady topics‹from Van Gogh to the Balkans after Milosevic. About nine months ago, as the station sought to have National Public Radio distribute the show, negotiations with the pair began. On March 1, after a two-week paid leave of absence for the staffers for insubordination, the two sides went their separate ways.
NPR distribution, which began in January, will probably mean an increase in the number of stations that carry "The Connection" and more underwriting revenues (from $947,000 now to potentially $1.4 million with the NPR contract, says WBUR spokeswoman Mary Stohn). Lydon and McGrath say this growth was a good time to talk about their stake in the show. Why was there not a conversation about ownership when they first started broadcasting the program in 1994? "There probably should have been," Lydon says. But, he says, he and McGrath didn't foresee how the broadcast would grow. "I probably wouldn't have if the program hadn't turned out to be such a marketable product.... This wouldn't have come up if the NPR contract hadn't been worth a rather surprising amount of money."
Lydon and McGrath sought a share of ownership and growth of new revenues of the program, which they saw as their "intellectual product." WBUR's stance is that they have been working as station employees and do not own the program. Plus, as General Manager Jane Christo has said, the station wasn't interested in starting a for-profit venture. (WBUR did, however, offer increases that could have brought their salaries to $330,000 for Lydon and $215,000 for McGrath.)
Lydon says his wishes didn't just concern ownership; it was about direction: "who was going to present the face of this enterprise to the Web, to satellite radio...who was going to be in the cockpit."
Despite the acrimony, both parties are moving on. WBUR airs "The Connection" with guest hosts and hopes to hire a permanent one by the end of May. Lydon, McGrath and five "Connection" staffers who left the station with their leaders make up L&M Productions, which is working on a new show and has produced a one-hour Webcast program.
The two sides seem ready to consider the past bygones when it comes to getting quality radio on the air. Once L&M is ready to pitch a new show, Stohn says, WBUR would be "happy to take a look at it." Responds Lydon: "Of course, we'd be open to having them carry the program."