After all is said and done, what price fame?

I have been asked, “Does KRYZ do advertising?” The answer is no. And yes. It actually depends upon your definition of “advertising.”

We do not handle commercial advertisements.

We don’t talk about buying or selling, tell people about sales or ask anyone to actually buy anything. And that’s not because of radio station policy.

It’s the law. The FCC actually prohibits public radio stations from engaging in those behaviors.

That’s why when you watch PBS, they pause often to tell you about “the people who make (insert show) possible.” Please note that while they’re telling you who’s paying for the programming, they’re not encouraging you to buy anything, pushing specific services or saying that you should patronize these “people.”

Same deal with KRYZ. We’re happy to tell our community about the kind folks who make our broadcasts possible. We’ll tell you who they are, generally what they do and even provide a web site for “more information.”

We’ll tell you about an event or celebration by another nonprofit, or other business entity and we’ll tell you generally what other nonprofits do for the community.

What we won’t do is to mention any pricing, and we won’t engage in what the FCC terms a “call to action.” We won’t tell you that you should or must do anything. We won’t tell you to “call for more information.”

What we will do is suggest an organization has a website or phone number that provides more information and then provide the URL to that website or give that phone number.

We can tell you all about an event, the date on which it occurs, what’s happening, why it’s happening and who is sponsoring it. What we can’t tell you is to go or, in most cases, tell you directly how much tickets cost.

There’s really quite a lot of information we can give the public about an event or organization, as long as we color within the FCC lines.

Although we often do free event notices as a public service, we certainly wouldn’t say no to an offer of a small donation from the group for which we are making the announcement.

And when we undertake to tell folks about a given business or nonprofit enterprise on an agreed upon regular basis, as with a regular sponsor, we do that in exchange for a regular donation of an agreed upon amount over a specified period of time.

We can also arrange for a given entity to sponsor some particular show, or period of music for that agreed upon regular donation.

Now, Miriam Webster defines “advertisement” as “the action of calling something to the attention of the public especially by paid announcements.” So, do we “advertise?”

It seems that we do, just not in the way we have come to understand commercial advertisement. There are some pretty strict rules in place, and violating them is a mistake too costly for a tiny station like ours to risk making.

This is why we generally suggest to folks that someone on our staff writes (or at least edits) the text of public service announcements and sponsorship mentions. This is not to say that our staff doesn’t sometimes make mistakes, but our folks generally have a better idea of what we can, and can’t, say on the air.

We love doing the PSAs and we love our sponsors. We’re always willing to chat about a PSA you’d like to have done.

As I’ve said, a single PSA is generally free of charge and we will be happy to run the spot periodically for a couple of weeks. Those free PSAs are a part of our FCC job description, and we’re more than happy to oblige.

Usually, if you send us a flyer for your event, our on-air staff can use it to make a spot to run for your organization. If you’d like to craft your own message, either as a PSA or as a sponsor, we can do that, too.

It’d be good if you sent us your script before you record your spot so we can check it against the FCC rules. The placement of your PSA on the airtime day is up to programming staff, but we usually can run a spot several times a week over a couple of weeks. Sponsor announcements happen on a more regular basis — and on a more formal schedule.

If your business or organization would like more frequent mentions with information about what you do, we’d love to chat with you about our sponsorship possibilities. The investment is small and the benefits possibly quite large.

KRYZ has no commercial revenue stream. We’re able to stay on the air because of the generosity of our listening audience. Our goal is to provide value to that listening audience.

We do that through a wide variety of entertainment, diverse programming and providing local news and information. We provide newscasts, general notices of community events and, of course, our PSA program and our sponsorship program.

I urge you to consider allowing KRYZ to help promote your organization’s next event.

Our job as a local public radio organization is to inform and entertain our listening area. It’s literally what we do. It’s not only a part of our job, but it’s also a part we love to do. And because we’re a public station, we want to air what you want to hear.

If you have questions about either PSAs or sponsorship announcements, we’d love to answer them. Reach out to KRYZ at kryzradio@gmail.com.

As an aside, we’re also very interested in knowing what type of programming you’d like to hear, and to hear about suggestions to our programming, or even requests for one of our DJs or hosts.

So, does KRYZ advertise? No. And yes.

After all, what price fame?

Codie Hart is the vice-president of the KRYZ Radio Board of Directors, a music lover who hosts the weekly show “Music Machine” and a longtime member of the Mariposa Community. He can be reached at codiehart@yahoo.com.