According to general manager Ruth Seymour, each month the station is delivering more than 1.6 million hours of programming, nearly 1 million podcasts and half a million on-demand audio and video recordings to listeners online. You might think that advertisers -- "underwriters" in the lexicon of public broadcasters -- would pay more to reach this expanded audience, but it's actually a tough sell because the station can't tell them who or, in most cases, where those listeners are. For financial reasons, KCRW relies on other companies to host and transmit its online programming, so it doesn't collect data on that audience.

Nor are online listeners as motivated to become subscribers (that is, donors to the station) as local over-the-air listeners, particularly not when so many of the programs aired on public radio are available free on the Web. In a recent interview, Seymour said her "apocalyptic vision" is that "the online culture, the culture of free, will destroy the whole notion of public broadcasting in that it will erode the whole idea of subscriptions." She says this even though KCRW has attracted subscribers in all 50 states. Maybe it's the allure of the form-fitting T-shirts and other prizes....

On the whole, Seymour said, "It is a really daunting situation, and that’s if your successful online. And we are." Given the cost of reaching listeners, KCRW finds itself in the uncomfortable position of having to measure its online efforts in terms of their potential to generate income. "As a public broadcaster," Seymour said, "that isn't really why I'm in the business."

Why has one word, "scrotum," generated such controversy and heated debate over my book, "The Higher Power of Lucky"? Lucky, the protagonist, overhears the word on the first page, doesn't know what it means, and wonders — but there's no one she can trust enough to ask about it. The tiny town of Hard Pan, Calif., hasn't many resources for a curious, vulnerable 10-year-old trying to figure out how the world works.

The problem with "scrotum," evidently, is discomfort among adults who do not wish to see references to body parts in children's literature. Also, fear of giggling. What if the teacher or librarian loses control of a class of kids, however briefly, while reading the book aloud? Even the (ludicrous) specter of a lawsuit over sexual harassment has been raised!