NPR decides it won’t promote its podcasts or NPR One on air
niemanlab.org
niemanlab.org
I don't see any problem with doing what it takes to keep these stations alive, even if it means that Ira Glass can't tell me to download this American Life using iTunes (which I already do).
All public radio stations I know of do republish NPR content, and that's usually the bulk of their programming, but I live in a very poor, conservative state and the local public radio station has local news and many other local programs. I can't imagine it's different elsewhere.
In fact, a quick look at the schedule shows all the programming from 8:30-12 on weekdays is local programming, with different shows on different days. If the affiliate in my state can afford that, I can't imagine others can't.
What would be nice would be a system where NPR bundles stories, and fundraising appeals, from the listener's local public radio station into the podcast. To give the same experience as listening to Morning Edition or All Things Considered locally. I suppose this would be a nightmare to implement but it's worth consideration.
This struggle is a generational one. Older people are used to their TVs, radios and newspapers and seem as a group unwilling to transition. Institutions on the wrong side of this fight like cable companies and cable TV stations, radio stations, movie theaters, local news TV networks and local newspapers haven't made it easy for them. Younger people on the other hand don't even bother.
And that's how you can see the writing on the wall for these obviously legacy businesses. By being unwilling to fully commit to the future, because they'll make less money, they'll upset existing relationships, they'll die. Blockbuster died a quick death. The transition from video rentals to online video was sudden and quick, because Blockbuster didn't control the content and couldn't lock in viewers. This kind of end will come for all these other places too though as younger generations have different expectations. They want their content on demand, and they want it on any of their devices and they want it without having to subscribe to expensive bundles of junk they'll never consume.
The problem for how to provide the same high quality local content that these legacy businesses can sometimes provide is a real problem that hasn't been addressed yet. AOL's patch was a very innovative and high quality way but it lacked adoption and was unsuccessful. I think we may have to see the old guards die and endure a short period without high quality local content before it can rise again.
I don't see what's wrong with tailoring your marketing strategies. Market a podcast in the venue where people are looking for podcasts: on their phones, in social media.
Maybe I'm just not the average NPR listener, but any time I have terrestrial radio playing, I'm highly subject to interruptions (eg., the end of my drive, a meeting during my workday, etc.) I always almost find an opportunity to resume the broadcast (via podcast) helpful.
The parent post's point is not that it is hard to market over radio, but rather that it is hard to action on the advertisement, since the listener likely has their hands full.
The app will probably die without the ability to get listeners to use it. How many people just scroll for random apps in the app store and happen to stumble upon it? Instead of searching for it because they heard about it.
I used to live in the US and donate to my local NPR station.
It's strange that on every podcast episode they don't suggest a way for me to contribute. Other successful podcasts like The Guardian's highly entertaining Football Weekly podcast also suffer from this.
I'd like to contribute something sometimes. I've bought t-shirts from podcasts that suggest that (Planet Money, 99% Invisible) and am happy to do something.
Also, the ads on podcasts are not well targeted. I've heard of Squarespace...
It's remarkable that there isn't a good clean way to put ads into and better monetise podcasts.
On NPR one app, they do occasionally have a "donate now" opportunity and their pitch ends with "we're looking forward to connecting with you...". If you're not using that app, then you might be hearing content that NPR syndicates but if they raised money it wouldn't be for your local station.
You can tell NPR went to some pains to integrate local broadcasting in their app.
If NPR-one hassled you with every item, it would get old fast -- some of the news clips are just over a minute or two long.
I would love to see all advertising done this way--announce who makes the content possible, then get out of the way of the content...remind us again at the end where the funding came from if you wish...tasteful, dignified, makes the point, and grants recognition...
When advertising annoys people it's almost always because it gets in the way of the content...it distracts from what one is there to actually "see"...
Something so simple you'd think almost anyone could grasp the concept, yet so many advertisers get advertising completely wrong...web pages are chock full of garish flashing click-bait nonsense...
Disclosure: I am a long-time NPR listener and local station supporter...
Tell us we're being advertised to, give us a good deal relevant to our interests, you and the advertiser both win.
With private sector advertising, I almost expect the ads to be garish. If the only goal is to make money, then market forces push for the ads to become more and more invasive until you basically can't view the content thanks to all the ads.
I'm sure I'm echoing what many people have said before, but we need to find a way for content to stop being a cost center and start to become the actual source of revenue.
Local affiliates can cross license content directly between each other, or from NPR, PRI, BBC, American Public Radio, and Public Radio Exchange, etc.
Local affiliates are not simple repeater stations, as you seem to believe.
When I visited Oregon, I noticed most of the shows were nationally syndicated, and I suspect that might have to do with how much money they can get from their local regions.
Unfortunately, just saying "We produce Car Talk/Fresh Air/whatever" is going to be enough to salvage the affiliate as presently composed; if they have a show of value, they'll have to make it available independently and will just be the Fresh Air company, not WHYY in Philadelphia.
A 100W trasnmitter can cover a small town, 1 kW - 50 kW is (very roughly) the range of many larger FM stations, and can reach an area 100-200 miles in diameter, though usually less given geography and competing stations. Doc Searls (an old radio head himself) fairly frequently posts stats about various stations, and their reception areas.
The best thing about broadcast is that more listeners don't cost you, and there's no last-mile problem. It's particularly well-suited to mobile uses (especialy cars).
The downside: what's on is what's on. This increasingly is my frustration, and the more I'm used to on-demand services, the less viable I find this. There are alternatives, such as a DVR type service which records over-the-air broadcasts for later playback, and there are some concepts along these lines, though most prove pretty fickle and annoying, with little uptake.
I suspect there'll be a place for radio, though that may shift a bit with time.
The stream is already free-as-in-beer, what is somebody going to do to it?
I want to be a good seed, but not if it costs me hundreds of dollars a month.
It's possible to make a radio out of a couple of crystal diodes. A tuner and FM receiver are slightly more complicated, but a 9-volt battery or very small solar cell will run a receiver, and transmitters, as noted, are pretty bog-simple.
Another quite probably underappreciated element is security. It's exceptionally difficult to hack into a radio, or into a radio transmitter, through the radio itself (there are of course other pathways to hacking a modern computerised radio broadcast operation, but there's no reason such an operation need be computerised).
Bittorrent is wonderful stuff, it's a brilliant hack, I use it myself. It's more useful at distributing large files than small ones, and benefits greatly by large audience (saturating many sources). As part of a samizdat information distribution system, it's great.
But you need servers, recipients need computers, you need a network, with last-mile connectivity, everything needs power, there's security issues, there's authenticating who's what, and more.
Sure, you need all that stuff, but you already have all that stuff.
Rather than argue the point further, as you seem bent on denying the point, I'll suggest you list out as many counterexamples of your claims as you can.
I'm up to 20. Care to beat that?
Radio is a technology that connects communities much more than television or Internet access can, especially during times of natural disaster or crisis.
There's a delicious irony in people using the canonical example of unprofitable social media to criticize NPR's decision(s) to prioritize its lucrative distribution network over the free-media flavor of the moment. Say what you will about NPR, but the affiliates pay their bills.
I don't know if this is the "right" decision, but I'm willing to wager that NPR will be around long after Twitter has filed for bankruptcy. Distribution the top challenge for any product, and NPR's distribution -- and therefore, primary value generator -- happens because of its large affiliate network. It isn't a "tax" to invest in that system. Unless digital distribution is self-sustaining, it's the other way around.
(Edit: I just got a downvote before my comment was visible. Not sure how that's possible, unless someone is systematically down-voting my comments...)
Let us hope so...anyone attempting to produce quality thoughtful content on a consistent basis should be encouraged at every opportunity...
Recently I've enjoyed the "NPR News App". TFA didn't mention it, but it is really well done. That sort of app could easily be a neglected afterthought. (Example: pretty much any other app with an "old media" brand.) It's obvious that skilled people care for this app. It looks good, it's not complicated, it has a large variety, and you get to the audio content quickly.
I would appreciate comments about the Creative Commons aspect of this, not quibbles about line items in the budget.
You own the company, you control the intellectual property it generates, even if the company is "self-funded".
And in any case, your clarification is baloney, you are either being fooled by NPR's accounting sleights of hand, or you are helping to propagandize it. Federal money does in fact flow through public broadcasting's network of "shell" companies such as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to local stations to and then to NPR. Here is an article on PBS.org about Congress potentially cutting funding to NPR. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/us-house-votes-to-cut-np... Yes, that was 2011, but the same baloney about NPR not receiving direct federal funding was the story back then too.
In any case, my argument that the works of public broadcasting belong under a creative commons license is referring to the same public that the stations bray about endlessly, "you the listener".
So, still a small (10%ish) portion of their budget even if you count the government/CPB-derived portion of the revenue from member stations.
If a small amount of federal funding meant they had to make everything public domain, they'd probably just give up that funding and make some cuts. No one wins there, IMO.
I'm talking about the public who is according to public broadcasting the biggest portion of their support.
People donate to NPR of their own free will with the complete understanding that they're doing it as a donation, not as a "make our content public domain" licensing agreement. A pledge drive donation isn't a purchase, you haven't paid for anything, for the same reasons donating to Obama's campaign didn't buy you a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.
I don't think it's instructive to compare public broadcasting with McDonalds (a for profit company), I'd compare them to Wikipedia. Wikipedia goes to great pains to maintain NPOV, and they give away their information product. I think public broadcasting should be more like Wikipedia; Wikipedia sets a higher standard for operating in the public interest.
Well, except the public, but they are never a concern in these decisions. Just a cash cow to be milked.
Not just picking on NPR, PBS has exactly the same problem. The folks who want to educate the world want to upload entire legal episodes to youtube, but the business folks in charge of the local stations don't want to go out of business, so...
I don't think the public would win from an NPR/PBS belt-tightening.
[0]http://www.npr.org/about-npr/179881519/rights-and-permission...
I'm not holding my breath on any of that happening quickly since you're talking about renegotiating into a new business model with a bunch of different parties.
[1] NPR San Francisco
I didn't want to agree with you. But you're not wrong.
Those local stations run the gamut of sophistication. My local public radio station for instance (WBEZ in Chicago) is very, very good about not sending mail you don't want. They have an easy to use internet enabled monthly giving program and a pledge drive free internet stream for donors during the pledge drive.
But they are one of the biggest stations in the country and have the production dept. to back that up. Other stations are little more than adjuncts to the local college's telecomms program.
The difference between NPR and your local public radio channel is not understood by most people, but it gets to the heart of the point of this article.
Thus far, it seems to be working. The week-long drives have dropped to 1-3 days.