NPR & The Modern Media Distribution 272
Isao writes "The U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) network is feeling the pinch between giving their content away for free on the radio and on the internet as podcasts. The dilemma is that some of their audience is turning from the radio to podcasts, not for flexibility, but to either access locally unavailable content or avoid fundraising marathons (NPR is partially funded by listener donations). This has begun to skew their financial model. What's different about NPR's response is that they're not pretending that their old business model will work forever."
This American Life & Car Talk (Score:5, Interesting)
Two of my absolute favorites were This American Life [thislife.org] and Car Talk [cartalk.com]. Oftentimes, I would find myself in a parking lot listening to Ira Glass [wikipedia.org] as the episode he was doing had me hooked and I couldn't even get out of my car to buy groceries.
My senior year of college found me looking up TAL episodes online and using Total Recorder [highcriteria.com] to compress the Real Audio feeds directly to MP3. Was I stealing from TAL? I didn't really feel like it, I was a poor college student and I had heard the program on the radio--I just wanted it on my computer to listen to it time after time.
I'll never forget the time I heard the two part series of Come Back to Afghanistan [thislife.org] and it's sequel [thislife.org]. What really happened and is happening in Afghanistan never hit home until I heard it through the voice of a young teenager named Hyder Akbar.
I have made a few contributions to NPR since I've graduated but I can see where they'd be strapped financially. I think NPR could take advantage of the modern media formats that all of us seek. I have purchased Car Talk CDs and I'd purchase TAL CDs too. Even more importantly, I'd be more than willing to pay a dollar through iTunes or Napster or whatever service you choose to have a random episode of TAL or Car Talk on my MP3 player. They seem to have the audio book version of Poultry Slam but not every episode, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't have any kind of service to check on hand.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Science Teacher (Score:3, Interesting)
NPR is good stuff (Score:1, Interesting)
A better funding model (Score:3, Interesting)
Numbers behind the FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This American Life & Car Talk (Score:1, Interesting)
I still listen to 89.3 the current almost every night, and would listen at work all day if it wasn't for the proxy. I feel more of a need to contribute now as I am actually using their bandwidth rather than just grabbing the frequencies out of the air.
Perhaps this could sentiment could be 'exploited' to actually increase listener support.
p.s. If you haven't listened to 89.3 and you are a music lover you really should. Its a music lovers radio station, and one of the best in the country both online and over the air. www.mpr.org
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This American Life & Car Talk (Score:3, Interesting)
1) NPR isn't funded by the government, though they do apply and compete for the occasional grant.
2) That said, many local non-commercial radio stations which carry NPR content do qualify for and take government funding. Sometimes that funnels into NPR, sometimes it doesn't, but ultimately it's the radio station that makes the decision.
So, if you're so libertarian that you can't stand the idea of government-assisted community radio, I suggest that you call your local station and make the substantial pledge it will take to get them off the gubmint's teat.
$0.02USD,
-l
What is this? (Score:2, Interesting)
A content provider in this day & age not trying to screw their end customer? That's inconceivable!
Re:Public broadcasting's business model... (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
Personally, I like the pay-for-play model so I donate to both NPR and PBS every year. Programming like Cartalk for me and Arthur/Cyberchase for my kid are well worth the dollars. If Congress succeeds in shutting down funding then I'll double the donation and hope that there are enough other people in my financial situation to do the same.
Re:Numbers behind the FUD (Score:3, Interesting)
Unnecessary Locals? (Score:3, Interesting)
This suggests to me that the local stations are no longer adding any value to the situation. If they can't generate enough listeners for their local content, then their primary purpose is as a distribution mechanism for the national content. But the podcasts are turning out to be a more efficient mechanism for that distribution. Which means that the local stations aren't necessary.
I see a couple of options for the local stations all based on this assumption: if an entity is adding cost to the supply chain without adding value, that entity can and should be removed. In this case, the local station is no longer providing a valuable delivery of national content, so here are the options that I think the locals have:
Is this wrong? If so, wouldn't it invalidate the oft use argument around here that the RIAA [riaa.com] should be removed because they're also no longer providing value?
sponsorships (Score:3, Interesting)
"She says she's seen few new donations from out-of-market listeners but that the expanded audience helps her sell larger underwriter sponsorships."
Selling larger underwriter sponsorships is the key here. If people are switching off during pledge drives, or fast-forwarding through them on MP3 players, they'll end up dying a slow death. I don't know about your local NPR station, but ours always seems to be on the ragged edge of dropping a lot of programming, at least to hear them tell the story. They might be able to keep up with a few CD sales here and there, and perhaps people will pay a buck or two to listen via legal dowloads, at least for a short time.
But as we've already seen, if people can download it for free, they'll do it instead of buying those CDs. People might not like the idea of sponsorships, but it's what is going to keep them on the air.
Anybody mentioned the $200 million? (Score:3, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:4, Interesting)
(Why is it I never have mod points when I need them :) )
This is the obvious answer. In the old distribution model, local stations held membership drives to raise funds, which were used to "purchase" distribution rights to the national shows, and pay the staff for the local shows. In the new distribution model, the national "station" would collect subscription fees, which are used to pay for distribution rights of the national shows, and a portion would/could (maybe opt-in your local PubRadio station) be diverted to the local station to pay the staff for local shows.
Most PBS stations are already set up to do 12-part (monthly) draft payments for donations, as well as one-time collections, so set the membership fee to, I dunno, $5 per month or $50 for the year. Change the Podcast availability to such that you need to have an account to be able to download. Free/non-donating accounts can only download 2 'casts a week, donating accounts get unlimited access.
I think that most people who listen to NPR feel that they get more than $5 worth of information out of it a month, especially if they listen to more than one show...hell, I'd probably pay $5 a month just for "Prairie Home Companion", let alone "Car Talk", "Marketplace", "All Things Considered", and "Talk of the Nation", just to name a few off the top of my head that I listen to regularly on the radio.
Re:Marathons on podcasts (Score:3, Interesting)
Occasionally, they let listeners know that, for every $75K raised before the spring pledge drive, they'll shorten the spring pledge drive by a day.
Re:Taxation? What are you talking about? (Score:2, Interesting)
Every channel has a biased program manager, and every network has extremist supporters, it doesn't take a genius to figure it out. Often times just from watching a few minutes of any major network you can guess which one it is, they each have their own "feel" as to how content is formatted, edited and scheduled.
A popular thing to do for university students is to compare TV networks, sometimes just the daily news to see how many minutes are devoted to military/economy/schools etc. I've seen one study where they just looked at the movies being played on each channel and looked for various forms of discrimination.. which channel degrades women, or black people, or the french (grrr!). They find so many things that just slip under our noses, it's no surprise these networks have so much power with their brainwashing.
Re:NPR's conservative bias (Score:1, Interesting)
Funny, I listen to NPR and it was the only media source that was actively presenting information and speakers who remained skeptical of the WMD claims, very early on. This information (cherry picking intel, optional war, lack of ties to anything 9-11 related, aluminum tubes, etc) is now common knowledge years later. My experience is the opposite of yours.
Err, as far as FAIR goes, they have trivial complains for just about everyone. God bless them, but they're pretty anal. The big NPR complaint is being elitist (because guests are from positions of power, instead of your man on the street) and FAIR's constant 'taking corprorate money' axe grinding. Neither which are very valid concerns. Right now, I'm sure Chevron is calling Ira Glass to soften up on some story, eh? Let's not go overboard here. Going overboard is precisely FAIRs problem. Worse, their agenda and ideology is so fargone they can easily equate NPRs excellent work with Fox News because of "corporate money and elitists." Christ, FAIR is like meeting that one guy in college who just discovered that politics isn't all fair and George Washington actually told lies.
As far as replacing the entire NPR lineup with one political show, Democracy now, goes, well it seems like you haven't paid much attention to the other programming either.
>since they're free of corporate sponsorship.
I love the defeatist attitudes here. The righties complain about the tiny amount of federal funds NPR radio stations gets. The far lefties complain about the sponsorships. These invalid complaints are amusing to the rest of us in the real world.
Re:This American Life & Car Talk (Score:4, Interesting)
It's sad to see the changes. When I was a teen, everybody taped their favorite music on cassette (legally), traded them, etc. The RIAA wants to take that right away from us. Doesn't that bother you? Is it really so different that the broadcast was realaudio and the cassette recorder was a computer?