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NPR & The Modern Media Distribution
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."
I grew up in Minnesota where the land is flat and it would take me three and half hours to drive between my parent's house and the University of Minnesota. My car was a complete junker and therefore wasn't worth the two hundred or so dollars it would take to equip it with a CD player. So instead, I listened to the many programs that NPR and MPR had to offer.
Two of my absolute favorites were This American Life and Car Talk. Oftentimes, I would find myself in a parking lot listening to Ira Glass 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 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 and it's sequel. 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.
My work here is dung.
Couldn't one simply add the marathon-style begging for financial assistance to the start of each podcast? Many people listen to podcasts on the go (jogging, for example) where they aren't about to manually fast-forward. Some simply won't fast-forward out of laziness. Surely that sort of advertising, as long as it is short and to the point, could be effective.
To be honest, my sciences teacher (Yes, that's right, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Principles of Tech teacher :P ) is an absolute NPR junkie. I would say the reason he uses the podcasts and other materials available on the website is that it's easier to present to the students than telling them to listen to something in advance on a Friday of all days! (I've recently started listening to NPR on the radio on the way to and from school and I can see why people like it, but it's too bad its only a 10 minute drive.)
My UID is prime... is yours?
at least they're admitting that their business model is having issues transferring into the "podcast age" of media distribution. most businesses operate along the lines of "its only a fad", or "we have to load our media up with so much drm it will turn an ipod into a bomb".
"I worry that some day my child will ask me, 'Dad, where were you when they took freedom of the press from the internet?
The old business model is also far worse, so radios should really welcome the new era. Adding coverage used to require a huge investment in equipment. Content can now be distributed to the entire world in the form of podcasts and streams, which are much easier to scale, making the number of potential listeners and therefore revenue sources much much larger. Good content can now pay off far more handsomely. For example, my favorite station is outside my state, and it would have gone through very hard times without out-of-state contributions.
NPR and its local station here in MN MPR do advertise in a fashion. They never fail to announce who's supporting the broadcast. Its usually quick, non abnoxious, and lets the the listener know who's paying the bill. I always try to buy products from these companies. To me, that's the best way to support public radio.
The problem is choice..
Yeah, that is a bad analogy. Why is it that people automatically assume intellectual==liberal? Does this mean that Entertainment Tonight is only for conservatives? Seriously, does being informed about things in the world outside of my own personal interests automatically make me a liberal, with all the poisoned connotations that word has aquired? Am I required to be oblivious to the rest of the world outside of my local 6:00 newscast to be a proper American?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I've really enjoyed NPR for a long time on the radio and I've really started to use their podcasting feature. I can't speak for others but I would be willing to pay a flat yearly rate, around the amount of a minimum donation, to have access to that feature. I wouldn't blame them for charging for that service. The only issue I could see arising is that the podcasts are hosted by the national NPR, but people usually donate to their local NPR stations. I would think they would have to figure out how to trickle the money made from podcasting to the local stations.
Yes, it is a new era, yes we need to face these challenges. Since NPR is our radio station, they owe more to the people than they do to their affiliates. If you look at their 2003 Annual Report you can see that they derive less than 3% of their annual revenue from members and that their internet initiatives account for 5% of their annual expenses. I say it's time for a paradigm shift in radio and let's see public radio lead that charge. Is there a chance that the affiliates will go under? Absolutely. Are we required to support those affiliates even as the world changes around them? No. Sure, my grandmother may not be able to listen to Prairie Home Companion until I come over and set her up with the podcast, but she is in the minority at this point in my opinion and that minority is getting smaller by attrition every year.
I watch public television and listen to NPR, but I turn it off whenever they start with their "Beg-athons". I know they get government funding, plus at least the television broadcasts are now rife with commercials. The commercials are not as bad as the commercial media yet, but then the commercial media need to turn a profit and don't get government money (in fact they pay taxes, which I doubt the public versions do).
The Beg-athons must be terribly ineffective or else the organization is very inefficent with their funding. Either way, I'll never contribute money directly (I already do though, via taxes and watching the commercials).
I'd happily pay $1 or $2 per show for some NPR shows. This American Life is certainly worth that and more...
I just can't use Audible's DRM nonesense. iTunes aparently has the same issue (I've never used it).
The big difference with the podcasts for me is they're in a format I can use.
What's different is they're not suing their competition for patent infringement or their listeners for downloading content.
That makes them smarter than Netflix and RIAA. Admittedly a pretty low standard to meet on the later.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Anyone who wants to know what is going on in the world need only tune to their channel. In my opinion, they're taking a stab at eliminating ignorance in our nation by bathing everyone in nearly free (and unbiased) information and I'd consider that more valuable than cable TV.
My work here is dung.
"What's different about NPR's response is that they're not pretending that their old business model will work forever."
A content provider in this day & age not trying to screw their end customer? That's inconceivable!
The best NPR (and TV network, for that matter) affiliates offer great local content. They will survive and deserve donations from everyone who downloads their show (why should a person give to their local affiliate when they show they're listening to is produced by another affiliate?).
The worst NPR and local TV affiliates have sat on their asses for years, resting on their local transmitters, and produced nothing original of their own. They will die. And they deserve to.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Maybe you should do a little research before posting knee-jerk reactions that do nothing but wave the ignorant-twit flag.
For the record, a whopping 2% of NPR's budget comes from government sources. That money is not given to NPR -- it comes by way of competetive grants that they apply for. My local stations get 0% of their opperating budget from government sources.
Apparently you don't know the difference between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (government funded), the Public Broadcasting System (government funded) and National Public Radio (not government funded).
Congrats! You now score as high as Rush Limbaugh on the Accuracy of Research scale. Now go spend three minutes on Google before posting again.
Agreed on the spend,spend,spend part. However:
c le/2005/06/09/AR2005060902283_pf.html
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.
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 should be removed because they're also no longer providing value?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Two caveats you should mention or learn that the corporation for public broadcasting is funded by congress and pays for both public content production and local station expenses, which directly supply the budget for NPR (about 50% station fees and about 50% direct grants).
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
NPR's podcasts are underwritten. Listen to one.
I gave regularly to my local NPR/PBS stations for over fifteen years. They were listener-supported then and I was happy to support them. Then someone, named Ives IIRC, announced that they were "considering" running short commercials, which some other stations were "experimenting" with. I wrote to him and said that if they did, I would stop donating. They did. So I did.
I'll pay for commercial-free programming. I'll tolerate commercials on free programming. But I am damned if I'll voluntarily pay for programming with commercials in it.
Although NPR believes that there is some meaningful distinction between their sponsorship announcements and just-plain-old advertising, it still makes them beholden to their corporate sponsors. And the effects have been noticeable. (On TV, first they had brief little announcements. Then the announcements started to twinkle and sparkle and dance. Then they started to include corporate slogans. Then suddenly a lot of homeowner and "how-to" shows started to spring up, and the camera suddenly and for no apparent reason started zooming in on cans of paint and other products that just happened to have their labels turned toward us--that just happened to be manufactured by the companies named as having so generously given their support).
Other weird stuff started to happen, too, like one FM station dropping all their classical music programs in favor of news and talk--and the other FM station dropping their drive-time classical music programming in order to broadcast the identical news programming at the same time as the other station.
I am sure I am not the only listener who feels that "public" broadcasters cannot serve two masters. If they are going to serve the public, well and good, and I'll be glad to pay my share. On the other hand, if they are going to take money from Babson Executive Education, Top-Ranked by the Financial Times, Enrolling Now for its Executive Managing Knowledge Program, on the web at Babson Dot Eee Dee You, and Archer Daniels Midland, Supermarket-of-the-World--and Keane, Outsourcing Your Job to India, We Get IT Done--and broadcast their slogans--that is all well and good, but that is a different choice and they do not need my money.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
From the article:
"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.
I didn't notice it in the main posts, but McDonald's Corp.'s founder's wife Joan Kroc left NPR $200 million back in 2003. AND NPR has practically shifted to an all-sponsorship model. You can't hear more than 10 minutes of radio during drive-time without hearing a thinly veiled ad. But it's the best thing going. Here's a NYTIMES article that explains what NPR's management is going through right now http://www.freepress.net/news/14516/ From this article, it looks like NPR is doing pretty well for itself.
Yeah, the business world would never think about getting help from the government to stay afloat (airlines, agriculture, Amtrack, ...).
And, although people can't seem to read financial statements, NPR is not a direct recipient of any Federal budget. The "tax" money that they receive is in the form of grants or fees charged to the local affiliates that are somewhat government funded. But, it the audience shifts from the radio to the internet, the affiliates will have no reason to pay for the programs.
Angleyne: You can't bend that girder - it's unbendable! Bender: Well I don't know anything about lifting, so that ju
The 13% figure that you quoted as coming from CPB is actually describing where individual public radio stations get their operating funds. NPR (which does not operate individual radio stations) receives less than 2% of its operating budget from competitive federal grants. They compete with any other not-for-profit to receive those grants. Read the page you quoted again more carefully as the information is all there.
You might be interested in reading exactly how NPR works. Check out this link for more information: http://www.npr.org/about/nprworks.html The bottom line is that because individual public radio stations operate independently from NPR, they are (more or less) free to choose their programming. This is why not all NPR content is available on all stations across the US.
To sum up, you can bitch and whine all you want about the feds supporting local public radio. However, NPR itself is a largely self sufficient operation that produced some really great content.
Taft
Given that Liberalism is Enlightenment rationality applied to political processes, intellectual usually does walk hand in hand with Liberal. As for the poisoned connotations, these are attacks by those who seek to disingenuously protect their ideas from rational criticism. So yes, according to certain intellectually dishonest groups, like the GOP, you must ignore the rest of the world and rational criticism to be a proper American.
Of course the GOP view completely ignores the fact that the entire group of Founding Fathers were a bunch of self-proclaimed raging Liberals and that making America not-Liberal would destroy the US. My readings of the various writings of the time show that a 'proper American' would need to be a Liberal with a dedication to applying rational criticism to the political process.
As far as Entertainment Tonight goes, I figure the intellectually lazy Left might enjoy it as much as the intellectually lazy Right or a Liberal who has turned off there intellect. Couldn't really say though, I didn't even know that show was still on.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
(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.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
This is a common charge coming from conservatives, and I've always been puzzled by it. It would be interesting to sit with you through a few episodes of Morning Edition or All Things Considered, simply to learn what specifically you are finding there that you consider to be "liberal bias". You might learn something from such an exercise yourself.
In my experience, conservatives are quick to cite as "biased" any information or insight suggesting that the world is a larger and more diverse place than the little cultural boxes they grew up in, especially if presented in a nonjudgemental way. Stories about the lives and problems of migrant farm workers, or families with no medical insurance, or teenagers in Afghanistan... merely touching subjects like these is indicative of "liberal bias", isn't it? All the more so if any deeper understanding is actually communicated. If that's the real crime (and I suspect that it is), then indeed NPR is guiltier of it than most other news outlets.
And anything that promotes understanding of anyone or anything outside your own narrow experience is "liberal bias", right? If Mom didn't serve it, it ain't food. Give me some specific examples of what you consider to be liberal bias on NPR, and I'll bet that's exactly what it boils down to.
When a bomb goes off somewhere, I want justice, but I also want an explanation. Who were the bombers? Why did they do it? If we need to interview their families to find out, so be it.
Being concerned with why things like terrorist attacks happen has nothing to do with guilting anyone into anything, and it certainly doesn't imply a lack of interest in fixing problems.
That's why most of the "unbiased" mass media in the U.S. has devolved into little more than uncritical "he says / she says" reportage that conveys no real understanding of what's going on, or how it reflects a bigger picture. If you want a deeper understanding, it's surely better to sample the different interpretations (biases) you can find and synthesize something out of that.
A few of your red cents are subsidizing local public radio stations, who can do what they like with the money. Many of them spend some of it on content from NPR. This is not taxes "subsidizing" NPR any more than Air Force spending is "subsidizing" Boeing. Despite having "National" and "Public" in the name, NPR is not a governmental agency; it is a non-profit. It seeks funds where it can find them, chiefly by selling content to member radio stations. It does not, and can not, "force" anyone to pay for anything. The OP who doesn't want to donate to NPR as long as they force him to through taxes is an ignoramus.
Biased or not, I remember watching mostly PBS as a child, as it was the only channel that wasn't full of sugary fluff. It actually offered information and education instead of vapid celebrity talk shows and shock-driven babble. I discovered NPR a few years back thanks to the internet and fell in love again.
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.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
And what would be the proper, unbiased way to comment on a Bush speech? If there are demonstrable contradictions, fallacies, stupidities, or deceptions in the speech itself, are you doing the public any service by ignoring them? In the perfect unbiased world, are our leaders free from the possibility of being challenged, or from having to make any sense at all?
I would argue that if NPR can deliver no more than vague, "backhanded" commentary after a Bush speech (out of fear of criticism by conservatives), then they are effectively closer to a conservative than a liberal bias.
I've been thinking of this a lot lately and the timing of this article (and current fund drives) are the icing on the cake. I've drafted an open letter to NPR, PRI (Public Radio International), and APM (American Public Media) that I'd like to send along with my local NPR member station's endorsement. I should also note that I'm a supporter of my local NPR station.
I envison a system where NPR has freely avaliable podcasts of it's choosing to anyone (with a likely delay - some shows are delayed 2-4 days after the original air date before the podcast is downloadable). However, it stands to reason that NPR, and others, wouldn't want access to all of their shows. So, I think NPR should allow access to "premium" podcasts to members of their local stations. NPR could develop the "member-access" technology and distribute that to local stations. Users would sign in through their local station's website which would give them access to all of the podcasts for NPR, PRI and AMR. The end result still supports local memebr stations, and radio itself as a medium, and allows users access to podcasts to listen to on their own time. Local stations would continue to pay NPR's fees, like the current system. I also don't think NPR (and others) should limit the content the local stations receive. That is, I think I, as a paying member of my local station, should have access to shows that my local statino doesn't air. For example, I really enjoy West Coast Live (which doesn't stream arcived shows let alone podcast) but my local station doesn't air it. As a paying member I would get access to a podcast of West Coast Live.
I don't see how this wouldn't be a win-win-win situation. I get access to the content I want, I support my local station and they in turn support NPR (PRI and APM) to fund the creation of the content.
There's some evidence that NPR has a conservative bias. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting periodically studies the NPR guestlist to determine if NPR "promote[s] personal growth rather than corporate gain" and "speak[s] with many voices, many dialects" as it purports to do. FAIR has a page dedicated to NPR that includes all their criticism of NPR programming. Was FAIR fair to NPR in their study of conservative bias? NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey A. Dvorkin says "The FAIR study seems about right to me with a couple of exceptions."
Long before podcasting, I ripped NPR programming from their RealAudio streams and crunched it down to MP3s. I stopped giving money to NPR when they killed low power FM. I felt that the corporate sponsors were (and still are) using NPR to greenwash their reputation, but I still enjoyed a lot of the programming. But NPR never strayed far enough from the administration's line for me when they covered the Iraq War, and when they "scooped" the rest of the media with their phony WMD claim, I gave up on them entirely. I turned to Democracy Now, and I use their podcast service. I also contribute more to them than I ever did to NPR, since they're free of corporate sponsorship.
If public broadcasting did not exist, would the Vacuum for unbiased news be filled by private industry, Yes I believe it would.
You'd be wrong. Very wrong. Look at every other news medium. What dominates? The Lowest Common Denominator.
Rupert Murdoch understands that he who wins the race to the bottom, wins the media war. Most people will eagerly devour celebrity gossip, page three girls, sports news, jingoistic propaganda and biased news. The rational, responsible journalists who work for the likes of the broadsheets or bbc news simply cannot, ever compete with headlines like "GOTCHA". It can't be done.
And even if one headline goes over the top and arouses public revultion, like say "Bonkers Bruno...", the public will easily be lured back with another lurid sex scandel frontpage.
Left entirely to private industry, the news media would degenerate into the information ages version of the medieval catholic church. A hysterical, backward, reactionary, jingoistic and largely self serving monopoly would steer public opinion in any direction it so chose.
Take a look at the tone of news media in the US, and then take a look at the media in the UK. Bottom line; the BBC existance has kept the bar from being lowered to rock bottom. Without a professional, impartial, responsible public news outlet, prime times news quickly becomes sensationalist, biased tripe with a horrifically inappropriate sound track edited into stories, all followed by the sports news.
May the Maths Be with you!
Wait a minute...which speech was this? The State of the Union?! Are you sure it was an "opinion?" I would appreciate the ongoing commentary while listening to that speech (or any such speech) on the radio to know who's clapping and who isn't: it's like listening to a baseball game (and there's probably more nuance to the SOTU) because I want to know where someone hit a fly ball or who he grounded out to! If only the Republican side of the aisle clapped, I would want to know! You don't think that's important?! You get that tidbit from watching the SOTU, but not on the radio, and I'm glad NPR would add such commentary to the SOTU .
I would argue that if NPR can deliver no more than vague, "backhanded" commentary after a Bush speech (out of fear of criticism by conservatives), then they are effectively closer to a conservative than a liberal bias.
Got that right. The morning MPR hosted a military professor on the topic of "Socrates, the Soldiering Years" while Bush was on the drumbeat toward Iraq was the moment I knew it'd be a cold day in hell when they saw my money. Public radio is propaganda too. Apparently, sometimes even more ludicrous propaganda in its amusing attempts at subtlety than commercial channels.