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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?
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'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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
(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.
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.
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.
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.