When life gives the radio lemons... make an online series about sandwiches?

As NPR gracefully, or not so gracefully, ages in the 21st century some cosmetic changes must be made. The most noticeable, a full on face lift of their online presence. When NPR first came into the internet domain, it was to expand the platforms for which their normal content could be streamed. A library of podcasts and extended versions of their regular programming. That NPR.org does not exist anymore, but merely shadows of what it once was. The current NPR.org may as well be NPR magazine, a hipster's paradise to report on virtually anything possible. With this mindset, the Chicago office created "Sandwich Monday."

As the population of amateur foodies is on the rise so is the need to document food. The Chicago office does this with flare. Younger generations aren't interested in African politics or small town governments coming under fire. They want entertainment, tailored to the trends of today, and "Sandwich Monday" satisfies their appetite.

Similar to a college paper feature "Sandwich Monday" is a room full of fresh college grads and young interns chomping down on the latest food trends. Even better, they offer a dry, sardonic commentary that adds the perfect dash of snark in the morning. But is it enough to save NPR? The question I find myself asking each week. It seems pretty drastic for NPR to create a food blog like this, considering the upper crust inherent pompousness of "The American Table" feeds right into NPR's upper crust audience. "Sandwich Monday" is fresh, made to order, and somewhat like a late night snack, what young people want in their media.

Serial: Serial killer for the public radio market or NPR's new best friend?

'Serial' the explosively popular podcast that reheats a cold 15 year old murder case is changing the listening habits of NPR listeners. As serial is available online on a weekly episode basis, listeners can hear host Sarah Koenig personally read them a cliff hanger bedtime story any time they desire. 'Serial' is personal, intimate, but addictive and wild as the story of Mae Hin Lee and Adnan Syed unfolds. The millions of devout followers of Koenig's creation can thank good 'ole NPR, as 'Serial' is a spin off of the "This American Life" cohort. If it wasn't for NPR, finding justice, or closure for some, would have not been attainable.

If there were no public radio, there would be no WBEZ in Chicago, where “This American Life” began, which means there would be no offshoot like “Serial.” When you listen to Ms. Koenig slowly heating up a cold case, doing interviews that are built on conversations, not sound bites, and taking up to an hour to unfurl a single episode, you are getting aesthetic storytelling that feels like the best of public radio. 

But public radio was not what I was listening to last Thursday, and therein lies the problem for shows like NPR’s “All Things Considered” or American Public Media’s “Marketplace.” For the time being, part of my mindshare belongs to Ms. Koenig and her riveting exploration of a terrible event that took place among a group of friends at a Baltimore-area high school. -David Carr, NY Times

Public radio fuels the thinkers and creative spirits, or truth seeking individuals needed to support a show like 'Serial'. Starting as a modest podcast, using their wild popularity 'Serial' could take their hour long segments to the airwaves, boosting ratings exponentially. David Carr of The New York Times, calls 'Serial', "the best of public radio" but ironically it is only available online. It follows the format of similar NPR programs, however, the subject matter appeals to a larger audience. Ms. Koenig and her colleagues could do wonders for both their brand and the NPR label if they combined forces, serving justice and cooking up success. Your move, NPR.

I found the source! The distributor at least....

While pondering the internet in my usual journey through Google, a small question popped in my head, "Is there a radio coalition for public radio stations (similar to IHEartMedia that sort of thing)?" And  then I found Public Radio International.

Public Radio International (PRI) is a Minneapolis-based company that was founded in 1983 under the moniker, American Public Radio, trying to become an alternative to NPR. With a large expansion in the 1990s, PRI found themselves doing business in the United Kingdom for the BBC, and now holds offices in the US, UK, China, and other European hubs. PRI is now a distributor, providing programming via satellite telecommunication to many public radio powerhouses. PRI helped transition the move from traditional public radio formatting to the private satellite sector, ensuring that public radio retains the integrity it has charmed nations with for generations.

PRI is currently headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

The Evolution of NPR

In 2009, NPR went under a massive transformation. New CEO, new program director; essentially the whole company underwent a facelift and a tummy tuck. With that rejuvenation, NPR evolved from a simple, bland news sources into a major dynamic news corporation. In a Fast Company feature that went to press in 2009, Anya Kamenetz summed up the transformation like so:

It's a bit of a mystery how NPR managed to grow its audience so dramatically even as other news outlets suffered. Brand-new CEO Schiller has one of the most popular theories. On her ninth day of work, her office is still full of congratulatory flower arrangements — the perfect setting for her rosy take on the source of NPR's true strength: the human element. When her appointment was announced, she explains, she got more than a thousand emails from family, friends, and old coworkers, and each had a personal anecdote about a local station or drive-time ritual. "I've worked in a lot of big media companies now," she says. "I mean, this is my fifth [The New York Times, Discovery Channel, CNN, TBS], and I've never seen such a connection between the institution and the audience members. The power of that is extraordinary. The journalism and the credibility — that's the obvious stuff. It's the personal connection that's the secret sauce." -  Anya Kamenetz, Fast Company

The secret sauce comes with a dash of improved technology and a change in audience tastes. As listeners demand more nationalized coverage, NPR is killing their member stations by stealing listeners with online content and satellite radio deals. With NPR's "free" price tag, it is more affordable than most news sources. As Kamenetz found NPR has replaced print newspapers that have gone bankrupt in cities across America. The Minneapolis Star Tribune, recently  fell victim to this.

It is all understandable. Media that stimulates auditory senses is more appealing than visual reading. With glossed over production, NPR is doing fantastic with targeting people. Their production quality is equivalent with the quality one would find in top quality movies.

NPR you keep on doing what you do, because it works.

 

 

Baseball is as American as apple pie, but not American enough for NPR

Americans pride themselves on how great our talk radio is, that is if it is still available in your city. We talk about cars, celebrities, news briefs, but we excel in sports radio, which is why many find it perplexing that NPR doesn't cover sports the way other media networks do. In fact, did NPR ever cover a true sports event other than the Olympics or World Cup?

Self proclaimed "angsty" NBA analysis blog The Diss, loves to call NPR out on this flaw. Blogger Kevin Draper called NPR out for reporting only two types of sports stories, "The first is a newsy story, often embedded in All Things Considered or Weekend edition, like this piece on FC Barcelona’s transfer ban.  The other fits into what I call the “whacky shit” category, like a segment on trash talking Bhutanese archers." The rest of the post mostly delves into the diversity of Basketball as a sport of many cultures, a typical NPR view on the world, but it did make me think. Can NPR successfully report American sports that interest their audiences.

Covering sports could be a great move for NPR. They can increase listenership amongst the common man, taking their typical white collar audience and dying it blue. If NPR does well in this endeavor, it could result in a boost of their funds. 

Realistically speaking this is still NPR. All of their show hosts probably flunked grade school gym and have the personality of an English major working on their doctorate. NPR isn't a money maker either, it takes in funds rather than producing a profit. The sports media industry is all about making a profit on something and NPR doesn't have the capacity to hustle that field yet.

NPR is biased? *Queues sarcasm*

Broadcast news channels all have their inherent bias towards one end of the spectrum. Fox leans right, while MSNBC swings left. Radio, being the platform for audio news it is only natural that there would be bias in the content presented. NPR comes under fire for this ever so often, more times than not.

I'm not here to bash NPR, in fact I respect them more than most radio channels, but bias is harder to pick up on the radio than it is on TV or in print. When biased is recognized in a radio program, logically it is more likely to go under fire because the brain's threshold has picked up on something that audiences perceive as wrong. Bias makes or breaks a channel, a publication, a whole media network, and NPR has experienced both the negative and positive effects.

From a marketing stand point bias can completely wreck NPR. Watching the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalate over the summer, NPR.org commenters waged their own war on NPR calling them out for anti-Israel bias both on-air and online. NPR didn't retaliate with an apologetic statement like the ilk of the New York Times or corporate CNN; they decided to break a simple journalistic rule and report on themselves instead. Turning fueled hate into a genuine ploy for listeners. NPR made a story about the hate comments towards them that they received. Penned by Edward Shumacher-Matos, NPR ombudsman tackled the issue turning away from angry (in NPR advertising voice) supporters of NPR to an argument for public opinion and how middle eastern politics polls with American audiences. 

This wasn't NPR's first ploy with bias. One of their blogs, The Biased Eye, a play on words of Toni Morison's "The Bluest Eye" tackles issues of bias in race centered issues in the United States. Blog author Alva Noe uses the psychological aspects of bias to explain American backlash towards police related incidents like Ferguson and the NYPD shootings. Essentially NPR is fighting bias with bias.

I am biased. In fact some of this piece is biased, but I am using that bias, like NPR to make a point. Bias is more than just a tool used to anger the masses. It decides who your listeners are, it dictates the aura of your station, it even provides background for new stories. Good or bad, bias serves a purpose.

Is NPR truly owned by the public?

With a network as expansive as NPR's, I have always been amazed at how a network that ends every segment with a plea for funds, can afford to air large quantities of high quality programming nationwide. Estimating the costs of modern radio production in my heads, it just doesn't seem logical that the media minority NPR supporters can afford such an extensive network of affiliates and national hub stations. Doing what any sensible person in the Digital Age would do, I took to the internet to find the true owner of NPR. What I stumbled upon was an anonymous blog post on elingreso.com, summing up NPR's ownership as a deadly cocktail: one part government/tax/independent funding, two parts corporate sponsorship.

In 1970, National Public Radio was created as a provision of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, signed into effect by President Lyndon B. Johnson. At its conception NPR was an independent news source, gaining most of its monetary support from government aid. In the 1980s, under the economic policies of "Reaganomics" (supply-side, essentially) the government cut back on spending on government programs, to boost our economy, causing NPR to look for outside donors. As much as the anonymous author of the blog mentioned in the previous paragraph accurately explains the trend shift in funding for NPR, he or she fails to recognize the current numbers of how NPR's funding is created.

Behold, NPR releases how their funding is provided in a snazzy little pie chart, and shockingly, I was as wrong in my assumptions as was my anonymous friend.

The public actually provides most of the funding (39%), followed by corporate sponsors (17%). The public still has an interest in their public radio, even though they have been accused of being puppets of corporate America, their business "Big Brother" can only get them so far.