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.

BBC Radio: On a scale from one to six

BBC has come a long way. Created in the aftermath of one World War and the conception of another, the BBC was created as the first public radio service in England in 1927. Once used strictly for news, its purpose evolved into a variety show of programming with entertainment for the family. Now BBC radio has split personalities, many of which are marketed for trendy young listeners, while still keeping a serious news source for older generations (most similar to NPR). The BBC family is a unique mix of personalities, so in true posh fashion, let us formally meet the House of BBC.

Radio1: Lowest in number, and probably age in listeners, Radio1 plays today's pop music, where Top 40 playlists meet the "new" new-age movement. It is the type of radio you listen to when you want to stay in the know of popular culture, but want to listen to something cool and obscure to seem hipster. Radio1 is even taking on popularity in the states as their Youtube channel is becoming well-known for popular artists covering and remastering the most popular songs of the moment. Radio1 is very much integrated amongst social media and streaming platforms, because that is where there listenership is. Easiest way to understand Radio1, is that it is the baby of the BBC family.

Radio2: Radio1's elder sibling. Radio2 is BBC's take on adult contemporary. It plays current songs, but keeps a focus on easy listening and light music, in contrast to the loud and brash (depending on your age or taste in music) sound of Radio1. Formerly known as BBC Light Programme, Radio2 was renamed to streamline the BBC family in a ploy for fresh marketing from one of the oldest radio networks in the world.

Radio3: BBC's jazz station was renamed for the same reason as Radio2. Unlike NPR across the pond, the BBC has invested in creating genre specific radio stations to expand listenership. Radio3 plays modern smooth jazz and is marketed toward urban, refined individuals in their 30s, but also for older listeners looking for something other than news or talk to follow.

Radio4: The national station of England. Radio4 is the home programme, delighting listeners with talk radio, domestic news, public service anouncements. Essentially BBC's counterpart to our national coverage NPR based out of New York. The original BBC is what Radio4 is now, essentially.

Radio5 Live: Radio5 Live replaced the former Radio5, a children's network, with a station that is purely sports coverage and news. ESPN radio for footballers and hooligans.

Radio6: With a boom of hipster culture arising globally, BBC digitally offers an all alternative station for the unknown, underground, and obscure to enjoy all the indie entertainment they want. Purely streaming alternative music, Radio 6 is feeding the digital age by bringing new sounds through a new medium.

The BBC family also includes distant relatives like BBC World News Service, for globally broadcasting BBC coverage and channels in Spanish, or with focuses in Wales or the Middle East to accommodate the global community. Just like the actual royal family, this radio brood is just a figure head, still lagging behind in listenership. But like all things American, NPR should take a hint from the British before breaking away to do their own thing.

This German Life

NPR, National Public Radio; our national beacon of free press across the radio waves, known for being uniquely local, is making waves in Germany?

This is Europe we're talking about. A continent caught between the east-west turf war between the UK's BBC and middle eastern powerhouse Al Jazeera dominating the Mediterranean coast and eastern Europe, a land that is only known to Americans as being Soviet. How did NPR make its way into the popular airwaves of Germany?

Considering Berlin's booming economy, the answer is simple: ex-pats. Berlin's flourishing international community, however, can't be purely American. With its central location as the gateway between eastern and western Europe, it would seem that Berlin would be BBC territory, but a 2012 poll conducted by German relocation company OTA-Berlin, found that english speaking Berliners chose NPR as their premier radio news source. NPR had a low popular vote with only 38%, making the majority. BBC didn't even fill in the second place, as Berliners were more inclined to listen to local German stations, over the British news source that has dominated airwaves almost as long as the British empire dominated the rest of the world.

It makes perfect sense that Berliners would cling to local stations. Living in a worldly city like Berlin, the masses want to be kept up on their current events happening in Germany, and radio truly reflects the concerns and opinions of locals, but as an outsider looking in, when I think of Europe, images of the BBC broadcasted in multiple languages and adapted for different demographics takeover my mind. OTA attributes the lack of popularity of the BBC to the retirement of world news anchor, Robin Lustig, as the mark of  the decline of BBC radio news in general.

But where does NPR fit into this equation? NPR is more than just a radio station in Germany. There correspondents and international staff are often quoted in German papers for expert opinions on research or news coverage. The US is cited as a beacon for global research, often using NPR's international division to link American sources to European news. NPR, often a joke of radio stations in America, is making a name for itself overseas. It has even created a German version of NPR to meet demand, maybe they will even create "This German Life" in there quest to globalize free radio.

NPR won't die out just because its listeners did

I love NPR (National Public Radio, for our international friends). I love the quirky game shows with perfectly fitting quirky hosts, I love the crisp sound quality of "RadioLab" and "This American Life", not to mention that NPR seemingly bridges the gap between being a fun online publication and reputable news source with its surprisingly entertaining website, with cute bits like "Sandwich Mondays." But what I can't stand, is that the general public won't ever appreciate any of it because the only NPR they know is that of the old white guy variety, or if you're lucky the NPR that the Prius driving, Ivy League hipster listens to.

I am unfortunately stuck with the first option. In retirement paradise, otherwise known as South Florida, the land of which I call home, the NPR station is by the Old, of the Old, for the Old.  The regular programming revolves around topics of gardening, antique restoration, local art fairs, and play by plays of charity galas, topped off with "A Prairie Home Companion" and 1940s jazz on "Night Train." Only Friday through Sunday afternoon is NPR enticing to a wide audience as national programs such as "Wait, Wait! Don't Tell Me" and "Ask Me Another" does the station receive a dip in the age of the average listener.

While working in Los Angeles over the summer, I occasionally logged onto NPR's online broadcasts to update myself on what was happening back east at home, when I noticed the station I was listening to was too young, too fresh to be NPR. It was only playing indie rock and world music from urban underground artists, yet it was owned by NPR, supported by the People, for the People, of the People. I couldn't believe my ears, yet I wasn't surprised. NPR does take the local flavor of its listeners, and this was the local flavor of L.A.

If all NPR stations were this way, we wouldn't be hunting for decent free radio on the internet, or even paying a premium to SiriusXM to listen to NPR's New York studio. Unfortunately the taste of our  local area dictates the whole station. In South Florida,  that will all change as the audience is dying out, a new era will be ushered in.

Click here to check out NPR across the country.               

Modern tastes shift from "On Air" to "Online"

Radio: the transmission and reception of electromagnetic waves of radio frequency, especially those carrying sound messages. The concept, the idea of what radio programming should be is now a romanticized memory of the past. Disc jockeys in small booths at local stations, oozing with personality while being broadcasted live to millions of personal radios is quickly becoming a dying breed. Local stations are being bought out by media giants such as iHeartMedia and and Clear Channel Media, "internet radio" is just a mask for music genome projects of the Pandora cohort. Radio is undergoing a fast change, fearing that it is on its way of becoming the print journalism of the digital broadcasting family, a platform that will cease to exist when its audience does.

In The State of the Media's annual "Audio: By the Numbers" private subscription user only and online radio platforms were  the only forms of radio broadcasting networks showing steady increases in their numbers of listeners. SiriusXM continually grows in numbers as the American consumer becomes more narrow in his or her selection of station, not to mention that the modern consumer is also less inclined to listen to advertisements and that SiriusXM is also available standard in most cars at the time of purchase. Mobile radio also experienced an increase in listeners as radio stations are now available in app form at for both iPhone users and consumers of the Android Marketplace, allowing listeners to catch real-time broadcasts on the go from major networks and cities that normally broadcast thousands of miles away. 

Differing from the satellite radio variety, Internet radio giant, Pandora, crushed both its online competitors and real-time radio competitors during 2014. Pandora mastered the art of catering to specific tastes by matching 400 musical characteristics to one's musical tastes to create custom channels, but it is questionable if that is considered radio or a robotized playlist. Similar to SiriusXM, Pandora or Spotify, its #1 competitor, are also becoming available standard in most cars, where most people recorded listening to the radio while driving. 

The decline in AM/FM listenership is projected to decline further for the next five years. The convergence of ownership with radio stations such as those owned by the aforementioned iHeartMedia group are not helping the AF/FM market, even thought they offer premium HD quality. They fail to sell radio stations chock full of ads or  quote on quote repetitive music  cycles, but listeners ironically ditched them for glorified playlists that are beyond repetitive. The only logical reason could be that consumers have no control over the air time of what they are listening to, by operating radio distribution the old fashion way.

To check out this year's "Audio: By the Numbers" click here