Chris Anderson’s “dark thoughts” about listening to and supporting public radio

Switching to an iPhone has changed the way Wired editor Chris Anderson listens to public radio, he writes on a blog tied to his influential book, The Long Tail. By capturing his favorite programs as podcasts, Anderson avoids pubradio pledge drives but voluntarily answers Ira Glass’s appeal for contributions toward the bandwidth bill of This American Life. “I just don’t care that much about KQED, and now that I’ve got another way to get the shows I like, I don’t really feel much of a connection to it,” Anderson writes. “Now that I get my radio via podcast, I don’t have to take the bad shows with the good. I’ve got an a la carte menu, and I assemble my own schedule with what I want and when I want it. My feelings about radio stations are mixed, but my feelings about individual shows are crystal clear.” Pubcasters Todd Mundt and Dennis Haarsager reacted to Anderson’s conclusions on their own blogs, as did Robert Paterson, an organizational consultant advising stations on their new media strategies.