Opinion: ‘You just have to accept that public radio really isn’t interested in saving itself’

This commentary was originally published in the newsletter The Audio Insurgent and is republished here with permission. It has been edited for format and style.  

Here is one of the paradoxes of The Audio Insurgent newsletter: when I write about public radio (a subject that is a decreasingly niche segment within the niche of spoken-word audio) those dispatches end up attracting the most page views, and not by a little bit.

In conversations and correspondence recently, a few have pointed out that while I once wrote regularly about public radio, it seems I don’t anymore. Recently I got a note from a reader named Matt, saying:

“I really love your newsletter, but I wanted you to know why I’m canceling my subscription. You used to talk about public radio frequently and I found those very inspiring and helpful. You don’t write about it anymore, so I’m taking a break.”

This is mostly true (and Matt, you are welcome back any time). 

It may surprise you to learn that The Audio Insurgent has been rattling around inboxes for six years. But it’s been almost a year since I wrote suggesting that public radio can learn a lot about public service by using a universal metric based on attention. In the preceding two years, I only wrote dispatches on public radio twice. Once was laying out the case for federal funding of public broadcasting today. Nine months before that I published an open welcome letter to (then) new NPR CEO Katherine Mayer. 

The whopper of my Audio Insurgent writing on public radio was my three-part (1, 2, 3) strategic framework for public radio that I wrote in October 2023. Mostly before that, I wrote the Frequency Boost column for Current for several years, building out some concepts for public radio. And there’s a ton more going back to when I left public radio a decade ago.

That’s a lot of writing. So … why have I mostly stopped?

Two reasons: First, I was very worried that any constructive criticism of public radio (by me or others) could be misused during the CPB rescission battle. I spoke with a number of media writers during those months, and I spoke about the mission of public radio, which I still think is as relevant and important today as it was when the Public Broadcasting Act was signed into law in November 1967. 

Secondly, the writing I link to above totals 40,000 words — and, as I mentioned, there is a lot more that I’ve written than the links above. My book on podcasting was 80,000 words. So I’ve unconsciously been writing a book about the future of public media for almost a decade. 

Why don’t I write more? Well, I’ve said quite a bit already.

But here is the thing.

Over the past few days, I re-read everything I linked to above … and I wouldn’t change a single thing. It all still holds. It is as relevant and actionable today as it was when I wrote it. That says far less about the resilience of what I wrote than it does about how stuck public radio has been over the past decade — arguably the past three decades.

When the Internet started to become an every day presence in American life back in the late 90s, public radio lost its collective mind. This was the existential threat that no one saw coming, yet everyone had feared. Streaming and podcasting didn’t exist in any real, practical form yet, but everyone knew this was the direction things were heading. After an incredible volume of bluster, handwringing and hyperbole, public radio stumbled onto a collective future vision: public media organizations (it became passé to refer to yourself as “public radio” — even though that’s what the audience still calls it) were going to be digital and focused on local; for many stations, specifically local news. 

Since then, the bluster, handwringing and hyperbole has never abated, and public radio has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in this future vision. In the process, they took the audience they already had for granted and, basically, stopped paying a lot of attention to the data that the audience was giving them about their interests and use of their service.

And, today, there is not a single station in the country that has made sufficient progress. Back in the 1990s, 100% of public radio’s audience and revenue were tied to broadcast. Today, despite three decades of effort and ginormous investment, no single station has reduced their dependency on broadcast by more than 10%. Most stations today still lean on broadcast for 90%+ of their audience engagement and revenue. (Some major market stations remain as high as 98%).

To me, that’s just stunning.

So, I’ve said a lot — and, despite some seismic things happening in the industry, the advice is still spot on. We are all still standing in pretty much the same place.

I was talking about this with a friend, who is always a bit shocked that I still care about public media (because I still deeply believe in the mission and its potential, even today). He looked at me and said what became the title of this piece, “You reach the point where you just have to accept that public radio really isn’t interested in saving itself, or it would have taken change more seriously.”

The friend who said that has never worked full time in public radio, but has done some consulting in the industry. He knows the industry, but doesn’t share my optimism.

“There is no lack of understanding, but they keep doing studies that all tell them the same thing, and yet they never do anything about it.”

I mean, he isn’t wrong. It’s a harsh take, but not unfounded.

But the question here, to me, is if this is state — or fate?

TLDR: It isn’t fate.

So why has this actually happened? It isn’t because public radio’s leadership and station leaders aren’t competent and capable. They are just as passionate about their mission and organization as any generation of leaders has been. It has much more to do with getting caught in the day-to-day — especially now, in the wake of CPB rescission. What’s missing, generally, is a real centering on audience.

When I hear public media leaders talk about the state of audience, ratings and legacy platforms, I hear a very strong decline-centered narrative, with one station CEO infamously saying that “radio is dead.” Really?

When you look at audience behavior — and the attitudinal markers in dozens of qualitative studies — a somewhat different story emerges.

Public radio isn’t dead to audiences (though, arguably, public radio is pretty much the last radio they listen to any more). Public radio is a part of their lives — still. Public radio and its mission are still deeply important to them.

Do they listen less? Yes. But that’s more because public radio has been stagnant — largely unchanged in any meaningful way — for a generation, not because the audience are no longer interested in listening.

Radio isn’t dead, it is evolving. But public radio, in real and meaningful ways, isn’t.

So, why did I stop writing about public radio? Not because it’s hopeless  but because the answer hasn’t changed. Yet that doesn’t mean the opportunity is gone.

I wasn’t being flip when I mentioned that what I’ve written still holds. If you are reading this and wondering, “Okay, well, what should we do then?” Read. The. Linked. Posts. Above. It’s all there, the entire playbook — from national organizations all the way down to production assistants at local stations.

In closing, let me say that at one time, public radio’s biggest competition was other radio stations. Public radio stations measured their public service by the percentage of time listeners spent listening to their station as compared to all other radio stations. But that logic doesn’t hold any more. Public radio’s competition —– its biggest existential threat —– isn’t other radio stations. It isn’t podcasting or streaming or Spotify or YouTube or any other platforms.

Public radio’s biggest competition and threat … is itself.

If public radio fails, it will not be because the opportunity disappeared. It will be because it chose not to pursue it.

I still believe in the mission. I just don’t believe the outcome is guaranteed, either way.

Eric Nuzum (eric@magnificentnoise.com) is the co-founder of Magnificent Noise, a podcast production and consulting company. He also provides strategic advice to public radio programs and stations, and writes about spoken word audio in his newsletter The Audio Insurgent.