Programs/Content

Pubradio news stations join iTunes Radio lineup

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Expanding NPR’s footprint as the first news provider on Apple’s iTunes Radio, 42 member stations join the  lineup today. iTunes Radio, which is integrated into Apple’s iTunes software, already features a 24-hour stream of NPR content that includes national newscasts and stories from Morning Edition and All Things Considered. As of today, web streams of 42 stations are being offered to iTunes users, including: KPCC in Pasadena, Calif.; WBEZ, Chicago; KWMU, St. Louis; KUT in Austin, Texas; North Country Public Radio, Canton, N.Y.;  KQED, San Francisco; WNYC, New York; Minnesota Public Radio and Colorado’s Aspen Public Radio. The 42 stations on the inaugural launch make up about 55 percent of all member stations that provide online streams of their broadcasts, said Bob Kempf, NPR Digital Services general manager.

Development

NPR seeks deal to offer CRM to more stations

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NPR Digital Services is negotiating with an unidentified vendor to provide cloud-computing products to member stations, potentially transforming the ways they manage their membership programs and relationships with audiences. Bob Kempf, chief of the Boston-based NPR unit, would not identify the vendor, but acknowledges that NPR has been in close negotiations with roundCorner, a three-year-old company that specializes in designing customer relationship management (CRM) systems for nonprofit organizations. He aims to have a master services agreement with a third-party vendor in place by the end of the year, and launch a pilot program with as many as 10 stations in early 2013. NPR’s goal, he says, is to offer all member stations the opportunity to buy a license to a cloud-based, customizable CRM product later next year. “We are not building a single platform in the sky for stations to sign on to,” Kempf says.

People

Reber leaves NPR; Arganbright, Appleby launch firm; and more…

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CIR has hired ex-NPR investigative news head Susanne Reber. As senior coordinating editor for multiplatform projects and investigations for the nonprofit newsroom, Reber will lead national and international investigative and enterprise reporting projects, and guide the center’s team of health and environment reporters. Reber joined NPR in January 2010 to build and lead the network’s first investigative unit as deputy managing editor of investigations. She left NPR this month, according to a May 8 memo by NPR News chief Margaret Low Smith that was published on the Poynter Institute website. Smith put Senior National Editor Steve Drummond in charge of investigations while NPR determines “next steps for the unit’s leadership,” she wrote in the memo.