Programs/Content

NPR drives forward with dashboard delivery

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Having faced the disruptive threats posed by cassette tapes, CDs, satellite radio and even the iPod, public radio strategists are increasingly looking for a beachhead into the emerging “connected car” and its Internet-powered suite of entertainment options. Gains in auto technology were a highlight of last week’s 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Carmakers, including General Motors, Jaguar, Tesla and Audi, unveiled new or beefed-up versions of dashboards that use broadband Internet to power apps offering news, music, weather and other services to motorists. Both NPR and American Public Media announced new partnerships that will get their content into these “connected cars.”

“This is huge, and it’s essential for radio broadcasters to be players in this space,” said Fred Jacobs, longtime radio researcher and analyst who’s now in the business of developing apps for the digital dashboard. He has followed the development of connected car technologies and documented its growth through his research projects, including the Public Radio Technology Survey. For decades, radio operators could throw up a tower and launch a broadcast service confident that listeners would be tuning in from their cars.

Programs/Content

Stations’ concerns prompt Metropolitan Opera to sanitize airing of Die Fledermaus

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The Metropolitan Opera agreed to tone down indecent language in its Jan. 11 broadcast after radio station leaders warned that they would not risk airing a performance that would violate FCC standards. Met staffers informed stations in a Jan. 7 email that Saturday’s broadcast of Die Fledermaus would contain profanity. An off-stage tenor, singing in his jail cell, would prompt a jailer to answer, “No opera!

Programs/Content

Producers take podcast covering marketing innovations to pubradio distribution

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Ad man and podcaster Mike O’Toole has teamed up with veteran pubradio producer Jim Russell to adapt a narrative-focused business podcast into a public radio series. The show, The Unconventionals, features long-form interviews with executives who run startup companies or established businesses that have adopted game-changing tactics for marketing to younger consumers. O’Toole, host and president of PJA Marketing + Advertising, seeks guests who fit a certain profile — entrepreneurs whose innovative business models disrupt those of their competitors. He aims to highlight undertold stories in business and marketing, looking beyond companies such as Apple, whose narratives have been “told to death.”

During the podcast’s first two seasons, O’Toole interviewed Michael Dubin, c.e.o. of Dollar Shave Club, a web-based company that sells personal care products for men through a subscription-based business model, and Geoff Cottrill of Converse, which refashioned its brand with hip sensibilities by investing in Rubber Tracks, a recording studio that provides free studio time to musicians. O’Toole began podcasting 15 years ago with This Week in Social Media, which was later revamped to focus on news about the field of marketing under the title This Week in Digital Media.

Programs/Content

Flatow finds more traction for ‘Science Friday’ in PRI distribution

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After two decades as a weekly NPR program, the 22-year-old Science Friday is preparing to shake things up. With its move to Public Radio International distribution on Jan. 1, the talk show has ambitious plans to put its content into wider distribution through collaborations with PRI series such as The World and The Takeaway as well as with the PBS science program Nova. WGBH in Boston, which acquired PRI in 2012, is involved in production of all three major series, opening new cross-platform distribution and branding opportunities. A new educational specialist is working to turn more of Science Friday’s content into curricular materials, and PRI is exploring ways to offer its programming through PBS Learning Media, the online resource providing free media and lesson plans to K–12 educators.

Programs/Content

CPB to support more collaborative journalism projects

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CPB will devote $2.5 million to reporting projects spearheaded by stations and national producers, President Patricia Harrison announced Nov. 12 at the Public Radio Regional Organizations Super-Regional conference in Fort Washington, Md. The funder will provide $1.5 million for the Diverse Perspectives project, an initiative to support reporting from groups of news stations for local, regional and national use. Like the CPB-backed Local Journalism Centers, the stations will focus on particular topics. The number of stations to receive the two-year grants will depend on the range and size of proposals submitted, said Bruce Theriault, CPB senior v.p. of radio, but he estimated that about five groups will receive support.

Programs/Content

AIR, PRNDI partner on guidelines for radio freelancers

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The Association of Independents in Radio and Public Radio News Directors Inc. are collaborating on a set of guidelines for local pubradio stations to consult when setting freelancer rates. To lead the initiative, AIR recruited Susanna Capelouto, former news director at Georgia Public Broadcasting. Over the next month, Capelouto will survey news directors and station managers across the country to inform the guidelines, which she hopes to publish by Dec. 1. AIR will draw from a pay guide that it developed for NPR in 2002 and updated last year and from a guide that it created for American Public Media’s Marketplace in 2012.

Programs/Content

Foundation to sell 87-year old commercial classical radio station

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KDB in Santa Barbara, Calif., one of the few remaining commercial classical radio stations, has been put up for sale by the foundation that has been operating it at six-figure losses for several years. Directors of the Santa Barbara Foundation, which has owned the license to broadcast on 93.7 FM for the past decade,  voted unanimously to sell the station, according to the Santa Barbara Independent. The station broadcasts on a commercial frequency, but the foundation opted to retain Public Radio Capital, which specializes in signal expansion for noncommercial public radio stations, to broker the sale. “As much as we love KDB, it isn’t our core mission,” said Ron Gallo, foundation c.e.o., during a public meeting at which the sale was announced. The meeting was “attended by a who’s who of the South Coast arts scene,” according to the Independent’s news account, and the mood in the room was “tense.”

Programs/Content

Decade of StoryCorps chats inspires NPR and PBS specials, book and gala

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StoryCorps begins marking its 10-year anniversary this week with a special series airing on NPR’s Morning Edition. The segments include an interview with StoryCorps founder and indie producer Dave Isay, and a series of features catching up with some of the most popular characters to share personal stories during the first decade of the oral history project. StoryCorps will also be celebrating its accomplishments and longevity with a gala event hosted by comic Stephen Colbert, a new book and a Thanksgiving special presented on PBS. Attendees at the Oct. 30 fundraiser in New York City who reserve an entire table for $25,000 get an opportunity to record a StoryCorps interview in their own home.

Programs/Content

NPR to announce new voice of underwriting credits

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NPR plans to unveil tomorrow the name of the on-air talent who has been chosen to voice its underwriting credits as a successor to longtime announcer Frank Tavares. “The NPR Announcer will become the voice of all NPR national funding credits for broadcast and digital content,” wrote Eric Nuzum, v.p. of programming, in a Oct. 21 memo to public radio station leaders that was obtained by Current. “We think listeners — and sponsors — will find her engaging.” Though Nuzum wasn’t divulging the identity of the new announcer, he did reveal that the network has chosen a female. Listeners will begin hearing her announcements next month in NPR newscast and online credits, Nuzum wrote; she will take over voicing of all credits later.

Programs/Content

WFUV seeks membership boost with new mix of music

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New York’s WFUV has expanded its music mix and dropped NPR newscasts, with a goal of enticing more listeners to become members. Starting this month, the Triple A station broadened its playlists and added more local music to its lineup. Listeners might now hear musicians such as Prince, the Clash and Arcade Fire in close proximity, while classic artists such as Aretha Franklin, Queen, and Hall and Oates are still represented. WFUV is also featuring more new music as it aims to buttress its reputation for introducing listeners to up-and-coming artists. Program Director Rita Houston and her colleagues were happy with recent growth in WFUV’s audience, from an average–quarter-hour share of 0.2 in spring 2012 to 0.4 a year later.

Programs/Content

After Talk of the Nation, Neal Conan’s first gig takes him to Greenland

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Neal Conan’s first foray out of the studio in 11 years took him very far from the studio indeed — all the way to Greenland, where he documented climate change for public radio’s Burn: An Energy Journal. The former Talk of the Nation host contributed to “Rising Seas,” the sixth installment of the ongoing series reporting on energy issues. Conan hadn’t reported from the field since 2002, when he took the TOTN hosting job. He left NPR in June, when TOTN was canceled. Burn host Alex Chadwick, who previously anchored NPR’s Day to Day, enlisted Conan after TOTN ended.