Current (https://current.org/tag/radio-programs-content-news/page/5/)
Letson, the performance artist and playwright behind SOTRU, begins 2014 with a new production partner, renewed funding and ambitions to take his show into weekly production.
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.
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.
Alabama Public Television, WHYY, Transom.org and New York Public Radio are among the grantees.
From WFMU’s tiny studios in Jersey City, N.J., using only rock songs, his own creativity and contributions of guests and callers, Scharpling created a world of comedy unto itself over the course of The Best Show.
The cotton T-shirt, a public radio merchandising staple, is front-and-center in a new multimedia project from NPR’s economics reporting unit Planet Money.
New Jersey–based freeform community radio station WFMU will replace The Best Show on WFMU in January with a program hosted by comedian and musician Dave Hill.
The grant will fund a film focusing mainly on the oil boom’s effects on Native tribes.
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.
The Portland community station has new leadership at the top and on its board after a failed bid to revamp workplace practices.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
In launching her own media company, Maria Hinojosa sought to bring a “consistent presence” of a Latina journalist to PBS and take over production of NPR’s Latino USA.
Classical music is a big part of the cultural fabric of Bloomington. But WFIU wasn’t aiming to eliminate local music programming.
Select musical performances from KCRW-FM’s signature show Morning Becomes Eclectic are now streaming live on YouTube. The Los Angeles station kicked off the new feature Sept. 17 with a six-minute song from the U.K. buzz band King Krule; until this month, KCRW posted only prerecorded performances on its channel. Created in September 2006, KCRW’s YouTube page has 44,000 subscribers and has received more than 35 million views worldwide — including four from within Vatican City. The most popular single video, Gotye’s live version of “Somebody That I Used to Know,” has about 16 million views.
Radio Ambulante, the Spanish-language storytelling podcast and radio program, is the first show to be backed by Public Radio International’s New Voices Fund.