Programs/Content

NPR drops Talk of the Nation, replaces with WBUR’s Here & Now

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This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. After more than two decades on the air, NPR’s Talk of the Nation will come to an end in June to make way for the newsmag Here & Now, which will be revamped under a new partnership between NPR and Boston’s WBUR-FM. Talk of the Nation will air its last episode June 28, ending a 21-year-long run. The call-in talk show has helped launch big names in public media, including original host John Hockenberry, This American Life’s Ira Glass and PBS NewsHour’s Ray Suarez. NPR Chief Content Officer Kinsey Wilson said the network decided to end Talk of the Nation because a newsmagazine might pull a bigger audience in midday.

Programs/Content

Pubradio and TV audiences continue migration to digital, State of News Media study shows

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Audiences for public radio and television news continue to spend less time with legacy broadcast platforms as they transition to digital listening and viewing, according to the State of the News Media study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, released today. The 10th annual report examines all broadcast, digital and print media. NPR’s average weekly broadcast audience fell 3 percent from 2011 to 2012, dipping to 26 million from 26.8 million, according to the report. The weekly number of listeners to American Public Media programs also shrank 2 percent, to 15.2 million. (The report did not detail specific numbers for another major pubradio distributor, Public Radio International.)

On television, the broadcast audience for PBS NewsHour, public TV’s weeknight program, dropped 8.4 percent over the last season to an average of 977,000 nightly viewers — its lowest number since 2008

But both outlets saw lots of action in the digital realm.

About Public Media

Drop the stuffy presentation style for classical radio and the format will thrive

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To the Editors,

I read Ben Mook’s Feb. 11 piece about the de-commercialization of classical radio with a mixture of sadness and muted happiness. The fact that the attrition has slowed is indeed a positive, but the stubborn misconception that classical music cannot be a successful commercial radio format is simply wrong and quite depressing. The problem lies not in the music — for, indeed, properly programmed classical music on the radio has been, and can be, commercially viable — but in the music-academy approach to presentation that dooms any attempt to draw in new listeners. Classical music can be day-parted and made accessible, probably more so than almost any other genre of music.

Programs/Content

Pubradio backs musical acts at SXSW festival

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Public radio will be well-represented at the musical portion of the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, March 13–16. The NPR Music showcase March 13 will feature the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing new songs from their forthcoming album Mosquito, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mexican rockers Café Tacvba and others. Audio of the live set at 8 p.m. Eastern will be offered for station broadcast and distributed online; NPR Music will also offer a live video stream through its website and mobile apps. Café Tacvba will put in double duty and appear in a March 14 showcase arranged by NPR Music’s Alt.Latino channel, along with Molotov, also from Mexico. Rounding out the lineup is Bajofondo, a band led by Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who has scored films including Brokeback Mountain and The Motorcycle Diaries.

Programs/Content

The name needs revamping, but podcasts are here to stay

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If you’re a public radio station without a plan for how to take advantage of the remarkably flexible and creative platform of podcasting — a platform that leverages your existing skills better than anything else in new media — you need to think again.

Programs/Content

POV and StoryCorps each receive $1 million from MacArthur Foundation

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American Documentary, home to PBS’s independent film showcase POV, and StoryCorps, the oral history project heard on NPR, are each receiving $1 million from the MacArthur Foundation’s latest round of Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions. The grants, awarded to 13 recipients in five countries, help ensure the long-term sustainability of each organization, according to the foundation. “The award is not only recognition for past leadership and success but also an investment in the future,” the Chicago-based foundation said in the Feb. 28 announcement. “Organizations will use this support to build cash reserves and endowments, develop strategic plans and upgrade technology and physical infrastructure.”

Organizations do not apply for the awards; rather, MacArthur nominates and selects them.

Programs/Content

Wits to deliver 10 new episodes this season for nationwide carriage

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The fourth season of the Minnesota Public Radio-produced St. Paul variety show Wits, which piloted as an MPR-only broadcast, will be the first debuting in national distribution. All MPR News stations carry the show, as well as “more than a dozen” other stations, according to MPR spokesperson Tara Schlosser. The season premiere, featuring Wait, Wait . .

Programs/Content

POV, StoryCorps get $1 million each from MacArthur Foundation

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American Documentary, home to PBS’s independent film showcase POV, and StoryCorps, the oral history project heard on NPR, are each receiving $1 million as recipients of the latest round of MacArthur Foundation Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions, announced today. The grants help ensure the long-term sustainability of the winners, 13 organizations in five countries, according to the foundation. “The award is not only recognition for past leadership and success but also an investment in the future,” the Chicago-based foundation said in the announcement. “Organizations will use this support to build cash reserves and endowments, develop strategic plans and upgrade technology and physical infrastructure.”

Organizations do not apply for the awards; rather, MacArthur nominates and selects them. To qualify, the foundation said, nonprofits must “demonstrate exceptional creativity and effectiveness; have reached a critical or strategic point in their development; show strong leadership and stable financial management; have previously received MacArthur support; and engage in work central to one of MacArthur’s core programs.”

Programs/Content

Wednesday forum to explore public media arts coverage

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The latest in an ongoing series of Public Media Futures forums will spotlight public broadcasting’s work surrounding the arts. The Feb. 20 roundtable discussion, “The Future of Arts and Culture on Public Media,” will be hosted by the USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy in downtown Washington, D.C. The center is co-sponsoring the forums with American University’s School of Communication, publisher of Current. Confirmed speakers and participants include Alyce Myatt, director of media arts for the National Endowment for the Arts and a former PBS programming v.p.; Roger LaMay, g.m. of WXPN-FM in Philadelphia; Vincent Curren, CPB c.o.o.; Sue Schardt, executive director of Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) and Maxie Jackson, president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Adam Clayton Powell III, senior fellow at the USC Annenberg Center, will moderate the discussion.

Programs/Content

KCRW and McSweeney’s partner up for The Organist

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KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., has struck the opening chords for The Organist, a monthly arts-and-culture podcast from McSweeney’s. The program is the latest collaboration between the station and the irreverent San Francisco–based publishing house, founded in 1998 by acclaimed author and screenwriter Dave Eggers. Produced by the editors of the McSweeney’s-published culture magazine The Believer, The Organist will produce 10 hourlong episodes per year covering a wide gamut of pop culture, with the help of some famous voices. The inaugural episode launched Feb. 1.

Programs/Content

Delmarva Public Radio gets potential new lease on life from Salisbury University

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Maryland’s Salisbury University  is backing away from a consultant’s plan to farm out operations of its two Delmarva Public Radio stations. A proposal unveiled Feb. 14 would provide funding to WSDL in Ocean City, Md., and WSCL in Salisbury for at least three years. The proposal calls for the Salisbury University Foundation, Delmarva Public Radio’s license holder, to transfer the license to the school, said Salisbury University President Janet Dudley-Eshbach in a statement.  Salisbury would maintain current operations  for three years,  but would require that WSCL and WSDL hew even closer to the school’s agenda. At the end of three years, the university would reassess the situation.

Programs/Content

NPR will move production of Weekend ATC to L.A.

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NPR announced today that this summer it will move production of Weekend All Things Considered to NPR West, its production center based in Culver City, Calif. “Moving the show west will broaden and deepen our coverage and allow us to bring strong geographic diversity to our programming,” said Margaret Low Smith, senior v.p. of news, in a press release. “In addition, this plan gives us a new level of business and editorial continuity. By having a full team stationed at NPR West, we will be able to respond quickly if weather or a major news event incapacitates NPR headquarters.”

NPR said the move will give the show access to the Los Angeles area’s pool of program guests in the fields of science, technology, entertainment and international trade. The city’s ethnic diversity will also present a “whole new range of stories,” the release said.

Programs/Content

Jesse Thorn’s Bullseye moving to NPR

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More than six weeks after first announcing his arts-and-culture radio program’s exit from longtime distributor PRI, Jesse Thorn revealed the details of Bullseye’s new partnership on his Tumblr account Feb. 7. Beginning in April, the program will be distributed through NPR, with no break in carriage after the program’s relationship with PRI ends in late March.