Narrower is better (dark thoughts during NPR pledge week)

Around these parts it's NPR pledge week, which used to mean that I'd spend even more time in the car on the cellphone to avoid having to listen to my local affiliate's endless fundraising guilt trip. But now that I've switched to an iPhone, I've noticed a different behavior. I'm listening to more and more of my favorite NPR shows (This American Life, Terry Gross's Fresh Air, Science Friday, etc) as podcasts, something that finally suits me thanks to having a phone that automatically loads the latest shows. I don't have to avoid the NPR pledge drive anymore.

At the beginning of each podcast Terry Gross tips her hat to the local broadcast affilates, which is nice but otherwise pretty pointless. But every now and then Ira Glass (pictured), the host of This American Life, reminds us that the bandwidth bill for these free podcasts is more than $100,000 a year, and encourages us to go to the show's website to donate something to offset that. And I just did that, donating $50 in a week when I'm ignoring my local NPR affiliate's plea to do the same.

Why? Well, in thinking about it, I realized that I don't really support my local affiliate. I love some of the shows it broadcasts and hate others (have you heard the California Report? Dreadful). My attachments are to individual shows, not to a broadcast station. My engagement with public radio is at a more granular level than the affiliate. I just don't care that much about KQED, and now that I've got another way to get the shows I like, I don't really feel much of a connection to it.

Now that I get my radio via podcast, I don't have to take the bad shows with the good. I've got an a la carte menu, and I assemble my own schedule with what I want and when I want it. My feelings about radio stations are mixed, but my feelings about individual shows are crystal clear.

What if everyone did what I do? Well, both radio-via-airwaves and radio-via-podcast are free, and both can appeal directly to contributors to help pay their bills. Of course most of This American's Life's costs are covered by affiliate syndication fees, and if the affiliates couldn't pay those, it would take more than an online tip jar to pay the costs of making the show. And obviously those who don't have access to podcasts would be hurt if public radio broadcasters shut down.

But look at the arc of history here. The podcast model is getting cheaper and more ubiquitously available (who doesn't have a cellphone?), and it serves individual needs and taste better. Meanwhile the broadcast model, which is all about one-size-fits-all taste, is based on human labor costs and costly transmission equipment and is only getting more expensive. You can see how this story ends.

My shifting of funding from the general (radio station) to the specific (show) tells me that radio is going to get microchunked, just like the rest of media. The more granular, the better. We're about to find out where people's loyalties really lie.

Comments

[uv]

And maybe radio should be used to push shows: whenever you're bored and want to try something new, you tune in and listen to a show/sample that either someone paid to put on, or the station thinks *some* people might subscribe to.

Also, since you're getting a better product with podcasts (time/place-shifted), maybe broadcast should be free (maybe even delayed), and podcasts should be the media with advertisements.

[Ivan Kirigin]

The problem with microchunks is that the level I'd like to pay is below a minimal level I'd bother with an online donation checkout. Also the overhead on giving a station a few bucks is pretty killer.

You're right though. I know exactly where my entertainment comes from. I don't want to support anything but the creators anymore.

[Joe Flynn]

A perfect example of this is my favorite podcast, Free Talk Live. They're a real talk radio show but they get almost all of their ad revenue from their podcast fans who agree to give $3 a month, even though the content is always 100% free.

[Richard Rowan]

Thanks for promoting podcasting. This four-year-old phenomenon--and the RSS file format on which it is based--has huge potential. (I listen while on my daily run.)

As for your donation to the show versus the station, I believe the money goes to the same place: the larger system that makes great shows like "This American Life" possible. We should be careful as a nation to be loyal to systems such as democracy and public health, not just to our personal favorites. The concepts underlying public radio would be worth supporting, even if we disliked all the shows.

[Al Anderson]

Newspapers are already experiencing the issue of how do I get paid for content. They put most if not all of their content on websites, but derive a very small portion of their revenue from them. Soon we will see a major decline in the value of information because newspapers can not afford to have a staff of reporters generating content without payment.

Think of the millions of dollars Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others have made by linking to these sites and having no reporters at all.

Should these companies be sharing their advertising revenue with these content sites. As a famous Minnesotan once wrote "Times they are a changing" we just don't know which way.

[Dave Long]

"Think of the millions of dollars Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others have made..."

If these organizations link directly to the newspapers' sites, fine. The visitor will view that publication's ads and the link is a valuable service and a *major* plus. The increased traffic increases the value of the ads as much as larger circulation does.

However, if Google, Yahoo, etc. just "swipe" the content and put it on their own site without the newspaper's ads, shame on them! (BTW, I haven't seen Google do that and I subscribe to several of their "Alerts".) That is stealing and they shouldn't just be sued, they should be jailed!

[John Sutton]

One of public radio's strengths has been its ability to create economies of scale through an industry-wide funding/spending model. The true annual cost of This American Life is probably well over one million dollars. The three programs listened to by the author represent several million per year in budgets. Content creation is not cheap, even as technology makes it cheaper. $50 to offset the bandwidth of This American Life doesn't help pay for Fresh Air, or Science Friday, or Anne Garrels in Baghdad. It doesn't even cover the cost of a few minutes of a This American Life production. Listeners aren't going to pay $50 for every podcast subscription. Microchunking might help pay some part of the budget for the most popular national programs, but it's hard to imagine the average person giving a buck 60 to 120 times per year to support public radio. If this plays out as the author suggests, public radio will have less listener support and will become more dependent on sponsorship income. Maybe that won't matter anymore. Maybe listeners won't care about the public radio label as long as the quality is high.

[ArtC]

I can listen to Science Friday a few days later, and it's still fresh. This American Life will probably still be a gem decades from now. But I want my news now, live, and in real time. Also, until online audio is distributed in something better than 128k stereo MP3s, the quality will usually be considerably better on an FM broadcast. I'm not ready to give up my radio yet. And despite my issues with my local NPR affiliate, I still send 'em a check every year.

[Patty Fitzpatrick]

Anyone who feels like they're not getting what they want/need from Public Radio isn't listening to the right station. Here in Rhinelander Wisconsin we are so fortunate to have a true public radio station--WXPR. I wasn't a real public radio fan until discovering WXPR. The station offers an eclectic mix of music with the best of the national programs. A large percentage of the on-air hosts are volunteers. The station has created programs in response to local audience requests. I have been introduced to new artists and had my musical horizens expanded because of this station. There is a pledge drive 3 times a year. Many of the people asking for money are volunteers who listen to the station. To me it's a small price to pay to have this station available. It's sort of like taxes, if we all pay a little then everyone has good roads and a fire fighter when you need one. I hope all the public radio station listeners don't start bailing on their obligation to cover the cost of the programming.

[Tworzenie Stron]

I like when in the radio i listen new songs i hate listen old hits once time and again and again... It's booooring!

[Interent Komputery]

Radio is my life, i listen mp3 or music from cd but it's no same like listen radio and good speaker auditions

[Sandy Ward]

Up in Canada we are 'lucky' or 'unlucky' to have a national broadcaster that doesn't need to raise funds.

We still get the crap like the California Report (read Little Mosque on the Prairie) but by just listening to MP3s I find I miss alot of great stuff... especially interesting events going on locally.

Can't wait for the 'mp3' recommendation engine to by built someday...

[Gregg McVicar]

The author has discovered "narrowcasting" -- but the economics in Public Radio (and CATV as well) are still with "bundling." Through cross-subsidies, it creates stability in the system and supports new shows until they find their audience. This American Life was widely rejected unknown initially, but is now a cash cow for the system - which helps pay for other less-known or less-entertaining programs.

"Free radio" isn't free, and it's great that some folks are willing to pay for it, just as they pay hundreds of dollars per month for their combined communication fees for cell, Internet, local phone, long distance, newspaper and cable.

In closing, just a word in defense of "The California Report." IMHO, this is one of the best, and most important programs around. It may have little resonance with Canadians or NYC transplants, but to those of us who've lived our whole lives here, we know that this is the *only* radio program dedicated to covering the people and issues of the largest state in the union and one of the top economic, cultural and academic centers in the world -- and the front line of some of the most difficult new issues. And the program does this with intelligence, polish and spirit, despite the fact that the state cut off all funding for public broadcasting 25 years ago.

Gregg McVicar
Host/Producer
UnderCurrents
www.undercurrentsradio.net

[The Insta Book]

The Insta Book,Such a good Information on your site. thanks .

[Sean Tubbs]

I created a podcast site in my community to do things that the local affiliates are not doing - mainly, providing an audience with long-form content, mostly raw material. I use that raw material to produce stories for my local affiliate. Unfortunately, they've shown little interest in serving the public in this manner.

I'm not sure how long this can be sustained, but I know the experimentation we've been doing for three years will lead to some form of an organization that will either complement public radio or replace it.

[David Palmer]

Chris, too bad you don't have KCRW up there in Northern California. I tune them out during their fund drives too, but I always give them money. Just the support that they give to real music (and real musicians) makes me feel loyal to them as a subscriber, and many of their non-music shows are great too. You can get them on the web, but I don't know how that works on your iPhone.

[tom]

Good post. Interesting that now radio (at least NPR) seems to follow television in listeners' devotion to shows rather than stations as in the pre-iPod days of commercial music radio. Of course, this is full circle for radio from the days prior to TV when 15 minute shows ruled the medium (and listener loyalty).

[Tom Fudge]

As someone who works in the news business, public radio in fact, I've become very concerned about two trends I see in the media. One is the belief that content should be free. The other is the notion that we should only pay for that narrow band of content that particularly interests us. On the first point, I'll just say that quality content costs money. It's a simple as that. Secondly, it's highly unrealistic to say that media can continue to produce lots of good stuff if consumers are unwilling to pay for a variety of content... including some things they may not use. Can any modern health care system thrive on strictly a fee-for-service basis? No. Eventually you need some healthy people to pay for care of the sick, if comprehensive health-care services are going to be available to all. Same is true for any comprehensive offering of entertainment or news coverage.
Furthermore, a narrow approach to paying for programs or news content makes us narrow minded. It would be a shame if our consumption of news left nothing to chance and never allowed us to happen upon a story or a program that surprised us, or gave us something unexpected.
By the way... my public radio station is having its membership campaign this week. (I say that in the spirit of full disclosure). And if you're wondering who doesn't carry a cell phone. I don't!!

[Andrew Deal]

We created a model that is more accessible by all people than podcasting, has interactivity built in, and allows the 'contributions' of listeners to the shows that participate to be distributed in exact proportion to the amount of time spent on each show.

$10/mo. listen all you want commercial free and guilt free.

Now, this is less commercial and more an appeal to weigh in on what is missing from this value prop. Your thoughts?

[Doug Wolkon - Author of The New Game]

Competition breads competition. Don't count radio out as it has one critical edge over Podcasts in that it is local, and local only. In other words, local entrepreneurial information and expertise can be uniquely preserved through local community radio stations and work together in order to fend off larger, foreign corporations with bigger bandwith trying to enter a truly competitive economic community. Media alternatives like Podcasts will undoubtedly force the cost of radio (Advertising time) down. In other words, once Podcasts and other media alternatives have had there way with Radio, we will once again experience minimal if any Advertising on Radio stations (old school). Now that would certainly make radio stations precious and valuable once again. I don't view a DJ as a cost, but rather a proven barrier to entry that is irreplicable based on their personality (i.e. Almost Famous dude...). I still like radio long-term but the price (in the form of annoying advertising time and other inefficient costs) must come down.

[Steve Burgess]

Chris - heard your comments at the RAB conference. We spoke briefly after. I figured out how I had heard your comments about this topic before hearing them from your lips! Mark Ramsey's blog (Hear 2.0 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/radio/~3/231114204/interesting-pie.html)
had an extensive post on it. Interesting convergence - I wasn't sure where I had "heard" the idea, but I knew I had and I was surprised when I heard it in your speech. Power of the network... and it only makes your point strongly.

[Amy Kweskin Duncan]

Having lived in Stamford, Ithaca, San Francisco and Houston (now London) I have found that the choice of NPR programming in each city gives you a flavor for the people and politics. Although I have favorite programs and ones I can't stand it is a good way to get to know your neighbors. Now in London I sometimes tune into these stations via the internet and am instantly taken back - especially during traffic and weather reports.

[Irene Grumman]

Who doesn't have a cell phone? Millions of people in the US.

Who doesn't have an incessantly connected, multi-tasking, quick byte lifestlye? Same answer.

Were you by any chance dismissing all those people?

[joshMshep]

Podcasting is amazing... as more folks wake up to this, broadcast radio will realize that it may not always be the 900 lb. gorilla when it comes to audience.

eMarketer just estimated the podcast audience at 18.5 million in 2007, and 2008 is expected to be 28 million.

It's all about the specialized audience now.

peace,
-joshmshep

[Michael Pereckas]

My experience with broadcasting is that it just doesn't work. They put up a huge tower, run a transmitter so powerful that the electric bill is substantial, I use my ham-radio foo to build an antenna custom-trimmed to their frequency and...it's like bad ham radio. Classical music in hissy mono? No thanks. Listening to NPR on a portable radio with the signal cutting in and out with every step I take? No thanks. Podcasts *work*. Sure, if I selected radio stations purely on the basis of whichever one had the strongest signal where I am, I suppose I'd be happier with the technical quality, but not the least bit happy with the content. (Mind you, I live in the city, not the wilderness, but the public broadcaster, whichever city I live in, is always unlistenable as far as signal strength is concerned.)