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Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

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Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#21

Post by derefr »

NeutronBoy wrote: post #18
derefr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Instead of the "directly-streamed linear programming" model, you could do radio audio broadcast the same way you do GPS: just have the local radio towers spraying some selection of podcasts on a loop (with high enough frequency+bandwidth+compression that the effective audio rate is faster-than-real-time, unlike satellite radio), and then have "radios" in cars (or wherever) which catch the files and cache them. You ca…

That sounds super complicated compared to good old FM radio.

You're imagining FM radio as some magical simple system that turns audio files into airwaves. But guess what's in the middle? People. People making decisions about what airs, in what order, on a very limited amount of real-time audio band.

This would move that decision-making to the client device, which could follow any algorithm the user preferred. There would be no people "working" at such a radio station. It would just be a box out on a hilltop with an antenna, retrieving files from an S3 bucket and spraying them—a bit like a numbers station.

Now, there might be some curation going into what counts as "local content" for the box to download and broadcast, but it could be algorithmic or just economic. Picture something more like the "curation" that Public Access television gets: anyone who wants to show up at the station and book a booth for an hour for a fee can have a "TV show." In the same way, anyone who wanted to hand the maintainer of the box an RSS feed of their podcast could have a "local radio program" that cars could receive.

The key, here, is that there would be an unlimited number of such "local radio programs."

Don't imagine radio as it is today. Imagine driving into the vicinity of a city and "picking up" the YouTube channels of everyone who lives there.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#22

Post by rpcope1 »

lfowles wrote: post #9
tptacek wrote: post #2

Avid public radio listener, WBEZ member. I guess I'm not opposed to scaling up program underwriting, but I wonder what it is about the structure of NPR and program buying that prevents shows like Ira Glass's TAL from just making their money on "the back end". Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. As radio shifts from FM to the Internet, local stations will matter less, and NPR/PRI will increasingly become a K…

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city. Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

I think a nice change for FM (and AM), rather than going away entirely, would be to turn over the bandwidth cheaply or freely to public radio, non-profits and other small time operators, maybe like college radio. I think it would be an excellent way to introduce more diverse and interesting programming without being totally beholden to the lowest common denominator, and kind of get away from the awfulness that is clear channel. Also having a more community focused bent would work wonders; CPR makes NPR even better around here (Northern Colorado), as it's not just national news, and you get a lot more really local stuff (including music). I think there's still a niche for FM out there, as I certainly enjoy listening to the lower end of the dial on my commute, as do many people I know.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#23

Post by opaque_salmon »

derefr wrote: post #16
lfowles wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city. Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

Instead of the "directly-streamed linear programming" model, you could do radio audio broadcast the same way you do GPS: just have the local radio towers spraying some selection of podcasts on a loop (with high enough frequency+bandwidth+compression that the effective audio rate is faster-than-real-time, unlike satellite radio), and then have "radios" in cars (or wherever) which catch the files and cache them. You ca…

You technically could, but wouldn't the complexity and the cost of migrating over to a system like that completely outweigh the benefit you could reap? Think of all the cars that only have FM/AM tuners, and all the stations that would lose listeners the moment they transition their programming model over.

Not to say its a totally awesome idea in terms of features and functionality. The amount of inertia it takes to move away from a proven technology wouldn't let such a system see the light of day.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#24

Post by tbirdz »

karmacondon wrote: post #11
tptacek wrote: post #2

Avid public radio listener, WBEZ member. I guess I'm not opposed to scaling up program underwriting, but I wonder what it is about the structure of NPR and program buying that prevents shows like Ira Glass's TAL from just making their money on "the back end". Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. As radio shifts from FM to the Internet, local stations will matter less, and NPR/PRI will increasingly become a K…

NPR sees itself first and foremost as a news organization, and I don't see that changing any time soon. Even if radio shifts from FM to Internet, there will always be a place for local news reporting and discussion. And that shift itself is probably still a long time coming. We HN types often forget that there are millions and millions of people who prefer to have Rush Limbaugh and others shout the "news" at them via…

>Public Broadcasting is like an Eternal Kickstarter.

So, like Patreon?

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#25

Post by joshuapants »

tofupup wrote: post #12

Folks seem to forgotten what happened to the Appalachian Community Service Network. We know it as TLC and while a fortune was made off of honey bobo the folk in Appalachia still have one of the lowest educational levels of working Americans. As much as I love capitalism you have to admit it does not play well with the commons.

I don't know that you could count on TV programming to have an appreciable impact on education levels. Additionally, TLC was good for years before it fell into reality show garbage, so it's not like the lack of results is the fault of capitalism.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#26

Post by Zigurd »

lfowles wrote: post #9
tptacek wrote: post #2

Avid public radio listener, WBEZ member. I guess I'm not opposed to scaling up program underwriting, but I wonder what it is about the structure of NPR and program buying that prevents shows like Ira Glass's TAL from just making their money on "the back end". Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. As radio shifts from FM to the Internet, local stations will matter less, and NPR/PRI will increasingly become a K…

> Long-term, FM radio NPR is not going to last. I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars? In Wichita, KS, I'm lucky to get cell data service before I'm a mile out of the city. Maybe I'm reading too much into an "FM Radio will not last" interpretation.

> I'm curious, what do you think will replace FM NPR in cars?

Time-shifted listening, like e-books, podcasts, etc. The real question is, why listen to Prairie Home Companion on their schedule.

By the way, that's the killer app for FM in mobile phones: Time-shifting shows that are not available for downlaod.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#27

Post by thorfish »

mc32 wrote: post #8

Public radio is a mixed bag. It's better than most but I dislike the pretense of being better, because in my view they are only marginally better when presenting news. One of the things I'm most disenchanted with is how on uncontroversial things they'll offer an opinion. "lack of oversight is bad". But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questi…

I heard a really outrageous example of that the other day. They were doing a piece on migrants from Africa traveling to Europe. The NPR reporter brought on a British professor of international studies for an interview. The professor says, "There is a perception that immigrants hurt wages. But lots of studies now show that is not true." This statement went completely undisputed, it was reported as fact. No person of an opposing viewpoint was interviewed. I have looked at some of those studies. Lots of fancy math - but math only reflects the assumptions you put in. One paper I read stated as one of its assumptions that economic growth would be proportional to the number of migrants, and then based on that assumption proved that immigration would not hurt wages! It is pure intellectual dishonesty to cite that result out of context as proof that migration will not hurt wages, since the assumptions on which the paper is based are completely unproven.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#28

Post by kbenson »

dublinben wrote: post #17
kbenson wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you listen to TAL much? I ask because if you find it bland when you do, I can't imagine you listening to it much, and if you don't listen to it much, I'm not sure I trust your appraisal to be accurate. Not every episode is interesting to me, so I skip some, but others I find extremely interesting (Radiolab, Planet Money and Freakonomics are my bread and butter NPR shows). To me that just indicates that have a fair…

>Radiolab, Planet Money and Freakonomics are my bread and butter NPR shows It's interesting that you list those three (excellent) shows as examples. Only Planet Money is actually produced or distributed by NPR themselves. Radiolab and Freakonomics are both productions of WNYC.

I imagine it's not quite as simple as that. I imagine NPR member stations that broadcast those programs kick back some portion of their donations/underwriting to help fund them, and that gets passed along to WNYC/Radiolab/Freakonomics. I know there are some programs that bill themselves as joint ventures of the local station and NPR, PRI, or APB.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#29

Post by vectorpush »

mc32 wrote: post #8

Public radio is a mixed bag. It's better than most but I dislike the pretense of being better, because in my view they are only marginally better when presenting news. One of the things I'm most disenchanted with is how on uncontroversial things they'll offer an opinion. "lack of oversight is bad". But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questi…

> But on controversial issues they tend to appear neutral (offering no opinion) while at the same time couching the questions and loading their questions.

I disagree with this as a general characterization. I do think it's true that NPR presents a neutral facade while most of the hosts and commentators harbor leftist views under the surface (or in their public life), but I think in general they make a pretty good effort to present both sides of an issue without demonizing one side, and I think this is especially noticeable during the discussion of controversial ideas. A big difference between NPR (i.e. radio on the left) and the rest (i.e. conservative talk radio) is that the standard for debate on NPR is "a veneer of respect"; this doesn't mean that debates don't get heated or at times end up lopsided, but you won't find NPR hosts openly lambasting conservatism as a mental disease, or referring to right-leaning callers as morons or unpatriotic or terrorist supporters or really anything along those lines. NPR is very far from perfect, but IMO they at least shoot for an ideal that keeps the dialog open for discussion.

> but they try to hide it, which, to me, is more perverse than the blatant left and blatant right, who at least aren't pretending to be objective.

I don't think they're trying to hide it, it's more that their journalistic ethos ostensibly respects the idea of neutral reporting, thus keeping partisanship at least within the range of plausible deniability, similar to how agents of the government give constant lip-service to the ideals of the constitution but regularly run around it in practice or in spirit when it suits their needs. It's true that many of the politically elite don't respect the constitution, but some really do and the rest have to at least pretend like they do whenever possible because that's the ideal that the people want to be true. Journalism is similar; pretending to be unbiased does produce reporting with less bias.

Re: Ira Glass: Public radio can capitalize on its popularity without selling out

#30

Post by lvs »

This strikes me as naive and wishful, bordering on ignorant. Perhaps /he/ knows how to act ethically and idealistically despite relying advertising money, but he must see how the entire remainder of the news/media industry is not able to do so. This suggestion comes at precisely the wrong time, when the ideal that media should be for a common good is utterly gone beyond lip service now and then.
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