NPR Demographics

“As NPR came of age in the 1980s, its audience matured with it. Three decades later, that is starting to look like a problem.

Many of the listeners who grew up with NPR are now reaching retirement age, leaving NPR with a challenge: How can it attract younger and middle-aged audiences — whose numbers are shrinking — to replace them?”

— “NPR is graying, and public radio is worried about it,” Paul Farhi, Washington Post

“Though NPR is seeing some listening gains on digital platforms, particularly with podcasts, its broadcast audience has dropped. Average–quarter-hour (AQH) listening during morning drive time has dropped 11 percent in the past five years, and afternoon drive audience has declined 6 percent. The only age bracket that has increased listening to NPR stations is the 65-plus audience.”

— “Drop in younger listeners makes dent in NPR news audience,” Tyler Falk, Current

More:

“Who Isn’t Listening to Public Radio,” Justin Fox, Bloomberg View

“WNYC is leading public radio’s transition to public podcasting,” Jack Murtha, Columbia Journalism Review

“Why I Left NPR,” Stephen Henn, Medium

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Image (“NPR Demographics, after Norman Rockwell”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Wild, Wonderful West Virginia

The business-friendly, health-challenged state of West Virginia has still not recovered from the spill of 7,500 gallons of 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol (MCHM) from Charleston’s Freedom Industries chemical plant into the Elk River, drinking water source for 300,000 people in nine counties. Some recent updates:

“Why So Many West Virginians Relied on Water from the Elk River: Industry Already Polluted the Others,” Nora Caplan-Bricker, The New Republic

“Safety violations found at another Freedom chemical facility,” Lindsay Abrams, Salon

“West Virginia chemical spill shines spotlight on loose regulation,” Alexandra Field. Meridith Edwards and Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN

“West Virginians Tolerate Chemical Spills Out of Fear of Losing Jobs,” Robert Reich, Moyers & Company

“I’m From West Virginia and I’ve Got Something to Say About the Chemical Spill,” Eric Waggoner, Huffington Post

“Thirsty in West Virginia,” Emma Fisher, Salon

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Car Talk Will Be Towed to the Junkyard

Tom and Ray Magliozzi will put their weekly Car Talk radio program up on blocks in September. The program ran for 10 years as a local feature on Boston’s WBUR-FM before being picked up by NPR stations nationwide 25 years ago. Tom Magliozzi is turning 75 this year and, according to his brother Ray, has decided that even one hour’s work a week is too much.

“Car Guys” Tom and Ray received a Peabody Award in 1992 and have been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. More importantly, they have been honored by the Martin Guitar Company with a special edition Click and Clack Martin Guitar (great muffler inlay on the fifth fret).

Car Talk’s drive train may be shot but, like any old beater, it’s still got some decent parts. The show’s archivist and editors will bolt them together and test drive them on public radio starting in October.

NPR Sells Web Services to Stations

National Public Radio execs are on a road trip to demo web services to the network’s 268 affiliated U.S. radio stations. The roadshow is also an effort to calm stations upset by earlier indications that purchase of expensive digital services would be required of all affiliates. NPR recently bought the Public Interactive web services company from Public Radio International.

Proof Radio No Longer Matters

Proof radio no longer matters: Congress finally passed the Community Radio Act authorizing broadcasting by more low power FM (LPFM) nonprofit stations. After a decade of stalling it by making proponents jump through hoops, the broadcast lobby now applauds the act’s passage. Broadcasters and publishers are simply too busy working the hyper-local Web and cell phone angles, and figure no one listens to radio if they aren’t driving anyway. Even community radio blogs seem more concerned with Net Neutrality than this long-running radio issue.

Juan Time Too Many

Until he was fired yesterday, Juan Williams was a News Analyst on NPR (formerly National Public Radio). Before that, he was an NPR News Correspondent, a reporting position. For the past few years, Mr. Williams has also held a second job as a Fox News commentator. His statements there are more unconstrained, more about opinion than reportage of fact.

We don’t know if Fox commentators have a code of ethics, but NPR journalists do, and it specifically instructs them to avoid public appearances in situations that “encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.” When Mr. Williams crossed that line before, in 2009, he admitted it. He had done it the previous year, too, and NPR responded by changing his job duties from “Correspondent” to “Analyst.” NPR also asked Fox to stop identifying Juan Williams as “NPR Political Analyst” on their telecasts.

NPR. It stands for … NPR.

National Public Radio has announced it will now be known as NPR. The Public broadcaster joins other image-conscious nonprofits in adopting a self-referential abbreviation, chief among them AARP. “Radio” sounds so old-fashioned, just like “Colored People” and “Retired People.” The “just-call-us-NPR” network is trying to emphasize its sizeable mobile, podcast, and web presence because the NPR radio audience largely comprises … retired people.

NPR Discovers Twitter Haiku

Berkeley professor Geoff Nunberg spoke about English-language Twitter haiku on WHYY’s “Fresh Air,” distributed by National Public Radio. Like many of us, he is intrigued by the dual constraints of the poetic form’s seventeen syllables and Twitter’s 140 character limit.

Professor Nunberg cites celebrity examples, but we became aware of the trend through CopyBlogger.com’s Twitter Haiku contests.  Some full-sized blogs participate in Haiku Fridays, now on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Image (“Twittering Haiku in the Garden at Night, after Chikanobu”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Anthropologists in Afghanistan

The U.S. Army’s Human Terrain System (HTS) program surfaced on Bob Edwards’ radio program this weekend. The HTS sends anthropologists to Afghanistan in order to minimize cultural misunderstandings between the U.S. military and Afghanis. Three social scientists have died in the effort.

While it sounds noble and straightforward, the program is controversial within academia for ethical reasons, and questions have been raised concerning the capabilities of the HTS leadership. 

The Marines also utilize HTS scientists, and there is a film about the program.  Vanessa M. Gezari  reported on the Human Terrain System last summer (more here).

 

Image by Mike Licht.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.

Jonetta Rose Radio

 

 She’s Back! Ace DC political reporter Jonetta Rose Barras broadcasts on radio again starting Tuesday, May 5th (11 AM to Noon) on WPFW-FM.  Her first guests: DC Attorney General Peter Nickles and activist Phil Pannell.

Jonetta Rose Barras publishes the Barras Report and writes a column for the Washington Examiner. An experienced reporter, analyst and commentator, she has written for the Washington City Paper, the Washington Times, and other publications, and appeared on WAMU-FM for several years. 

Ms. Barras has written several books, Bridges: Reuniting Daughters and Daddies (2005), Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl: The Impact of Fatherlessness on Black Women (Ballantine 2000, 2001), The Last of the Black Emperors: The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in the New Age of Black Leaders (1998), and a collection of poetry, The Corner Is No Place For Hiding (The Bunny and the Crocodile Press 1996).

Image by Mike Licht.

Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.