And, then there were 33 ...Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch OK'd the sale after a review process that began in 2004. In a statement from the AG's office, WBUR Group GM Paul La Camera said:
"Our long-standing belief has always been that public radio in Rhode Island is best served by local ownership and control. The culmination of this sale achieves that objective, and we're confident that WRNI will thrive going forward.”
A Boston Globe article from last fall offers more details about WRNI.
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The American Journalism Review explains the career path of NPR's new president and CEO Vivian Schiller. She told the magazine:"I've never had a five-year plan for my own career," she admits. Instead, it seems to have grown out of a combination of curiosity, professional enthusiasm, interpersonal skills and some good luck.
Writing for The Infinite Dial blog at Edison Media Research, Tom Webster (Edison's vice president for strategy and marketing) suggests radio stations need to hire five new people "if you are going to survive the next three years." Webster writes that they include:
So you thought you knew Kai Ryssdal, the voice of APM's Marketplace for many years ...
Plans for new, midday news/talk programming at Colorado Public Radio have been scaled back due to the economy that continues its downhill slide, according to Westword's Latest Word blog.
MediaBistro.com's Fishbowl DC this afternoon reports that Madhulika Sikka has been named executive producer of NPR's Morning Edition..
Brenda Jorett, who has hosted Morning Edition for the past eight years at WHYY is not having her contract with the Philadelphia pubcaster renewed..
National Association of Broadcasters chair David Rehr recently thanked T-Mobile President & CEO Robert Dotson for his company's inclusion of FM radio on more of its cell phones, including the new Nokia 7510 (at left). Radio & Records reports Rehr wrote: "Providing FM broadcast reception capabilities in cell phones creates multiple benefits for broadcasters, cellular network providers and consumers alike."
"FM radio is an effective method for providing emergency alerts to cellular subscribers, that it is a value-added and low cost handset feature for consumers, and that FM radio can provide a foundation for incremental revenue for cellular network providers."
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Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking Radio.
For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the medium calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new content, but to lay a new foundation for growth..
We will build the wesbites and streaming players, the databases, the mobile distribution platform, and all of the other digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together with our consumers that we once called listeners.
We will create multiple distribution points, and wield technology's wonders to raise the level of engagement and lower its cost.
We will harness the audience and the community and the content they create to fuel our platform and engage our audience.
And we will transform our managers and sellers and program directors to meet the demands of a new age.
All this we can do. And all this we will do. "
Why is the rise and success of Internet radio important ... ? On several grounds. First, this is what your prize in-office users are doing with much of their day. Finding ways to weave into one of the things they most enjoy about broadband should be a no-brainer for any veteran Web content provider.
... streaming audio represents a massively popular mode of online behavior that invites a range of publisher partnerships: branded audio channels or “editor’s choice” channels, for instance. Why shouldn't an online site offer an audio feed of its editor’s Web radio channel or channels created by that issue’s featured celebrities?
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The NIPR Board of Trustees reached its decision after careful deliberation and many attempts by station personnel to improve the signal quality of our analog stations. What we found, however, is that even with a stronger signal on 94.1, our analog stations are unable to provide the fidelity needed for the deep complexities of classical music. While the signals work well for other formats, classical music needs a crystal clear signal to be truly appreciated
At the time we purchased 94.1, we anticipated that an improved signal would lead to increased listenership with more NIPR members supporting the classical station and increased underwriting. While we do have many committed classical listeners, the numbers are not growing as we had hoped.
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Julius Genachowski is reported to be President Obama's choice for the job but that has not been made official; Copps will head the FCC as acting chairman during the nomination-confirmation cycle.
It's an odd situation: with Martin's departure, Copps, appointed in 2001, is one of only three commissioners left; the other two are relative newcomer Robert McDowell, the lone Republican, and fellow Democrat Jonathan Adelstein.
Miami University announced that it will cease funding its public radio station, WMUB and that the university and Cincinnati Public Radio are "actively negotiating an operating agreement for CPR to manage WMUB 88.5 FM." The tone of the statement and prominence on the WMUB website seems to indicate that the arrangement is inevitable:The university chose not to sell the station, as it would have likely meant losing the public radio programming that it now provides to the Miami Valley.
This decision follows a two-year process of exploring options for the future of WMUB, which did not result in an economically viable way to continue WMUB as a stand-alone station. Under this operating agreement, WMUB would join public radio stations WGUC FM and WVXU FM, which are owned and operated by Cincinnati Public Radio. WVXU and WMUB currently offer similar programming. With this alliance, WMUB will maintain its emphasis on news and information offerings on 88.5 FM as well as offer opportunities for student development.
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locavore: noun; a person who eats only locally or regionally grown food. See also North Country Public Radio (NCPR).
The Washington Post reports that Julius Genachowski will be the Obama administration's appointee as the next FCC chief. He was chairman of its Technology, Media and Telecommunications policy working group, which created the Obama Technology Innovation Plan. He currently co-leads the transition team's Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform Group.Genachowski, 46, is known as a media technology guru, and has extensive private sector experience. He was chief of business operations and a member of Barry Diller's office of the chairman at IAC/InterActiveCorp., and had served on the boards of Expedia, Hotels.com and Ticketmaster. He was also a co-founder of LaunchBox Digital and Rock Creek Ventures, and has served on the board of a number of other Internet related businesses, including The Motley Fool, Website Pros, Mark Ecko Enterprises and Beliefnet. He currently serves on the board of Common Sense Media, an organization seeking to improve the media lives of children and families.
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"In the first half of the conversation we will focus on the projects Carvin and Smith have been working on:.
- "Carvin and the NPR staff will enlist users using social media to contribute to inauguration day coverage. You'll be able to chat with Carvin about mobcasting and using Twitter, Google maps and other social media tools in your inauguration coverage.
- "Smith helped STLtoday.com create a multimedia package that includes a full-text archive of every inauguration speech, multimedia of many of the speeches and graphical analysis using tag clouds and graphs. You can talk with her about the in-depth project and get insight into the research that went into creating it."
KUSC-FM's Gene Parrish, longtime host of classical music programs died Friday. He was 82.The portables will include an MP3 player with embedded HD Radio, a stand-alone AM/FM headset portable and an HD Radio accessory that attaches to MP3 players. Models are on display at the show in Las Vegas but manufacturers are not identified.
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In light of the recent announcement of cuts at National Public Radio, including two shows, many stations are considering what to do about gaps in their programming.
While the Consumer Electronics Show going on now in Las Vegas is Mecca for most techno-geeks, it also has a more humanitarian side. And, National Public Radio is part of that.
Robin Turnau will become the new president and CEO of Vermont Public radio on Feb. 1, replacing Mark Vogelzang, who will assist in a new effort to raise support for public radio stations. Turnau is VP for Development, and has been at VPR for some 20 years.They have set up a PayPal account for listeners to donate - (from our reading of things donations are not tax deductible...)"It's just a struggle. There's a lot of things I want to do with that station, but I can't do it unless we get some more money coming in," says Zwerling. "I'd like to get it from advertisers, but that isn't always there."
He says he wants to have more local, innovative programming. "I want a breezy, fun station to listen to that is not corporate and very local and responds to the community."
"We want to acknowledge the risk takers with whom we have worked to reach this point. We have collaborated with independent producer Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media for the past seven years. Funders at the National Endowment for the Arts, NTIA’s Telecommunications opportunities Program, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Ford, MacArthur, Surdna, and Soros Foundations have made PRX possible. And the hundreds of producers and stations who are PRX members and supporters."
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In a expansive story in the Harrisonburg Daily News Record, GM Tom Duval explained the plight of his stations, which may sound familiar to many other public broadcasting organizations. He said that rising costs and declining underwriting by business and organizations has the stations considering staffing and programming cuts.
Officials at Minnesota Public Radio say vibrations that would be caused by a proposed new light rail line near its headquarters would disrupt its broadcast operations. Because of this, MPR and several other entities are lobbying to have the proposed route changed.
A Change is Gonna Come may be the unofficial anthem of the upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama, but it also could be playing in the background as NPR plans its coverage of the event.
Blaupunkt and miRoamer are expected to unveil the first in-dash Internet radio receiver at next week's Consumer Electronics Show.
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