NPR offers details on November 17th clock changes

Throughout October, PRPD's blog will be offering posts about the upcoming clock changes to the NPR newsmagazines.  Today's piece is a summary of a recent clock webinar by NPR.   This was initially published on NPR's ENGAGE blog.

By Brendan Banaszak

The NPR clock changes are now just weeks away. On November 17th, the NPR Newsmagazines and other NPR produced and acquired shows will implement their respective new clocks. However, there are four exemptions to this: Here & Now, Fresh Air, Fresh Air Weekend, and Only a Game will NOT implement new clocks on November 17th. The new clocks for those programs will undergo a collaborative review with stations before the new clocks are implemented. That process will begin after November 17th, with an expectation that the clocks to go into effect in the New Year.

Since the PRPD conference some changes have been made to the Newsmagazine clocks and to the business rules around using the clocks. 

In Weekend Edition Saturday, Weekend Edition Sunday, and Weekend All Things Considered the produced promos have been added back to the show.

Changes have also been made to the rules around how much national content a station may cover over and which Newscasts are must carry. Previously NPR proposed rules stated that a station can cover 11:30 worth of segment time in ME, and 12:25 in ATC. Also proposed, stations must carry Newscast 1,3, and 4 in ME, and 1 and 3 in ATC. Initially NPR required a waiver if a station was going to program outside of these parameters. Now, if you plan to regularly cover more time in either ME or ATC or cover those newscasts on a regular basis NPR asks that you contact your station representative and have a ‘good faith conversation’ about your programming decisions. NPR wants to produce a show that is the best it can be and knowing how stations are programming the shows helps achieve that. Please remember that for breaking news and fund drive stations may cover over whatever content is necessary. The only items that are required to be carried are the national funding credits. 

While the clocks are changing on November 17th, there are NO changes coming to the ContentDepot subscriptions for the programs. For the newsmagazines and other NPR produced and distributed shows the subscription information all stays the same. However, there will be changes to the underwriting feeds and the newsmagazine evergreen subscriptions. 

The naming conventions for some of the NPR funding credits and their respective cut IDs are changing. There will also be changes coming for stations who automate the ingestion of the Newscast funding credit text. More information about the changes can be found here.

There are also new Evergreens on the way for the newsmagazines and the other NPR produced shows. All the Evergreens will be in place before the November 17th implementation. For the newsmagazines, this will require new subscriptions for the programs. For the other shows the evergreens will continue to be available through the general show page.

BRENDAN BANASZAK is a producer at NPR.