"I've said all along, we are in this together." John Simson, executive director of SoundExchange - the royalty collecting arm of the RIAA - extends an olive branch through 2008 that will cap the advance payments internet broadcasters will have to cough up at $2500 per year. This comes in the wake of the Day of Silence, (it was June 26, did anyone notice?) spearheaded by Los Angeles-based terrestrial/online radio station KCRW (home of the brilliant Morning Becomes Eclectic) and SaveNetRadio, during which some of the biggest names in online radio - include Live365, NPR and Pandora - went dark for 24 hours, airing a one-hour broadcast twice during that day on the history of flat fees in public broadcasting. [direct .mp3, 38mb] Under the much-maligned changes made by our government's Copyright Royalty Board, the top six internet radio stations would have had to pay 47 percent of their total revenue (anticipated to be around $37.5 mil.) to the RIAA, starting this July. The Internet Radio Equality Act [summary, in its entire pdf glory] has been introduced to the House of Representatives, seeking to permanently reverse this decision.
posted on Jul 3, 2007 - View this thread

IPR: Irrational Public Radio "We love NPR, PRI, & MPR. We are fans of All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Car Talk, This American Life, Fresh Air, and Prarie Home Companion. We like the commentaries, the features, the independent member station programs. We love them all dearly. But we also think they're begging to be made fun of. So here we are."
posted on Mar 29, 2007 - View this thread

Radio Lab! Already listened to everything This American Life offers or maybe looking for something a bit smarter and full of science? Maybe you'll like Radio Lab. Maybe you'll like the mind-blowing and historically expanding episode on music. Maybe older history is your cup of tea -- how about biblical times and how they sit in shoeboxes in Oxford. A stack of shows available via podcast, MP3 download (and some .RAM, sorry).
posted on Oct 13, 2006 - View this thread

This American Life is now offering free podcasts. A while ago, someone noticed MP3s of This American Life episodes were sitting in a publicly accessible directory. People soon starting making podcasts. This American Life asked them to stop. Most of them did. Fans of the show were disappointed. Now the podcast is available directly from TAL for free.
posted on Oct 12, 2006 - View this thread

So You Think You Hate Country Music? Then listen to this. The roots of American country music may surprise you. In this series of NPR programs, trace the gradual development of real country music through the first half of the 20th century. Learn how a woman's instrument of the late 1800s, the parlor guitar, became the the central symbol of country and rock; see how African-American musical forms like gospel and blues meshed with the development of country and early rock and influenced the traditional forms in turn; listen to German-Mexican hybrids of accordian style; find out why women had so many honky-tonk torch songs to sing in the late 40s. The series contains hours of content (narrative, interviews, music tracks), and a multitude of excellent links for deeper digging.
posted on Feb 2, 2006 - View this thread

After The Flood Surprising stories from survivors in New Orleans. We give people who were in the storm more time than daily news coverage can to tell their stories and talk about what they're thinking. This leads to a number of ideas that haven't made it into the regular news coverage. The most recent episode of This American Life is now up on their website--This American Life is one of the best programs on public radio and this was one of their best episodes ever. It is well worth a listen.
posted on Sep 13, 2005 - View this thread

Does public radio sound fresh to you? Ira Glass is interviewed about the current state of public radio, as well as the ongoing experiment of re-tooling This American Life for TV. From the CJR.
posted on Aug 23, 2005 - View this thread

The Dark Room Magic of NPR.
posted on Jan 10, 2005 - View this thread

Bob Edwards will return to the airwaves in October, via satellite. XM, to be specific.
posted on Aug 4, 2004 - View this thread

How Public is Public Radio?
When National Public Radio was launched in 1971, it promised to be an alternative to commercial media that would “promote personal growth rather than corporate gain” and “speak with many voices, many dialects.”

Does NPR really represent the "public?"
Do those "not-advertisements" present an alternative to commercial radio?
For those who consider NPR a "liberal bastion", know that the times they are a changing. Give to Air America instead with your donations perhaps?
posted on May 26, 2004 - View this thread

A glowing tribute honoring Bob Edwards on his final day as anchor at NPR's "Morning Edition" ... from the bastards people who fired reassigned him in the first place. (Sorry to start your Friday on a downer.)
posted on Apr 30, 2004 - View this thread

Screw Howard Stern. But Save Sandra Tsing Loh!
The radio culture wars have claimed an unlikely victim, and an unlikely victimizer (America's favorite NPR station, KCRW).
posted on Mar 5, 2004 - View this thread

O'Reilly "self-terminates" interview on NPR's "Fresh Air" In an apparent effort to balance having had Al Franken last week, NPR's "Fresh Air" asked Bill O' Reilly to appear on today's show. Apparently, O'Reilly eventually decided that it was too much of an "attack" interview, and left.
posted on Oct 8, 2003 - View this thread

Dear Dr. Tatiana - I am a queen bee, and I'm worried. All my lovers leave their genitals inside me, and then drop dead. Is this normal? - Perplexed in Cloverhill

Interview (Real Audio file) on NPR's Fresh Air with Olivia Judson, author of Dr Tatiana's Sex Advice To All Creation.
posted on Sep 14, 2002 - View this thread

NPR's Lost & Found Sound brought together radio producers, artists, historians, archivists, and the public broadcasting community came together to collect and preserve audio traces of the World Trade Center, its neighborhood and the events of 9/11.

What they came up with is sonicmemorial.org. [more inside]
posted on Sep 8, 2002 - View this thread

After the outrage about NPR's linking policy, they've written a new one. The ombudsman explains what happened.
posted on Jul 22, 2002 - View this thread

Let us now bandy about statistics. NPR (et al.) has released a poll concerning beliefs about civil liberties in the wake of You Know What and the subsequent military response, as well as another (less in-depth) supplement on Military Tribunals. Also, Talk of the Nation did an excellent program (RealAudio) on the subject. Since we're going to continue discussing it anyway, we may as well be informed.
posted on Dec 4, 2001 - View this thread

You will not escape "Car Talk," "Prairie Home Companion" or "Whad'ya Know" How the hardcore number-crunching audience analysis of commercial radio is applied to public radio. It's "frowny faces" for poor-performing classical music shows, I'm afraid. Is there any local radio programming you love that wouldn't survive this kind of scrutiny? (NYT registration required.)
posted on Nov 12, 2001 - View this thread

Is NPR anti-Israel? I listen to NPR all the time and hadn't noticed any (overt) bias against Israel, but I only listen in the mornings...maybe it's on in the afternoon.
posted on Oct 24, 2001 - View this thread

Ever wonder about your NPR correspondents? If you're like me, you've been listening to NPR every time you get in the car lately. Over time, it's only natural to wonder what Nina Totenberg and Snigdha Prakash actually look like. Oh, Mara Liasson, will you be mine?
posted on Sep 21, 2001 - View this thread

"the toothy smile is usually related to cannibalism" -- This 7 minute real audio NPR story on Russell Weston is a must listen. Three years ago Weston killed two capitol police officers, but he hasn't even been arraigned on the charges yet due to his paranoid schizophrenia. For a fascinating glimpse into his mind, listen to this story which includes audio excerpts from a 1997 interview with the CIA wherein he details his paranoid delusions regarding the "Ruby Satellite System" time machine and a conspiracy of cannibals.
posted on May 15, 2001 - View this thread

Long live Nina Tottenberg, Bob Edwards, Ira Glass and the rest of the gang! "We like NPR! We really, really like it!"

This restores at least a little bit of my faith in the American media consumer.
posted on May 8, 2001 - View this thread

"Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too" (real audio) I just had to share this three and a half minute bonus track from the superpowers episode of this american life. it made my day.
p.s: this episode features chris ware
posted on Mar 31, 2001 - View this thread

Boosting the Blues covered on Marketplace Radio. At the bottom of the page is a short summary and a link to the David Brancaccio interview (12 minutes or so in Real Audio clip) of Taj Mahal's involvement and spreading the word about the Music Maker Relief Foundation.
posted on Mar 2, 2001 - View this thread

NPR on the side of Corporate Radio? Bird on a Wire spotted this Salon story that says that National Public Radio, those bast...ions of freedom of speech, are siding with Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting to try and restrict the proposed Low Power FM broadcasting service to third adjacent channels (90.1 -> 90.7) instead of second (90.1 -> 90.5)...

a change that will cut the number of possible stations from thousands... to 75.
posted on Apr 16, 2000 - View this thread

NPR doesn't like low-power FM radio? Great. LA radio sucks rocks, so I was kind of excited by the idea of having more stations pop up here that don't have to answer to a giant mother network (a la KROQ or KLOS). It's disappointing to see that NPR wants to join in with Corporate Radio. Write your congressman! Tell 'em to vote down H.R. 3439!
posted on Apr 11, 2000 - View this thread

Hometown girl makes good! Your favorite palegirl and mine is contributing-producing the first piece on the next episode of This American Life.
posted on Mar 13, 2000 - View this thread