Over the last three weeks NPR has released some interesting statistical data about itself through its Ombudsman’s office. The data bolsters common knowledge, that NPR’s politics are moderate-to-liberal. Here is a summary of the revelations. Listeners First, the plurality of NPR listeners identify themselves as liberal, but a considerable percentage see themselves as either “conservative” […]
There’s good news in the Pacifica radio network’s latest financial audit. Listener donations to the five listener supported radio station non-profit rose in 2010 from their catastrophic drop of almost $4 million between 2008 and 2009. The donation total was $10,585,979 in 2010, up from $9,808,729 in 2009. That doesn’t compensate, of course, for the […]
You need a score card these days to keep up with programming changes over at listener sponsored Pacifica station KPFA in Berkeley. About four months after dumping the KPFA Morning Show and replacing it with a volunteer lineup called ‘The Morning Mix,’ the station’s management says it is ending that experiment, too. Pretty much everything […]
A couple of weeks ago I was listening to Fresh Air broadcast Maureen Corrigan’s decidedly negative review of Kyung-sook Shin’s hot new novel Please Look After Mom. The commentary finished by recommending that readers check out Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids instead. “Smith will get your book club on its feet and pumping its collective […]
At long last Sirius XM has allocated four percent of its full-time audio channels to various “qualified entity” minority oriented broadcasters. Howard University is among the winners, something I’d hoped would happen. Howard runs WHUR-FM (see YouTube clip to the right). The four percent allocation was part of the deal that Sirius XM made with […]
The latest round of the ongoing battle over public broadcasting has concluded, and lo and behold, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lives. The new budget preserves funding for the CPB at $445 million for 2013, albeit with drastic cuts to smaller public media funds, and the complete elimination of the Department of Commerce’s Public Telecommunications […]
Ira Glass of This American Life says he’s going to give his nephew’s high school class a seminar on podcasting. But he could use some advice, Glass writes: Specifically: what topics seemed to work the best to energize the kids and to get nice stories? Should we go for personal stories? Stuff going on with […]
Interesting last sixty days for Pandora, privacy-wise. Here’s a timeline, going backwards. April 5: The Veracode software security company says that it ran tests on Pandora Android application and discovered that the app "appears to be integrated with a number of advertising libraries." Specifically we found FIVE (yes that’s FIVE!) advertisement libraries compiled into the […]
The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders says that the Chinese government has “successfully pressured” Vietnam to arrest two Falun Gong members who operated an unauthorized short wave station out of that country. “The organization is worried by this latest evidence of Chinese influence over its Asian neighbors in matters concerning media freedom, and urges the […]
Twelve organizations are named to share an $8.5 million class action settlement pot over the great Google Buzz Fiasco. I was happy to see that Youth Radio of Oakland is one of the groups listed. The outfit just won a Peabody Award for its series on prostitution. Some background: about a year ago Google tried […]
