Radio2.0

While flipping by Milwaukee’s (WUWM) public radio station in my car last Friday it was interesting to hear a sales pitch for the station’s latest fund raising drive to support NPR programming. Stations including WUWM pay estimated fees around $280,000 for the right to broadcast NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered in Milwaukee. But today NPR’s website provides all their audio content for free.

Technorati Tags: culture, milwaukee, news, NPR, podcast, radio2.0, technology, trends, wuwm

Its clear radio is dying. NPR gives their content away for free. And its hard to beat free. Today the New York Times reported NPR’s new growth and money…including a $230 million gift from McDonald’s widow Joan Kroc. NPR has also been rapidly embracing the Radio2.0 content model:

Radio1.0 – The 1950s model (No sharing)
Radio2.0 – Sharing content free via the internet

Today we have access to new programs called RSS readers. NetNewsWire is my RSS reader of choice. These programs display a gathering of feeds (or content subscriptions) to websites and blogs that support text, audio and video content.

When connected to the internet I can add any NPR feed directly into a NetNewsWire. And every 30 minutes NetNewsWire pulls any update(s) for all my feeds. When I look at my NPR feeds I can select any article and NetNewsWire provides the following:

1. Headlines for each feed
2. Article overview (thanks NPR)
3. Direct hyperlink to each story at NPR’s website.
4. A time-stamp for each article

After pulling an NPR feed you can see a complete listing of each programs audio articles. Locate any article of interest – and simply click “Listen” NPR audio content.

There are some nice features added to every audio article at NPR. In comparison to Radio1.0, I list them as bonus features
…because I don’t think old radio stations can deliver these types of services:

Bonus Feature #1: Would you like to share this article with someone? Just click the “E-mail page” icon in the upper right hand corner. What a great feature. Like me, you probably forget all the details trying to relay the impact of an article because you cannot re-tell the story as effectively as the reporter. With NPR adopting Web2.0 sharing this is no longer a problem.

Bonus Feature #2: An orange RSS icon. Click a link called “News Feeds” and choose any NPR feed of interest. NPR even has a list feeds from member stations around the country.

Bonus Feature #3: The orange POD icon which supports “NPR Podcasts” that allow you to choose from nearly 300 podcasts available for your desktop or laptop computer.

Did you ever have this type of control over audio under Radio1.0?

Bonus Feature #4 The iTunes impact. This software can automatically download your favorite NPR articles to your computer. An iPod is not necessary for this free, cross platform service. NPR podcasts

Bonus Feature #5 iTunes and an iPod permit you to subscribe to a podcast and Apple’s iTunes program will manage the daily downloads to an iPod. Nothing beats plugging an iPod into your computer and getting the latest audio content downloaded automatically. Last summer I did this before heading out for morning walks.

With this as a backdrop, the pitch from the WUWM station manager Dave Edwards is really interesting…Again NPR has everything online for free.

Dave mentioned last week that his station provides a “service” for listeners, who do not have access to an afternoon paper edition or the luxury of watching national news. His position is because everyone has a very busy life, you can ‘rely’ upon his station to provide listeners with NPR’s news and programming. Okay. Probably like you, I’m not in my car everyday at the same time.

I believe more people have access to NPR’s website via their work computer than the ability to play a radio at their desk during normal business hours. Although its refreshing to see WUWM podcasting their local content, why ask for money when NPR’s own audio content is available via the internet without charge?

Hard question: Should WUWM consider focusing on the Milwaukee market and move away from six figure syndication fees from NPR, PRI and American Public Media? It will happen over time. NPR provides their content is free, indexed for search and most importantly – its mobile.

Also by now you’ve also heard the “public radio is your station” pitch. So exactly when does WUWM provide every contributor 10 minutes of air time every week because their money helped support the station? This sounds more like the “give us your money and shut up” approach. Another fine example of Radio1.0 without a doubt. This position was stated repeatedly at Harvard’s Blogging, Journalism & Credibility conference held in January 2005.

The internet has broken radio’s long standing content and business models. Its time we insist stations adopt the upgrade.
ByTheWay: Why does The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have a campus radio station under a “.com” address?

Reference: NPR content broadcast on WUWM:

All Things Considered
Sat, 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Sun, 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Mon-Fri, 3:00pm – 6:30pm

Car Talk
Sat, 9:00am – 10:00am
Sun, 11:00am – 12:00pm

Day to Day
Mon-Fri, 12:00pm – 1:00pm

Fresh Air from WHYY
Sun, 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Mon-Fri, 11:00am – 12:00pm
Mon-Fri, 11:00pm – 12:00am

Latino USA
Sun, 7:00pm – 7:30pm
Thu, 1:00pm – 1:30pm

Morning Edition
Mon-Fri, 5:00am – 10:00am

On the Media
Sun, 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Tue, 1:00pm – 2:00pm

Weekend Edition – Saturday
Sat, 7:00am – 9:00am
Sat, 10:00am – 11:00am

Weekend Edition Sunday
Sun, 7:00am – 10:00am

World Cafe
Mon-Fri, 8:00pm – 10:00pm

/end

Technorati Tags: milwaukee, wuwm, radio2.0, NPR, podcast, trends, technology, culture, news