Posts tagged public broadcasting
How Kickstarter could disrupt public radio
Previously it took years to establish a new show on public radio, and the process involved grant writing and lots of politics. Now radio stations and producers themselves can turn to Kickstarter and show there’s an audience that values their ideas.
“You still have to do your work. I write for a radio show that, no matter what, will go on the air Saturday at five o’clock central time. You learn to write toward that deadline, to let the adrenaline pick you up on Friday morning and carry you through, to cook up a monologue about Lake Wobegon and get to the theater on time. That can be pleasurable, but only if the material you write is good. If it’s not, you’re filled with self-loathing. If the material is good and funny, you still loathe yourself, of course, for writing comedy and lighthearted fluff instead of writing serious and loathsome fiction, but … What was your question?”
My question was, “When are you retiring again?”
RadioLab’s new iPhone app. Absolutely stunning.
ARTSLAM! Turns Visual Art into Performance
TPR’s Paul Flahive was at The White Rabbit this weekend covering ARTSLAM! a night where visual art turns into performance art as painters conceive, paint and sell their art in one evening. The theme this past Saturday night was “8-bit Arcade.” (Photo: Paul Flahive/TPR)
A Public Radio Pledge Drive Drinking Game
The goal: Get drunk enough to actually donate money to the station.
Drink every time:
- Announcer explains how, even though St. Louis Public Radio is free to listen to, it’s not free, free
- A morning host says how much Diane Rehm loves it when people from St. Louis call in to her show
- Announcer mentions “driveway moments”
- Ira Glass lays on the guilt trip, threatens to call you at home
- Finish everything in your NPR mug if Ira Glass actually does call you at home, then retracts his previous guilt trip and apologizes
- It’s mentioned that the station has just two fundraising campaigns a year rather than three, so you can enjoy more of its in-depth reporting about warlords and bees
- Someone throws down a “challenge” to raise a wholly unrealistic sum of money before the end of the hour (i.e., $2,700 in the next twelve minutes)
- Two drinks if the challenge is sponsored by a doctor or a law firm
- Announcer notes that it costs $35 to become a member of St. Louis Public Radio, but many people choose to give more
- Finish everything in your glass if announcer coolly suggests donating more than $100 a month
- You hear the words “sustaining” or “cornerstone”
- The number to call to make a donation, 314-516-4000, is said two or more times in a row
- Chug every drop in your possession if an announcer tacks on the word “bitches,” as in, “Call 314-516-4000 to donate now, bitches!” and donate one year’s salary — winner!
[Via the Riverfront Times]
The ratio of risk-takers among the stakeholders is not high enough in public broadcasting to motivate significant change. The ratio can rise, however, if leaders act with that intention and take responsibility for bringing the outsiders into Public Broadcasting.
System leaders, middle managers and board members are eerily homogenous. Among them are the endangered species of public broadcasting: female CEOs and general managers, nonwhite program directors and talent, and people under the age of 40.
The lack of diversity in public broadcasting should be someone’s responsibility. Whose is it? Who gets fired when we fail on our public commitments to diversity?
It’s the people who don’t make it to the meetings who have the best ideas. If the system viewed itself from the bottom up, it would see with many more lenses and speak with many more voices. It would stand a better chance of stimulating creative destruction and true innovation.
In honor of World Water Day, here’s the tale of two cities in Texas that have run out of water because of the drought. The town of Robert Lee in West Texas has already cut its water consumption by 80 percent, and conditions are only getting worse.
According to climate scientists, little rainfall compounded by record high temperatures across the Southwest could be the new norm. In 2011, losses in crops, livestock and timber from the drought reached $10 billion.
-KC
NPR’s Planet Money explains big economic ideas through minimalist posters.
CPB: Open to the Public - Monthly Reports on Comments Received
One of my research papers in the Fall dealt with public broadcasting. Over the course of doing research, I came across this page on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s site.
It is amazing. Were there not a paper to write, I could’ve curled up with my laptop for hours reading these reports.
CPB has a 1-800 number people can call and leave comments on regarding their public broadcasting services. They can also write and mail in any such comments. Either way, CPB then compiles those comments and publishes them here, typos and all.
There’s a lot of conservative venting, a lot of people angry about any Spanish-language broadcasting, the firing of Juan William makes up the comments of almost one whole report, several different requests to send funds to Nigeria so they can setup public broadcasting, at least one (that I’ve found so far) email forward regarding public broadcasting that someone got from a friend and thought would be informative for CPB, and someone bought a rundown historic building and proposed that CPB (via PBS or some other local public broadcasting) might want to create a show (wherein CPB’d pay the bulk of his renovation bills) around the topic of renovating historical buildings.
The craziness is unending. At least once per report I find myself thinking, “Am I actually allowed to read this? It… doesn’t feel like I’m supposed to be reading this.” Openness in business is a foreign thought to me, I guess.
There’s really no way to pick a favorite. The April 7, 2011 (pdf files, sorry) call that was a diatribe against President Obama by way of that night’s MSNBC (MSNBC. [MSNBC.]) Rachel Maddow Show broadcast is pretty high on the list but it’s too long to put here. Instead, I’ll go with what is always enjoyable: any negative comments regarding childrens programming.
Exhibit A: Ending the May 2011 Report; Re: Nicole Kidman on Sesame Street
To whom it may concern,
Today I saw a video of Nicole Kidman on Sesame Street with Oscar The Grouch. First off the impression I got she was coming onto Oscar. That is just plain sick. I have to say having her on this show for children is very bad. She has done several movies that have used children in bad situations. One comes to mind called “Birth.” Where she sits naked in a bathtub with a 10 year old boy. Also we have “eyes wide shut.” and another called “Invasion” she runs around with a see through shirt that shows her body and it is in front of a boy that is playing her son. I don’t see her as a roll model for Kids at any age. I wish you would not show this episode of Sesame Street. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Susan
I just love it all so much. I hope it never ends.
This reminds me of the dude who calls during pledge drive EVERY SINGLE TIME to state his pledge to fight liberalism. He doesn’t say how he’s going to fight liberalism. He doesn’t give any money. I just think he is perfectly content on being a jack ass. We also get a lot of people who call us to yell at Diane Rehm. Why would anyone want to yell at Diane Rehm?
With Super Committee failing to agree, CPB may lose $35 million
All domestic discretionary spending, which includes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, could now be subject to an 8 percent across-the-board cut effective Jan. 1, 2013, Butler said. For CPB, that equals about $35 million of its $445 million appropriation.
![[Source]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luu4daFuvB1qz7g42o1_400.jpg)
[Source]
Why NPR Host Warren Olney’s Apology Wasn’t Enough
Olney is not one to rush to conclusions. And so he embarked upon an exploration of this subject in typical NPR fashion. On one side, he brought in John Ireland, a gay parent and activist, and Sari Grant, a representative from the LA County Department of Children and Family Services. For the other, he brought on Jerry Cox, whose Arkansas Family Council unsuccessfully petitioned the state to ban foster children from entering same-sex-parent homes. (The state Supreme Court unanimously shot down the measure as unconstitutional.) Cox was given a generous platform to preach his particular brand of hate, referring repeatedly to “studies” that proved the “gold standard” for any child was a household headed by “one man and one woman.” He also deftly used Olney’s lead-in of the Sandusky case — if not to outwardly accuse gay parents of being predisposed to pedophilia, to at least align the two topics snugly: “In both cases,” he said, “the children’s rights get put in second place.” And why not? This was how Olney chose to frame this discussion, after all. But never did Olney challenge Cox’s falsehoods or bigotry, or even attempt to establish a delineation between gay parents and pedophilia. In his wildest dreams, Cox couldn’t have asked for a more generous platform…
[via Gawker]
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