Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Ernesto Aguilar, in RadioWorld, notes that Inside Radio recently
named KQED as the nation's number-one news/talk station. He
examines how QED turned around the steep decline in listeners in
2023.

>>"Something everyone in radio should ask of their stations is this:
What does this station sound like to people who weren't raised on
it?"<<

Thoughts?

https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-views/heres-how-san-franciscos-kqed-reb
randed-to-boost-listenership
  

    
Very interesting article, thank you. As I try to address what the
value of KKCR is to our community and really talk about it, maybe a
rebrand and listening with a new set of ears could do us some good.
  

    
The article suggests that a name change is just about all of what
changed.  Just dropping "public radio" and adding "news" did all
that?  And mainly because it's easier to find it using Alexa?
  

    

I am all for federal funding of public broadcasting in the US, yet
public media has been a big outlier in getting federal funds. 

News funders and philanthropies are now very, very interested in
building back local news. I think a lot of us reflexively assume
that means creating online publications that replicate the role of
local newspapers. 

Can grant money replace the federal funding stream for public TV and
radio? Is this partly a question of capacity to do all the work
involved with getting more grants, now that the CPB is defunct?
  

    
Good question, Emily. Iʻm bumping up our grant writing program at
my small community station and even just communicating with a grant
writer and giving her the requisite information is a time sucker.
The requirements from each funder is different, too, so navigating
all that is itʻs own chore. I have found that there are larger
philanthropies giving to orgs that are regranting those funds to
smaller stations and thatʻs nice. It makes your eligibility highly
specific, though.
  

    
I wonder if this news is good for folks in this conversation
https://current.org/2025/10/national-federation-of-community-broadcasters-land
s-1-25m-macarthur-grant/
  

    
That is great for the NFCB.  I wonder how they will spend it..
  

    
Well deserved and well timed. A small amount though, relatively.

I feel that one of the challenges of this conversation is that
"public radio", even as funded by CPB, covers such a broad range of
institutions, activities, infrastructure all to keep this larger
enterprise of non-commercial audio broadcasting (and podcasting?) up
and running, and potentially healthy and growing in its ability to
serve its mission. 

Just as a minor example of one specific area of important support
for the system, when I started out in the 1980s, there were a number
of opportunities designed to get skills to a new generation--I went
to all-expense-paid workshops in music recording offered by NPR in
Colorado, to a week-long production workshop at Western Public Radio
in SF with 7 others one of whom was Andrea DeLeon, now longtime NPR
Northeast bureau chief. There was the Satellite Program Development
Fund,  which was the beginning of Sean Barlow's Afropop, and Ira
Glass got one too if I recall as his first larger project.

I guess my point is, what we really need is a comprehensive view of
the whole system--which is something public radio has drifted away
from. I'd like to say the end of CPB funding might help move us back
in that direction, but without substantial resources to do things, I
frankly don't see how. (If I'm wrong, that would be great.)
  

    
I don't see how either in this every-station-for-itself climate. 
And NPR doesn't do much of that kind of skill building among
affiliates the way they used to.  NPR does have some funds set aside
to help poorer station make their payments to NPR.

One of the great things about the NFCB annual conventions are how
that breadth of styles and focuses come together to help each other
out.
  

    
>broadcasting (and podcasting?)

I used to think of podcasting as sort of the minor leagues; a
talent/content pipeline to the big broadcast platforms.

Now I think of it as pickleball; it's not developing tennis players,
it's displacing tennis. The migration from RF to digital is
proceeding at all deliberate speed, and neither commercial nor
"public" broadcasting seems to see it coming.

Neither broadcast nor tennis are going away, but their place in the
food chain for popular attention is degrading. 
  

    

<anni> and I are planning another Grateful Dead marathon for January, and
we're hoping to share it wiht other community stations on the mainland, with
regular cutaways for local pitching.
  

    
First I would say..."podcasting" is a completely inadequite name.
Its like we decide to call it "text" or "writing" to apply to
newspapers, novels, poetry, live texting... Each of these their own
uses, conditions of use, production processes, social and cultural
values, formal qualities and history, etc. It would be helpful if we
could have an intellectual ecosystem where they wouldn't be
mindlessly lumped into one pile.

Take daily live news programs, networked nationally. Expensive and
labor intensive, requiring lots of staff and travel and facilities.
Heard by millions (still). The impact of this is diminishing as
attentions diverge, and yet...millions. It has a important place in
the the future world of media consumption and a functional
democracy.   This is a wildly different thing than local
station/podcast programming, yet both are important and I wouldn't
say one more than the other. We don't ditch poetry because we have
magazines.
  

    
I am sure I am not the only broadcaster who is constantly hearing people
talking about my "podcast."

I invite people to appear on my weekly call-in show (on satellite radio),
and even then they ask "when do you record your podcast?"
  

    
Public radio has podcasts as well, but podcasts have specific
characteristics that differ from radio or other similar forms of
(audio) content delivery. Podcasts are pre-recorded and available on
demand. Listeners can subscribe and automatically receive new
episodes, pushed to their devices. True podcasts are delivered via
RSS feeds and podcast apps (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.) They're
delivered online, not via broadcast. Anybody can make a podcast, on
any subject - overhead is minimal.
  

    
>>They're delivered online, not via broadcast.<<

the BBC World Service sometimes broadcast (the audio content) of
productions they call podcast (which includes video as well as
audio) before making it available via online.
  

    
The BBC is increasingly blurring the line between shows recorded for
broadcast and those for podcast.

And these days for some of the biggest shows they will record the
contributors in a studio in front of cameras and do a 'visualised'
podcast version of it to show on TV as well. They are doing their
absolute best to make the licence fee money stretch as far as it
will possibly go.
  

    
"Megaphone" Mark Andrews was cancelled from NPR. Launching a
podcast...

https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2025/11/02
  

    
Mark Slackmeyer, right?
  

    
Could be. I thought his dad (corporate raider profile) was named
Andrews, but that rings a bell.
  

    
My brother who works outside LA and drives round that area
extensively for his work, listens almost exclusively to podcasts
that he downloads onto his phone and then bluetooths over to his
car.  He likes comedians, from whom there is an abundant supply.

I drive around a lot too, but since I am usually alone in the car, I
can listen to music I like without interruption or requests to turn
down the volume.  So I alternate between that and listening to the
local radio.
  

    
I want to apologize to all of you. I had been waiting, lazily, for
an email notifying me that this had started and let it fall off my
radar. Then we had a death in the family and everything fell off my
radar.  

I will find time to go back and read and if I can offer anything, I
will, but you've all probably gone home to have dinner by now. 
Sorry...

I still love public radio and am still fighting for it, even when it
fights back:  https://www.capelocalradio.com/updates
  

    
Never too late to hear from you, Jay. Our condolences on your family's loss.
  

    
Yes, condolences, and feel encouraged to add your thoughts once
you've read through it all.
  

    
We haven't formally closed this discussion, and it may well prove
evergreen; your observations are ardently anticipated. And your
loved one's memory for a blessing.
  

    
Jay, condolences from me, too. Please feel free to sustain the
conversation. This one will continue a while.