this sucks at ten15am, originally uploaded by Michael Surtees.
It’s a sad day for fans of “The Bryant Park Project.”
The NY Times reports that National Public Radio pink-slipped the show that deliberately courted Gen-Xers through its “informal” tone and “robust Web presence.” And though the number of listeners was small, especially compared to the traditional NPR standbys, the BPP website did accrue millions of page views monthly. The cancellation has some fans incandescent with rage at National Public Radio.
Anemic station carriage and a flagging economy likely conspired to doom the show. Various postmortems in the blogosphere also cite internal politics, staff turnover, and flawed execution.
The fate of the BPP brings to mind Christopher Lydon’s “Open Source.” Like “The Bryant Park Project,” “Open Source” attempted to transcend divisions between old and new media, aspiring to be a “blog with a radio show.” But as Doug Kaye so trenchantly observed, it was this very embrace of the new technology within the framework of the old assumptions that foreordained the program’s failure as a traditional “radio” program (a slimmed down “Open Source” lives on as a podcast):
Radio Open Source’s problem is just that: It’s a hybrid. It has the cost structure of a public-radio program — a $1 million/year budget — in a podcast-revenue marketplace.
Perhaps this is what ultimately undid The Bryant Park Project as well. The old thinking just doesn’t apply anymore. Public radio consultant Robert Patterson, seems to suggest as much. Mirroring Kaye, Patterson calls for a new economics:
The NYT mentioned that in April and May they had a million unique visitors on the web. This is brilliant. As a web based show you can build the audience until you have enough momentum to add more radio. I would also have made it easy for “members” to donate to BPP. What about the stations? I would have had a split. Try the new economics for real all the way. So what went wrong? The show was conceived as Radio! In St Louis, many of the best staff of the Dispatch left the paper and started a new one. The one thing they did not consider was using paper!
Regardless of the reasons, the show’s end is a clear loss for those of us trying to help create additional relevance for public broadcasting in this furiously evolving digital world. My greatest fear is that its cancellation may be taken as justification to throw cold water on further online experimentation.
I think that would be perilous for the future of public radio.
I would be curious to hear from some BPP fans—as well as those not too keen on the show. Share some of your thoughts about the program. What do you hold as the primary reason for its cancellation?
I don’t know what the primary reason for the show’s cancellation was. The lack of program-specific donation is certainly part of it.
My co-conspirator at Radio Sweethearts was certainly incandescent this morning, but we’re trying to take a more pro-active tack now.
The success of the Bryant Park Project was rooted in its use of social networking, and if nothing else, listeners can use that networking to voice their displeasure with the show’s cancellation.
It might not save the BPP, but it may encourage public radio to more willingly embrace online media.
Hey, thanks for the link love!
And by the way, can you imagine the squeals and screams that the stations would raise if BPP or other programs actively courted direct donations? Oh, that would be a PR fiasco I’d pay real money to see! 😉
But the truth is that the old models are breaking. NPR is today where newspapers were 10 years ago. And either NPR will be smart enough to face up to the “new realities,” (as they were called in a conversation project with stations a few years ago) and change course or if they’ll go down fighting, like newspapers are today.
The solution is to spin off the BPP (or stuff like it, it doesn’t have to be the BPP specifically) and set it up under new rules (new economic rules, new interaction rules, etc.). Mark Fuerst (of the Integrated Media Association) has made this point before, but no one seems to hear him.
There *IS* a future for public media. But not in the old model. Kaye and Paterson get it. Will NPR?
When you kill hope – all dies. My gut tells me that NPR’s survival is now in the balance – simply killing off BPP means that no one will have any confidence in NPR moving into the future.
I acknowledge that as designed – a radio show with a web part is not sustainable. Hybrids don’t work.
My wish is to go back to the members and do a work out. Appeal to the audience not for cash for for a viable plan.
Ask the question – How can BPP live?
I think we all will be surprised by the answer and the response.
Go the whole way.
My dear friends at NPR – it’s March or Die. You find a way to do this or you will die yourself.
Don’t you see this?
It bugs me a little that I hadn’t even heard of BPP before today, before the stream of articles lamenting it getting cancelled.
Did BUR run the show? Did GBH? Would anyone in Boston have heard of it if they hadn’t been watching npr.org?
It seems a little weird to expect people to be surprised that the show didn’t make it if it wasn’t even available over the air in a market like Boston.
I admit I never got into BPP, but that was more me than the show itself. But I’m struck by the number of comments already that “hybrids won’t work.” Somewhere in this whole transformation of the media, there has to be something in the middle, or do we have to just chuck everything we’ve known in the last 75 years leading up to this in media. If that’s the case, it’s going to be an awfully bumpy road, and there will be a lot of casualties – both in terms of unserved audience and media people themselves — because a lot of audience out there aren’t invested or tech-savvy enough to fully engage.
Or do they not get to count anymore?
It’s not as simple as march or die… the creativity of the dialogue that lies ahead with BPP will say a lot.
[…] WBUR and The ConverStation offer some likely explanations (and think we’re incandescent with rage). […]
@Ted M… I think the reason why everyone is dumping on hybrid approaches is because of the style of the hybrid itself. BPP (and others) are an example of picking the worst parts of two things and jamming them together, hoping for great results.
In this case, take the highly-produced and highly expensive NPR production model, marry it with a bunch of radio stations that already have schedules and demographics that they wish to protect, then throw in a web audience that’s not really alerted to the presence of a unique new thing (because the NPR site screams corporate, not creative), then give the whole thing less than a year to be “profitable” and ignore the staffing difficulties that cropped up, despite your best efforts.
In short, it was the cost of high-end NPR radio combined with the audience-gathering and money-making powers of a low-end, startup web property with no promotional budget, no “VC” capital.
That’s a hybrid that only a mother could love. Only this mother didn’t really love it enough to keep it around.
I’d like to think NPR would put the BPP up for “adoption,” but I doubt that will happen or work out even if it did happen.
Wow. Strong, insightful sentiments expressed here.
Thank you all for expressing them.
It is well beyond my poor power to divine the new economic models for sustaining public radio (or whatever you want to call it) in the future (near future?). That said, remaining in a defensive crouch invites irrelevance. As I blogged above, I fear this decision will be used to poor cold water on further bold experimentation online.
Also, I wonder if the decision could be a watershed moment? Could this represent to public radio what cable TV was to PBS?
Like Rob and John (you are welcome for the “link love”), I do share doubts about hybrids, though given the institutional resistance to web “pure plays,” hybrids are the best we can realistically expect. Perhaps Ted is on to something in this regard.
cdevers: Neither ‘BUR or ‘GBH aired the show. But that is precisely the point. BPP is/was online for a group that ventures beyond the tower more frequently than the traditional public radio demographic. Who needs the local affiliate to listen? Hence why some in the system viewed the show with suspicion.
thespacebase: I look forward to seeing the results of your networking with great anticipation. Keep us abreast of your progress.
But that’s my point. I don’t have a problem with a hybrid show (is that even the right word? production? “brand”? yuck, but for lack of a better term…) that straddles the on-air and on-line worlds, but — at least for now — that can only work if the two sides are propping each other up, or at least occasionally calling attention to one another.
I also don’t have a problem with an on-line only show, if I can find out about it and the content is good. Before “Open Source” went on the air, I was enjoying Christopher Lydon’s podcast show that he was doing with Harvard’s Berkman center, as it was the same quality material that he had previously been doing with “The Connection”. So what that it was on different media, during the day I was mainly listening to ‘BUR streaming from my laptop anyway, so downloading a MP3 instead was no big deal.
I kind of feel like I should have been in the target demographic for BPP, and yet NPR/BUR/GBH didn’t draw any significant attention to it at all until the axe fell — and then acts surprised that it didn’t catch on. Go figure.
Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you *keep* it a *secret*! Why didn’t you tell the world, EH?
Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises.
Chris (cdevers): Point taken regarding apparent lack of promotion. While I know nothing of NPR’s on-air promotional strategy for The Bryant Park Project, you could make the argument that is suffered from a lack of air time in major markets – heck in any markets.
But the show was calibrated to appeal to a younger, web-savvy audience. Could a show so conceived be able to muscle its way into a field crowded with old standards the gray-haired listeners that cut the checks favor? What would induce a local NPR affiliate to carry a program that, when you think about it, embodies that existential threat internet/digital technology presents the local affiliate? (For example: Ten years ago I depended on ‘BUR for my daily BBC fix. Today, I stream it into my living room via BBC.com).
Regarding hybrids: I see their value experimentally, but barring a structural change in the current business model (that is the local affiliate and national broadcaster relationship), I remain convinced their success will be limited.
Thanks for adding your insights and please come back often. I will check out your blog today!
But again (and one last time, I promise 🙂 ), it’s hard to say it was going for a “web-savvy” audience, at least one in Boston, if neither WBUR.org, nor WGBH.org, nor even this site (or the associated Facebooks, Twitters, etc) had mentioned it before now.
Sure, it shows up on NPR.org, but to be honest, I for one almost never see a reason to visit NPR.org. My local stations, specific shows, sure, but rarely there.
I still think it could have worked if it had at least been given a mention from time to time.
“Mister President! We cannot have a mine shaft gap!”
Ahem.
Since I listen in the Boston market, I didn’t hear of BPP on air. I had heard of it, but my guess is since GBH was into “The Takeaway” that they could only make use of one “hip” NPR morning show. That said, as a young, web-savvy NPR listener, I don’t particularly care for The Takeaway. I quite enjoy Morning Edition. My problem is (and I suspect a lot of other young people’s problems) is that radio doesn’t fit well in our lives. Unless you have a strategically timed car-based commute, or sedentary time in the morning, it’s hard to listen to broadcast radio. Younger folk have iPhones and phones, and few radio tuners, so I’d think it’d be a great challenge for anyone to get that type of show going.
That said, the thing I’ve always wanted was Morning Edition podcast, available when I leave the house. For example, as soon as the first half hour is done, it’s published as it was recorded live. I sync my iPhone before I head out, and I would get to listen. As it is now, the audio online shows up near noon time (last I checked) and is too late for me to listen. It’s commute or nothing, for me.
er, that should have read “iPods and phones” though, some like me, do have those combined. 🙂
I was a loyal BPP listener on Sirius radio and I will miss it. Any suggestions for what to listen to now that the BPP is no more?
Brian: Thank you for you comments here and in the Podcamp post. Sorry to have missed you at camp. Hopefully, we will meet at a ‘BUR or other social media events.
The media habits of your generation send shivers down many a radio program director’s spine. Who needs them deciding for you what to listen to and when? To avoid treading the path of the dinosaur, I think us folks in the public “broadcasting” biz will need to be more respectful of your schedule and less so of ours.
That being said, a Morning Edition podcast is unlikely to happen until there are major structural changes in the economic and political relationship between national broadcasters like NPR and local affiliates such as WBUR.
The closest thing WBUR has to a ME podcast is one featuring all the local stories heard on WBUR’s Morning Edition. That and other WBUR-produced podcasts are available here.
Thanks again for the comments. And I will make certain to check out your blog this week.
Chris: You looking for something similar to BPP?
There is obviously no shortage of compelling audio produced by news organizations and passionate enthusiasts off all stripes. I find lots of stuff searching through iTunes.
I can’t off the top of my head come up with anything similar to BBP, especially on Sirius. If the satellite radio broadcaster merges with its competitor XM, you should be get some of the stuff we produced including Here & Now, On Point and Only A Game. (Excuse the shameless schilling and they are I’ll admit very dissimilar to BPP but hey, I work at ‘BUR). A merger would also get you former NPR host Bob Edwards’ show as well.
But of course that all rests on a hypothetical.
You might find something hewing closer to your tastes at both the CBC and ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company). They got tons of good stuff, as does the BBC. Not sure what of it makes it to Sirius.
Anyone out there got more suggestions for Chris?