July 25, 2005
A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas
By TANIA RALLI
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/business/media/25source.html?pagewanted=print
With its long reliance on talk formats and call-in programs, radio was
arguably the first open-source media form. Now a new Public Radio
International program, "Open Source from P.R.I.," will test whether the
collective intelligence permeating the Web can make not just loud radio,
but smart radio. Not only does the program pull from unfiltered voices and
opinions found on blogs, Open Source uses its own blog
(www.radioopensource.org) to cull ideas and sources from its listeners.
Listeners are invited to make suggestions on Open Source's blog, where they
are openly posted along with ideas from the program's five producers. When
the comment flow starts and suggestions are made - including
recommendations for guests - the audience can watch the program come
together, sometimes over the course of a week, other times in an afternoon.
And even when the program goes off the air, listeners can continue the
discourse online. Recent programs have looked at Muslims in Europe,
recovery from war in Bosnia and poker in the days before it became a staple
on ESPN.
Christopher Lydon, the program's host, who created it with its executive
producer, Mary McGrath, said, "We are trying to push talk radio to a new
range with the kind of Internet extensions in both getting the signal out
and harvesting the energy and insight that comes on the Web."
John Barth, station collaboration manager at PRX, a platform for the
exchange of public radio programs, said one attraction of the blog is its
openness about the program's creation. It offers a ringside seat as the
staff sorts through what works and what doesn't.
"I think they're taking a really bold step," Mr. Barth said. Because of the
program's interactive component, its benchmark of success might be less the
number of stations that ultimately carry the program and more the online
presence Open Source establishes.
Before his radio career, Mr. Lydon covered Washington politics for The New
York Times in the 1970's and anchored the evening news on WGBH in Boston
for almost 15 years. Ms. McGrath previously was a producer for "The
MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour" and for a television program, now defunct, at The
Christian Science Monitor.
A decade ago, Mr. Lydon and Ms. McGrath created the critically acclaimed
public radio talk program "The Connection" on WBUR-FM in Boston, building
an audience of 400,000 listeners. They said they were fired in 2001 when
they made a bid for equity in the program. WBUR could not be reached for
comment yesterday. (WBUR canceled the program on July 15.)
Open Source, like "The Connection," was designed to be a conversation
engaging the public in instant dialogue, unlike the transmission of
information that news broadcasts and newspapers offer.
"Part of the goal here is to get off the island and burst out of the bubble
of traditional media," said Mr. Lydon. Open Source is produced at Boston's
WGBH-FM and broadcast on KUOW in Seattle and KCPW in Salt Lake City. (Half
of the $1 million budget is being put up by the University of Massachusetts
at Lowell.)
The program is available as live stream audio online, and as a podcast.
P.R.I. is currently negotiating to begin broadcasting Open Source on XM
Satellite Radio on Aug. 1. More than 700 users have registered on the
program's blog (a necessary step to contribute comments) and the site
receives upward of 12,000 page views daily.
Brendan Greeley designed the blog and maintains it. The blog differentiates
the program from other public radio programs in that each listener can
leave an immediate mark. Unlike sending an e-mail message to the staff, or
leaving a message on an automated listener comment line, posting a message
to the blog typically generates a swift response from the staff or other
bloggers interested in the conversation.
"People hold you to your own example of accessibility," Mr. Greeley said.
He often gets e-mail messages if the radio program is not archived and
available for listening immediately after the live broadcast.
While the blog makes dialogue easy even when the program is not on the air,
it is tricky to translate listener posts to sound for the program. To
capture incoming blogs for the listening audience, Mr. Greeley will
interrupt the program to read segments from the blog.
"We conceived it sort of like the National League scores when you're at a
ballgame," he explained.
Mr. Greeley is working on technology that will collect listener voice mail,
convert it to an MP3 and immediately upload it to the blog's comment thread
as the messages are left. The sound bites will also be played on the air.
There are always people in the radio audience who know more on the topics
being discussed on the air. Open Source's blog taps into that, and tries to
get the experts on the air. But at the end of the day, what the audience of
nonexperts hears will define Open Source, according to Ms. McGrath.
"That's the definition of success for me, that it's a good radio show," she
said.
================================
George Antunes, Political Science Dept
University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204
Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927
antunes at uh dot edu
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