NPR delivers possible blow to open media
March 7, 2008 – 7:27 pm by Mur LaffertyTabz tweeted today that NPR has forced out its CEO, Ken Stern.
He’s leaving the company even though in Sterne’s nine years at NPR (first as COO then CEO) he helped with the following:
The audience for NPR programs has doubled to 26 million listeners a week. NPR built an endowment pretty much from scratch that now stands above $300 million. As a result, there are now new programs such as Day to Day, News and Notes, Tell Me More and The Bryant Park Project; the number of domestic bureaus has grown and the number of foreign bureaus now exceeds that of all but a few major American newspapers.
Fantastically forward-thinking, Sterne caused NPR to be a trailblazer in releasing their programs via podcast, and they recently started delivering programs via cell phone. Apparently the local stations started to fret and managed to drive him out.
I fear this is the first of many steps backward of NPR’s previously admirable moves into digital media.
3 Responses to “NPR delivers possible blow to open media”
Open media isn’t for everyone.
The mass media structures are, unsurprisingly, very good at delivering mass media. I like being able to catch up on some of my favorite NPR shows via podcast, but if they hadn’t been on the radio first I wonder if I ever would have become a fan in the first place.
I can definitely see why the stations would be unhappy with having competition sponsored by the national organization.
By Nobilis on Mar 7, 2008
Mur, I’m on a computer without access to typical email/messaging setups. I imagine you’ve heard this story, but here’s something NPR did today about the Harper Collins move to share books electronically: http://tinyurl.com/3xdrbp
Hope you enjoy!
By Shannon on Mar 21, 2008