An Open Letter to NPR’s Incoming CEO Katherine Maher
In short: we are all rooting for you; please seize the moment.
Welcome to Dispatch #58 of The Audio Insurgent.
Since launching my subscription plan, this is the first time that I’ve put out a dispatch that paid subscribers will read first. If you were a paid subscriber of The Audio Insurgent, you would have received this before the weekend.
For those interested, the subscription launch did well. I had about 100 people sign up right away, which is a SUPER EXCITING strong start, and I am so grateful and humbled by the support. However, that number is about 25% of what I should be expecting in the longer term. If you haven’t switched your subscription to paid. I hope you’ll consider supporting this work with a small contribution.
Otherwise, to be honest I’m grappling with a lot of mixed feelings about what’s happening in media. While I’m grateful that podcasting is coming out of the past year and things look somewhat encouraging for this year. But on the other hand, looking at the daily terrible news in media is upsetting and alarming–and I’m worried that there will be some collateral damage to audio departments at major distributors and publishers.
I’m really in the mood for some great news. I bet you are too.
Onward…
[TODAY’S THING: AN OPEN LETTER TO KATHERINE MAHER, NPR’S NEW CEO]
Hi Katherine–
My name is Eric and I’m one of the many millions of people who depend on NPR every day, believe in public radio’s mission, and see its clear potential for abundant public service in the future.
I realize you are currently drinking from a fire hose of advice from countless people who have opinions about NPR and public media’s future. Please know that I was hesitant to add to all that, but this is important stuff. I also acknowledge that mine is not the only open letter written to you. One other was penned by Kristen Muller before you even knew you had this job. If you haven’t read it, you should.
I know very little about you, but some of the people who selected you are people who I trust deeply. So if they are excited about you, I am excited about you. Plus, I read that you cringe at the word “content.” Me too. I dislike that word so strongly that I wrote an entire book about podcasting and audio-making where the word “content” never appears.
(And on that note, here is a solve for your dilemma about what else you could call your “Chief Content Officer.” Call them the Chief Audience Officer. This is someone who oversees all the programming that touches audience directly, regardless of platform, source, genre, or style. They create for the audience and by putting it in the title, you are setting a tone for where their efforts should be focused. Audience is the nucleus and nexus of everything NPR does. And you need someone to both advocate for the audience’s interests and be completely focused on serving them.)
I decided to write this as an open letter because I think the things I’ll express here apply to NPR, but also to every public radio organization, big and small. These are ideas that I hope everyone takes and uses.
Let me start with the good news first. I spend a lot of time thinking about audio, and I am incredibly bullish on the opportunities that are everywhere for NPR and public radio. I honestly believe (and I can back this up) that we could be on the verge of a new era where NPR and stations who decide to embrace change can thrive as critical institutions, both nationally and in local communities. This fall I even wrote a strategic framework to help stations who want to chart a pathway to that kind of a future (I encourage you to read it, but I’ll warn you it's even longer than this letter).
I’ve read that you don’t consider public radio to be in crisis. I like that attitude, but I wish you were a bit more scared of the road ahead. It will probably be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. But the truth is for those who want to embrace change, public radio can serve a more important role in American life than it ever has, serve more of the country than it ever has, and prosper while doing so. So be a little scared, and a lot excited too.
TL;DR
You don’t know me, but the readers of this newsletter do–and they know I can…go deep…and go on for a bit. So if you are busy, here is a summary of everything I have to share.
Digital disruption is a red herring. The truth is that audiences are picking other listening choices more frequently. And that’s fixable.
You have 54 million opportunities each week to leverage whatever future NPR and the public radio system want.
Don’t worry about defining the future. Start with what public radio is really good at and build a bridge from here forward.
Here’s some expanded versions of these ideas:
GIVE MORE REASONS TO PICK PUBLIC RADIO, AKA THE BAR HAS MOVED AND NEEDS TO BE SET HIGHER
There is no question that public radio has a legacy of distinction. But in 2024, is the bar for that distinction set high enough? To be clear, I’m not the one questioning this. Listeners are…and they say so with their listening choices.
As Bumper’s Dan Misener is fond of saying, “Audiences vote with their play buttons.” It is hard to argue with what they are telling public radio right now with their voting behavior: a lot of the time other options are more appealing.
As you settle into your role, you will hear a lot of talk about what ails public radio. You’ll hear about the decline of radio, competition from podcasting, Spotify, and a constant stream of new entrants. It gets very overwhelming and confusing very quickly. And…it’s wrong. Let me make this much simpler and get away from all the talk about platforms and disruption.
Listeners spend about four hours a day listening. That number has been pretty steady over the years. They are spending less and less of that time with public radio programming, regardless of what format it is or platform it is on. If that stings to read, good. It should. And it should really bother you because those are self-inflicted wounds: the directional choices NPR and public radio have made over the past years have made it a less appealing choice. But here is the good news: that is a problem you can address and a battle you can win. Note: I didn’t say it would be easy.
While some claim that NPR and public radio are making up for lost listening on other platforms, like podcasting and web page views, I challenge that. When you measure attention, the total of all the listening, viewing, reading, and engagement on all other platforms, it comes nowhere near close to making up for the decline in attention to FM listening. Sure, some listening, consumption, and engagement have ported over to other platforms–but the bottom line is that audiences aren’t choosing public radio as often nor spending as much attention time because, frankly, they think other choices, in the moment, feel better and more satisfying.
Again, that is an opportunity, because you want audience to tune in more often. This would be such a different conversation if your audience had abandoned public radio. But they haven’t, they just engage less often and for shorter periods of time. The answer to that is simple: encourage more occasions by creating better experiences. NPR wins by rededicating itself to programming distinction and exceptionalism. In other words, don’t do what everybody does, be deliberately distinct. And it has to be distinction that the audience values, not just things that look good on a press release or in an AREPS message or annual report. It has to be distinction that demonstrably moves the needle. It almost doesn’t matter what you cover, produce, or create–and it doesn’t even matter the audience you are targeting–it has to be The Best to that audience. And so clearly The Best–and so surprising and chuck full of delightful and unexpected awesome moments–that the distinction is without question. Those Best moments have to be so frequent and so powerful that they affect the audience’s instinctual opinion on what happens when they tune into public radio programming.
Regardless of what audience and what platform and--forgive the word–what content, it isn’t worth doing unless it is The Best for those it seeks to serve.
I didn’t say it would be easy, but NPR can lead the way for the whole system by focusing not on what you do, but the amazing moments NPR can create. The truth is that the system looks to NPR to lead the way programmatically and editorially. So when you raise the bar for NPR, you are providing a model that others can emulate. So many station leaders want to talk about business models and platforms–none of that matters unless what you create takes the audience’s breath away. Stories that stop someone in their tracks. It isn’t that these moments never happen–they do. Just not enough. Your business model is the “driveway moment” model–everything comes from that. Nothing else matters. You cannot settle for anything less from your teams.
GET RIGHT WITH RADIO
It feels so weird for me to be in the position of saying this. I spent most of my years in public radio trying to get station and organization leaders to take digital platforms seriously. Now, after I’ve left public radio to work in commercial media, I feel I’m doing the opposite–mostly because I don’t hear enough others talking about the critical importance of radio and live programming to the future. There are literally station CEOs running around saying “Radio is dead,” which is a ridiculous and wrong-headed thing to say.
While a lot of conversation and action should focus on rapidly growing public radio’s presence in every place where listeners gather, that’s all pointless unless public radio–including NPR–fixes and modernizes its radio offerings today. It's pointless because NPR and its stations are, still today, deeply dependent on traditional radio for revenue and audience engagement. I struggle to think of any station that receives less than 90% of its revenue and audience engagement from radio. Served well with programs designed to meet the needs of today’s listeners, that audience will help propel public radio into its future. Without them, you can build a beautiful rocket ship, but you will lack any rocket fuel. In essence, for the next decade, public radio needs to walk and chew gum at the same time: excel at developing more on demand programming as well as recommit itself to excelling at live programming.
Is radio listening declining? Absolutely. Again, the decline in public radio listening, even among core listeners, isn’t because they are somehow unwilling to listen to radio or generally listening less. Simply put, public radio programming is currently less compelling to them. They’re choosing other options to fill their listening time. Yet, as we’ll cover in a moment, even in a somewhat diminished state, that radio listening is still an incredibly powerful tool. When you examine the situation plainly, you see that most of public radio’s decline is because too many people don’t understand how to be a radio station in 2024. How do I know that? Because there are a handful of stations that are demonstrating their commitment to radio with smart attention to detail as they improve and stabilize their radio audience–and it is working. They are seeing nowhere near the levels of drop off that other stations are experiencing. They are much more in control of their near-term future.
Even though the long-term vitality of FM broadcast is waning as other options join the mix (a problem that has existed since Ronald Reagan was president), the power of NPR and public radio’s connection to its radio audience is an awe-inducing and potent thing. The best way to understand that is to get away from the confusing soup of mixed stats: downloads, page views, Cume, watch time, etc. Public radio’s currency is the value it generates through public service. And the best way to measure that value across platforms and types of consumption, again, is through the attention time people are willing to give to public radio.
Katherine, the NPR programming you will oversee–that you will have direct control over–generates 2.8 BILLION hours of radio listening every year.
2.8 billion hours of listening a year. That is just an unbelievable amount of time and attention. To give you some way to wrap your head around how huge a number 2.8 billion hours is, 2.8 billion hours is basically the entirety of human history, as homo sapiens first emerged roughly 2.8 billion hours ago. And listeners give that amount of attention to NPR every single year. That is just a stunning presence in the world and culture. That’s far from dead.
And how is NPR leveraging that 2.8 billion hours? How is it building on that massive amount of attention towards the future? How does it take all that attention to build awareness, interest–and more attention–for the larger ecosystem of NPR offerings? I’m not talking about program promotion or shouting out some URLs and social tags or “go to npr.org to see the photograph we’re talking about,” but a much bigger idea: How do NPR and stations create user experiences that transcend single platforms and how do you leverage current attention to diversify engagement? How do you create experiences that stand on their own, but when coupled with radio, become much richer? The New York Times, for example, is exceptionally good at this with data visualizations, video, (yes, even audio), annotations, and other expressions beyond the basic written word–and public radio should be much better. Regardless of how you define or express this, 2.8 billion hours of annual listening, broken down weekly to a slightly more manageable 54 million hours, gives you 54 million head starts into redefining what you offer listeners tomorrow, a year from now, and a decade from now. Public radio needs to think of those 54 million hours of listening not as an end point, but a beginning.
Currently, public radio just doesn’t look at radio that way. That is something you and your team should change. And there are many potential answers to that-- all good.
The remaining vital years of radio aren’t just about extracting diminishing revenue–they are about how you leverage the power you have today to slingshot NPR and public radio into the future.
Unfortunately, many other people aren’t seeing that. They see a downward trend line and shrug. Forget the stupid trend line. Is radio dying? Sure. Are YOU dying? Yes. We all are. Nothing lives forever. But because there is an end in the future doesn’t mean that life today has no value nor that we shouldn’t commit ourselves to living the best, most fulfilling, rewarding, and productive life possible. This, frankly, is no different.
And anyone who doesn’t think there will be a need for live programming in the future (regardless of the platform it is presented on) needs to ask stations about the spikes they see when there are significant live events: court and congressional hearings, live breaking news, milestone events like an inauguration. And stations are really, really bad at capturing this live interest and leveraging that ephemeral attention into other things the station offers that they might enjoy.
COMMODITY VERSUS SCARCITY: FOCUS ON DISTINCTION
The most important thing you can do as the leader of NPR is making sure that everything it produces is worth paying for. Everything. Every platform. Every day. And I mean everything. Nothing gets a pass.
Think of the Charlie Munger quote, “Show me the incentives and I’ll show you the outcome.” Applying that to public radio, the industry’s dependence on the financial support directly from audience keeps the industry pointed in the right direction. That bar is so high because in a world where it’s hard to get anyone to pay for anything, it is even harder to get people to pay when they don’t have to. The first key is making sure what the industry produces is worth that kind of response from its audience.
In fact, if I have one criticism of NPR over the past few years, it is that NPR and public radio stations haven’t understood this and have miscalculated the importance of that distinction, or perhaps taken it for granted, as well as not understanding that this measure isn’t static. It is always evolving and changing as the media, news, and technology industries change. In other words, something that hit that distinction mark a year ago won’t necessarily continue to produce similar results now.
Some in the past (including some in leadership positions) have thought that radio/audio journalism was second tier compared to major traditional print outlets. And because of that, NPR’s only pathway to distinction was through immediacy: radio can reach people in the moment, and update stories in the moment, so (according to them) its live-ness is its primary strength.
The problem is no one asked the audience about this.
Being live and immediate certainly has importance, but when listeners are asked what makes public radio important to them and worthy of their support, the answer is rarely about being live and immediate. Listeners value public radio’s ability to go deep and explore elements and perspectives that others fail to cover. The NPR you inherit isn’t quite built for that. It’s built to cover a broad range of subjects with immediacy.
It is the difference between creating content that is a hard-to-distinguish “commodity” with something that is a “scarcity”--clearly and objectively unique. Scarcity is worth paying for.
A great test for this comes courtesy of Rameez Tase, Co-Founder and President of Antenna (h/t to Jacob Donnelly at A Media Operator). On Twitter/X, he offered the following test:
– Google search the headline behind your most popular content last month.
– Do dozens of other similar articles come up from different outlets?
– You know who would answer "no" to that question? Disney. It turns out the only other place to watch Avatar or Frozen is illegally and inconveniently.
– But, if your answer to that question is "yes" then you should probably have a long look in the mirror and ask yourself why the business model you've chosen is deeply misaligned with your value proposition.
I’d suggest you do the same with NPR and public radio content. Look at the most popular stories on NPR.org or in the news programs. How often do other outlets offer pretty much the exact same story as NPR and is that high percentage acceptable? It certainly isn’t everything you produce, but it happens more than it should. Public radio wins when it finds a different angle or perspective, breaks new stories, focuses on the power of human stories and voices, takes time to see what others miss–and surprises with its originality. You need to insist your news and programming leaders focus on that.
NPR’S FUTURE WILL BE CONTINGENT ON HOW YOU CONNECT THE FUTURE WITH THE PRESENT
NPR and the public radio system will largely serve its future audience, on-demand, on digital platforms. The long-term future of live and linear programming will segue away from FM broadcasting onto digital platforms, most likely over the next 10 years. That’s about as irrefutable a look into public radio’s future as you will find…and I hope you spend very little time talking about that. It will be very tempting to want to talk about a mountain-top vision for NPR and public radio’s digital, on-demand future. I hope that you will keep that to a minimum and save most of it for the countless rubber chicken station galas you’ll be speaking at over the coming years.
Instead, you need to focus on how NPR and public radio builds a bridge to that future. Literally how do we get from where we are now, with the resources we have now, and the audience we have now, to that bright, shiny future where we are all wearing jetpacks and everything is wonderful.
I’ve been listening to public radio leaders (including at least four of your predecessors) blather on about the future for two decades…and there is surprisingly little to show for it. The reason isn’t because they couldn’t articulate what the future would be like, it was because they lacked clear ideas about how and where to start: how to take where public radio is today–and how to transition it to that future. And how to protect those efforts so they don’t get wiped away in the next round of belt-tightening budget cuts. As a result, you see a lot of expensive, small ideas that sound great on paper, but don’t ever move the needle much. Even public radio’s lauded “success” in podcasting really isn’t all that successful, and definitely isn’t keeping up with the growth of the entire podcast industry.
When I talk to NPR and station staffers, this is the frustration I hear. Without this “first step” part of the future vision, they can’t see a role for themselves in what you are discussing. So instead of exciting staff with talk of the on demand future, it becomes exclusionary and demoralizing.
Plus, those who succeed focus on building from what they are good at, rather than focusing on reaching a specific outcome.
So, before we go, a few short items I wanted to include:
Be specific about what “new audience” means. You’ll notice I’ve hardly mentioned the need to reach new audiences here. Three reasons for that. First, duh. (It is important, but it is an outcome of these larger questions.) Second, whenever you hear it, ask what that even means. Younger audiences, persons of color, marginalized communities, different worldviews, and different languages–all are potential definitions of “new audience.” That’s the problem. The phrase “new audience” is thrown around a lot, yet often lacks specifics. And you need to get specific to actually serve them. To that end, the final reason I didn’t mention it today is that I covered it a lot in that strategic framework I mentioned earlier.
Don’t focus on features; focus on benefits. When I do hear NPR or stations talking about their value proposition, it tends to be focused on features. Examples include “We have more reporters in the region than any other broadcaster” or “Our local news department has X number of reporters and X number of beats.” Great…but why does that make a difference? Please don’t fall into that trap and don’t let your people do that either. Instead, focus on the benefit–what do those features create? What’s different as a result? Why is that exceptional or distinctive? Why is it worth support? Why should listeners and users give some of their precious attention time to discover and hear/read/watch it?
Don’t seek buy-in to make A change, seek buy-in for a culture of change. Too many of your predecessors spent far too much time trying to find solutions that everyone would accept. Consensus culture rarely yields things worth having, let alone worth the effort. Avoid asking permission to do things and switch the conversation to getting buy-in on the idea of being in an agile-like constant state of “doing”: trying lots of things, making revisions, spinning up experiments–not needing consensus for every single idea. Stations need to embrace that the only pathway where anyone comes out okay requires rapid innovation and smart risk-taking. That means that not everyone is going to be okay with everything. Not every project feels the pressure that it must work. And not every change will therefore require another round of consensus conversation to try another solution.
Build a reputation as an enemy of small thinking and small ideas. Mostly because of the above, too often public radio embraces ideas that sound great, but involve little risk and, thus, don’t really change things in a meaningful way. Be as allergic to this as possible. If it doesn’t change the audience engagement by double digits, it isn’t worth your time.
Watch out for reductive and binary truisms. I hear a lot of reductive truisms shared in public radio that are quite the opposite of truth, yet many decisions are based on them. A perfect example is the claim that “podcast listeners are younger” coupled with “radio listeners are all old people.” I’m astounded when I hear this because both are so clearly and demonstrably untrue. As podcasting grows and becomes more ubiquitous, its demographics resemble America more each year. It, like all digital platforms, is dominated by younger users, but older cohorts and historically-marginalized groups are some of the fastest growing audience segments in podcasting today. Conversely, 35% of public radio’s Cume audience is under the age of 45. That’s far from nothing.
Another that I think throws people off course is “Radio and podcasting are two different audiences.” I honestly have no idea if that is true, or even how you can accurately determine that. But that is always offered as a positive–and it strikes me quite the opposite. You want listeners and users engaging across multiple platforms. NPR needs to get more comfortable that not all programming will attract all listeners, but public radio should be attracting use across platforms.
So, Katherine, that is my letter. My very long, dense letter. I wrote it because I care. I wrote it because I really want you to succeed. I wrote it because I’m tired of watching public radio be tepid about its future. And I wrote it because a number of people asked me to, because they are concerned that no one speaking to you thinks about these issues this way.
Oh, and finally, some real advice: Lupo Verde is a great choice for work dinners, Maydan is best with friends, the DC Metro isn’t nearly as bad as people say it is, and the best place to watch fireworks in DC is the field at Cardozo High School.
Good luck. We are all counting on you.
–Eric
[CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE PLEASE? YES, SUBMARINES!] I have never let go of my little boy fascination with large transportation: boats, airplanes, trains, and submarines. I’m a total large transport nerd. After reading a fascinating article in Vanity Fair about the OceanGate submersible implosion in route to see the Titanic, I picked up a copy of Susan Casey’s book, The Underworld. It is so cool–and now my family and friends are subjected to my “fun facts” about subs and submersibles (they are two different things, fyi). Like, do you know that when you are at the bottom of the deepest part of the ocean, the pressure is equal to the weight of 292 747 jumbo jets? It is a fun read.
Okay, that’s it for today.
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Make great things. I’ll be listening.