[Swprograms] NYT article: "A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas"

[Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

>From today's NY Times,
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/business/media/25source.html

This group may find interesting the mention of XM -- PRI is shopping
this program to then, and Christopher Lydon -- the host -- was the
original host of "The Connection" on WBUR.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA  USA

---

July 25, 2005
A Radio Program Turns to a Blog to Cull Ideas
By TANIA RALLI

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.

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