Comments on: Is this a trick question?

By: Valdis

Valdis — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:11:06 +0000

@Sphere Coupler: “I would think that the delivery style of the “to the point, no hyperbole” would be seductive to the ever increasingly educated public.”

Which would be good if there was reason to believe in the existence of an increasingly educated public. All indications are that the populace in general is becoming increasingly illiterate, innumerate, lacking in critical reasoning skills, and in general poorly informed.

By: MPS

MPS — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:11:45 +0000

I agree with #11 jlive: to use term “market share” is silly. I too had to go back to the source and figure out what was going on. And in the end it’s not really clear what this means, to compare radio to TV.

By: Andrew S

Andrew S — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:20:45 +0000

Never trust a line graph that only has two datapoints.

By: Peter Coles

Peter Coles — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:37:30 +0000

What’s NPR? In my dictionary it would be between National Physical Laboratory and Net Present Value but there’s nothing there….

By: idontknow

idontknow — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:27:30 +0000

“Radio is the only delivery mechanism that you can absorb while doing something else.”

Wasn’t that also true in 1998? I’m not getting how that explains what the graph illustrates — the growth of NPR relative to newspapers and network TV news over a 10-year period.

By: John Mark Ockerbloom

John Mark Ockerbloom — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 14:15:20 +0000

Radio seems to also have a lot more flexibility than TV news, in my experience. You don’t have to be limited to the kinds of stories that have interesting pictures, and that you can get a camera crew to. Freed from the need to make compelling visuals (or to use “video news releases” from sources that have their own interest in what story gets out), you can cover a lot more ground, with a mix of straight narration and audio from your sources.

And yes, in the case of NPR, not having to depend on commercials helps too. You don’t have to have those pointless minutes of pseudo-informative teasers taking up time just to get people to sit through the ads.

By: tom

tom — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:01:30 +0000

I also do not watch T.V. news as a matter of principle. But just to be fair – NPR omits lots of newsworthy stories. Their only saving grace is that they treat their readers as adults rather than as children hopped up on methamphetamines.

By: John

John — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:30:26 +0000

TV networks mastered this in the 1970s before there was cable news.

AM TV is designed so the audience can listen without watching. They know their audience is busy getting ready for work or getting kids ready. The script is as well worn and profitable like the nutcracker or hamlet.

profits of Good Morning America + Regis and Kelly > NPR.

Wake up and huff the sanka.

By: thelonious

thelonious — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 05:52:58 +0000

The reasons you give are nothing new: back in 98 radio was also the only thing you could do while doing something else. So that does not explain the increase. Perhaps the inaneness of cable news and newspapers is a factor in people turning to NPR.

By: Eugene

Eugene — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 04:45:42 +0000

I listen to NPR because I can’t stand all the cable news crap.

By: TimG

TimG — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 02:43:09 +0000

I’m an NPR listener who refuses to watch T.V. news on principle… the principle that it’s terrible. “Which common household product could be killing your children while they sleep? Find out at 11!” Show me a T.V. news program that has the same quality, in-depth reporting as I hear on NPR without all the typical T.V. sensationalism, and I’d absolutely consider watching it. The fact that I can listen to NPR on my drive to work is only a bonus.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:16:43 +0000

@ Simplicio (#1):

“cabal channels”

Very clever!

By: Sphere Coupler

Sphere Coupler — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:06:57 +0000

I would think that the delivery style of the “to the point, no hyperbole” would be seductive to the ever increasingly educated public.
Works for me, NPR is actual news, not a sensationalized diversion from reality like most politicaly directed corporate conglomerate (news?).

By: GP

GP — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 00:37:12 +0000

I think you’re exactly right. I get almost all my news from listening to the radio between when the alarm goes off to when I arrive at work. There’s no way I could get the same thing from either TV or print. Except I’m Canadian so I listen to the CBC instead of NPR.

By: Dr. Morbius

Dr. Morbius — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:50:54 +0000

I refuse to watch local network news simply as a matter of principle. It is pure garbage populated with stories about murders, car accidents, runaway dogs etc. I watch the Newshour on PBS and have CNN going on in the background while I’m doing other stuff. CNN is a step up from local news because they don’t do pointless stories but they do have a habit of beating news stories to death like they did with the Haiti earthquake and with obsessing over celebrity news stories. The rest of the time I have NPR streaming on my computer.

By: jlive

jlive — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:40:56 +0000

Why are they comparing TV to radio in the first place? That graph is almost meaningless without including public TV ratings and private radio ratings (yes, there are private news and talk radio stations). Especially in light of your explanation, you ought to check to see whether other radio substitutes for visual media saw similar increases over the same period.

And why did Chart Busters take a graph that gives audience in millions of users and put it in (incorrect) terms of market share?!? That’s just bizarre.

By: Pieter Kok

Pieter Kok — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:33:11 +0000

Does this growth in NPR’s market share includes its podcasts? I can imagine that NPR blows the competition away in this respect (on account of having actually something interesting to say).

By: Charon

Charon — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:28:22 +0000

“Radio is the only delivery mechanism that you can absorb while doing something else.”

That’s not true – at least it’s not true if you treat TV like radio. I quite often listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann while doing other things. Yes, occasionally they show images that are integral to what they’re saying, but most of the time you can just treat it like radio.

And because both of their TV programs are on iTunes, for free, I can play them on my laptop wherever I am, whenever I want. And there are no ads.

By: arfnotz

arfnotz — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:34:54 +0000

easy – no ads. The ads on both local and cable news are non-stop and grate like hell. Car dealers are the worst. That and th efact that locla news is all about stickups and car wrecks, and Cable just hammers the same crap every 2 minutes means they are completely out of my universe.

Whats also annoying is ther omnipresence in airports – Hartsfield Atlanta being the worst. PLEASE tune them off.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:06:32 +0000

Ira Glass pretending to play drums behind OK GO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0nTc_CIPy4

Gretchen Helfritch pretending to play guitar; Peter Sagal demonstrating he doesn’t really understand how the bass guitar is to be played.