Bryant Park Project cancelled
NPR is pulling the plug on its alternative to its respected-but-ultra-stodgy Morning Edition, the Bryant Park Project:
National Public Radio officials are expected on Monday to tell the staff members of “Bryant Park Project� that their experimental weekday morning program, designed to draw a younger audience to public radio and capture listeners who had moved online, is being canceled.
The last broadcast of this New York-based program, which many listeners tuned into at npr.org rather than over the air, is expected to be on July 25. It’s an expensive failure — the first-year budget was more than $2 million — and comes at a time when NPR is facing the same financial constraints as other news media thanks to higher costs and a downturn in underwriting.
Like other news organizations, NPR has been grappling with how best to capture the online audience, and “Bryant Park Project,� which had its debut on Oct. 1, was one of its boldest attempts. The live two-hour program ranged through news and cultural topics in an informal, conversational manner and differed from more traditional NPR broadcasts, which rely heavily on prepackaged reports.
“Bryant Park Project� includes cheeky features like “Make Me Care,� which points up news reports’ real-life relevance. It also has a robust Web presence that is updated with blog posts throughout the day and also includes video.
They confirmed it on-air this morning.
I’ve been listening to the BPP for months now, and find it’s a great hybrid of the smarts of Morning Edition with the more irreverent and current vibe of a commercial morning program, without spending stupid amounts of time on meaningless crap. It’s just about the perfect news show.
According to the NYT article quoted above, they’ve gotten a much bigger audience than anticipated, which raises a pretty basic question: Where was the pledge drive? NPR holds the damned things on their stations more or less constantly, and some of the more popular podcasted shows do it as well. (On the Media and The Sound of Young America both spring immediately to mind here.) If everyone who listened the BPP tossed in $2, they would have covered their costs. What’s the deal, NPR? Without the BPP, the network is still focusing on an older demographic at a time when younger people are turning away from radio entirely, as I have, in favor of the iPod and podcasts.
I guess after next Friday’s sign-off, I’ll switch over to the WNYC/PRI take on the same concept, The Takeaway. Hopefully they’ll actually try a pledge drive before pulling the plug due to lack of funds.
