Bryant park project is dead according to NPR sources

Rumors are flying in New York media that NPR's experimental Bryant Park Project will be cancelled sooner than later.

The staff may be told as early as Monday.

The off-beat newscast which was launched last October was morning news to bring a lighter 'tude, and reflecting a target 28-40 demo that wants news in new ways in the digital age. BPP is carried in the Seattle market on public ra dio's KXOT m-f, 5-8a).

The New York Observer and The New York Times were about to publish dueling features on the show, causing NPR suits to announce the plug-pulling earlier than planned.

The off-beat show ran into political problems within the NPR power structure after the departures of its champions former CEO Ken Stern, and senior veep for programming Jay Kernis, departed.

Host Alison Stewart, off on maternity leave can't confirm or deny anything except to say that rumors she's been shopping around her rèsumè are apocryphal. "Frankly all I have been doing is taking care of my newborn," she told Blatherwatch.

KIRO's Luke Burbank, Stewart's former co-host says, told BlatherWatch: "I'm sad if it's true, but I'm really out of the loop at NPR these days."

Stay tuned for further developments.

Comments

[Duffman]

Do you really think that Luke Burbank, after such a relatively short period is REALLY out of the loop, especially with the contacts he still touts. Sounds like a bunch of TBTL to me.

[Jschneider]

yeah - truly stupid. Sounds like the funeral bells for NPR.

[Sandstrom]

They put a lot of dough inot this venture. Looks like Luke got out clean, if this is true.

[Wild Bill]

So, Duff, your only response to this story is to intimate that Luke isn't being forthright? And based upon what facts? Ohhhh, the mighty Duff's intuition. Let's see, Luke's last BPP was in mid December, 2007. I know in Duffland that NPR must be a shack with three or four "DJ's" who all pal around and high five. I think Luke has had one, or two people on the brilliant tbtl that worked or work for NPR. BPP was on in 16 markets and was an experiment from the start. I hardly think that NPR is in its death dance. NPR rates a 6 in this market. Luke has said in the Seattle Magazine and other interviews that he left for a variety of reasons, one of which was to get away from NPR's institutionalized beauracracy. Luke has been pouring heart and soul into the brilliant tbtl since he arrived. In Duffland it's more like Mayberry where Goober and Barney know what color socks Aunt Bee is wearing. "NPR serves a growing audience of 26 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 860 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations." Yup, Luke must be in the Goober loop. You're a tool, Duffman. TBTL is the light in The Depression, now unwinding in slow motion.

[Gay Gary]

"NPR serves a growing audience of 26 million Americans each week in partnership with more than 860 independently operated, noncommercial public radio stations."

That's awful - is this really true? That's only a weekly audience of 30,000 per station. The Saturday edition of the KIRO morning news gets something like 60,000 -- that's a daily number ... their weekly must be a few hundred thousand. Thirty thousand per week is below death bed levels. I had no idea they were that bad off.

[Wild Bill]

Gary, of course it's not evenly divided, like a math quiz. Again NPR has a 6 in Seattle, nobody else is even close. That fact that NPR is in Po Dunk Ruralville is the point. Sorry, I don't have illustrations for you. Also did you get the one about "noncommercial public radio stations." Next time, I'll post with puppets for you. :)

[Gay Gary]

it's not evenly divided

Yeah. That means their small markets have weekly audiences of
5 or 6 thousand! High school stations do better than that! Even in tiny town that's not commercially viable. NPR has become a listener-supported Welfare State.

Besides, it's common knowledge NPR pulls their numbers out of thin air.

http://www.current.org/audience/aud0620radiocume.shtml

NPR has a 6 in Seattle

The exception that proves the rule. As goes Lunaticville goes Lunaticville. CPB money would be better spent on firearms and gun awareness education for disadvantaged youth.

As for what's it called getting canceled, no shocker. "The Onion" called it 8 years before the show even went on the air:

WASHINGTON, DC–National Public Radio officials are blaming "inadequate listener support" for the low ratings plaguing the two-month-old NPR Morning Zoo Crew Show. "For some reason, radio listeners have not responded to the zany antics of NPR Zookeepers Alex Chadwick, Jean Cochran and Bob Edwards, whose outrageous pranks have included phoning Harper's editor Lewis Lapham at 6 a.m. and telling him that there's a new collection of Nicholson Baker short stories due out in the fall," NPR programming director James Orbach said. "Then there was the time the Zookeepers actually had Saul Bellow convinced that he'd won the Booker Prize." The NPR Zoo Crew has also gained notoriety for its wacky song parodies, such as a reworked "Prelude In C-Sharp Minor" by Rachmaninoff with lyrics spoofing Noam Chomsky's recent speech before the National Book Club.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31980

[j@aol.com]

Exceptions don't prove the rule. Shame on you. That's a cheap shot and beneath you.

God, I hate sophistry.

[j@aol.com]

Exceptions don't prove the rule. Shame on you. That's a cheap shot and beneath you.

God, I hate sophistry.

[Gay Gary]

Well, whatever. I listened to it once and it obviously failed for the same reason most (not all - see Seinfeld, Will & Grace, etc.) programs based in NYC fail - it spends all its time droning on about the city and how variously wonderful and horrible XYZ gothamesque character or trait is or is not. A nationally broadcast program can't rely on geographic specificities and idiosyncrasies ... for some reason, some people, sometimes, think that this rule doesn't apply to New York and that the five boroughs are some microcosm of America.

It comes across as really Jewy*.

Also, the air staff weren't very talented.

* my mother was a Jew so don't jump on me

[joanie]

Much better, gigi. But, was Bryant Park given a decent chance to succeed or was it fear of change and/or politics that led to its demise and not subject matter?

Was it terribly parochial?

[Wild Bill]

GARY, see the point is that NPR is getting maybe five or six thousand listeners in small farming towns with samaller population than that. SO, the farmer in his International Harvester Cab, or the folks at the watering hole have a source other than blowhard right wing fat men. So, the seeds of change are planted. The folks on the farm can learn from The Left, Small roots, tiny vines can smash the boulders, and then the winds carry them away, sort of like the current brand of Conservatism....NPR is already in the top ten in the major markets where it matters. Who cares if the don't get a big crowd in, say, Houston. Texas ain;t really America, anyway. Is it?

[Gay Gary]

GARY, see the point is that NPR is getting maybe five or six thousand listeners in small farming towns with samaller population than that. SO, the farmer in his International Harvester Cab, or the folks at the watering hole have a source other than blowhard right wing fat men. So, the seeds of change are planted. The folks on the farm can learn from The Left, Small roots, tiny vines can smash the boulders, and then the winds carry them away, sort of like the current brand of Conservatism....NPR is already in the top ten in the major markets where it matters. Who cares if the don't get a big crowd in, say, Houston. Texas ain;t really America, anyway. Is it?

So annnnyway ...

Joanie - I think the fact that this genre of program are failing left and right (recall PRI also had to can their version of the BPP a few weeks back) doesn't support the conclusion of a Bohemian Grove conspiracy trying to keep down a new generation of voices on the radio. Market forces have some incremental effect, even in the insulated, subsidized world of public radio, and programs programmed sans talent have little future.

[joanie]

Oh dear, Gigi. I left the italics on on another thread and you left bold on here...

I guess we're two peas in a pod. So cuddle up, gigi.

I see Wild Bill's point, however. It is true that in those very small agri -communities, right-wing radio is all they get. Have you taken a trip cross country recently? I'm addicted to radio and when I go over to Chelan and up into the Okanogan, I'm dying cruising the dial for anything worth listening to. And I can always find Rush.

I've never found public radio over there either. But if it is there, I hope somebody will tell me where it is on the dial. I'll be a happier camper this August.

BTW, regarding Texas? A guest on Peter B. today was talking about a change to the left in the south. He said the die cast with the Civil Rights movement and laws in the sixties has been wearing away and Texas is fast becoming liberal again. Esp. since whites are fast becoming a minority down there.

Eat our heart out, chucks. One more nail in the coffin of the superior white male.

[Idaho Radio Geek]

Rehm starts at 7, remember?

KXOT 5 to 7 am only. Although, I can't hear KXOT in Seattle.

KCPW in Salt Lake City, Utah cut the program back to one hour 5-6a, further decreasing its potential reach in that market.