American
Public Media (APM) and the New York Times
announced last week [link] that the Times popular podcast The Daily will be coming to public radio in April.
The Daily [link] is typically around
20-minutes in length. The show will be edited into a half-hour program and
distributed each weekday by APM to stations.
According
to media reports, public radio stations will pay a yet-to-be-announced carriage
fee for the program.
The Daily is
available to podcast listeners in the morning but the radio version will not be
distributed until later in the day.
The Daily, which launched in
February 2017, is hosted by Times journalist
Michael Barbaro. The podcast has become an unprecedented hit with 4.5 million
unique monthly listeners and downloaded more than 200 million times in the
first ten months. The Daily is a fee-based podcast, but there are no published
reports about the revenue it generates for the Times.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR APM?
Reportedly,
APM and the Times will split the carriage fee revenue and new revenue generated
by underwriters. Also, The Times will be running
announcements during The Daily.
The
Daily will provide APM a bankable show that will increase the perceived value
of affiliation to the network. Stations
must pay APM affiliation fees before they can access the network’s programming
portfolio. Affiliation fees are a major source of revenue for APM.
APM
plans to market The Daily as companion to Marketplace, also a 30-minute
program. For example, APM’s Minnesota News stations will be airing Marketplace
at 6:00pm CT and The Daily at 6:30pm. In other words, the two half-hour
programs will fill one broadcast hour, something stations have needed.
APM
hopes this will cure an anomaly from the late 1980’s when Marketplace began as
a half-hour program to be the “last half hour of All Things Considered.” ATC at
the time was a 90-minute program.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE TIMES?
The
Times will be running announcements during the radio version of The Daily to
promote digital subscriptions. According to Publisher’s Weekly [link], the
Times is pivoting to digital to ensure the future of the company as print
subscribers decline. The Times added more than 150,000 digital-only
subscriptions in the last
quarter of 2017.
The
Times knows of the high affinity between their publication’s subscribers and
NPR news listeners. The free announcements within APM’s version of The Daily is a great way to reach these
folks.
The
collaboration with APM shows the Times
is expanding into audio reporting, which is important to both radio and podcasting.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR LISTENERS?
Dave Kansas |
Dave
Kansas, APM’s COO, said it best:
"We know that our
curious listeners want to better understand the complex issues of the world we
live in, and the addition of this trusted name to our already strong portfolio
helps us bring more in-depth, robust journalism to our audiences.”
KEN SAYS: This collaboration makes
a lot of sense for everyone. Look for it to succeed.
DAN RATHER’S NEW INTERVIEW
SERIES WITH ROCK MUSIC ICONS IS COMING TO RADIO
AXS
TV [link] has announced that The Big
Interview With Dan Rather is scheduled to debut in March on radio stations
nationwide. The series will feature the legendary former CBS News anchor
interviewing such stars as Eddie Money, Billy Ray Cyrus and the Oak Ridge Boys.
The
reason this is happening? AXS TV needs new subscribers. Though the company is
backed by billionaire Mark Cuban, Ryan Seacrest and the Creative Artists Agency
(CAA), AXS is far behind competitors such as Netflix and Hulu.
This idea must have made sense in the AXS boardroom to publicize the Rather interviews
by simulcasting them on radio.
I
have always respected Dan Rather, but this move perplexes me. To me, Rather is
terrific doing reporting and analysis of news and current affairs, but I can’t
imagine listening to him ask the Oak Ridge Boys about writing the song Elvira.
I
listened to samples on the AXS website and Rather sounds like he is “phoning it
in.”
Plus,TV audio on radio is almost always problematic because of room ambience
and other factors.
The
press release from AXS trumpets radio stations that have already agreed to air
the series. One station on the list I know very, very well: KQRS, the Classic
Rock leader in the Twin Cities for over three decades. “KQ” is a
music-intensive station that never breaks the flow except for morning ratings
king Tom Bernard.
So,
I called a friend who works at KQ and asked him when the The Big Interview With Dan Rather will air on the station.
My
friend chuckled and said: “You won’t hear it on KQ. We are running the spots,
not the show.”
This
is an old trick used by commercial radio syndicators to pad program carriage lists. In this case AXS TV is paying KQRS to run the commercials with no requirement to run the show. Then AXS gets to use the station on its promo material to show success. Consider transactions like this as the
value of programming in commercial radio.
value of programming in commercial radio.
You forgot to ask "What's in it for Public Radio Stations?"
ReplyDeleteThe answer: nothing. This is giving airtime (and indirectly, revenue) to a direct competitor. It's a terrible idea. And it's being pushed by Kinsey Wilson which tells you all you need to know.