Mary’s Notes, June 14, 2007
We learned on Friday that WGBH in Boston has decided not to continue airing Open Source as of July. We are disappointed, of course, and surprised as well. To us the station expressed concern about our long-term funding and said that our program had not developed the Boston audience they had hoped for. We enjoyed the association with the revered brand of WGBH. At the same time we felt the difficulty of breaking through with a one-hour program, in the evening, on what prides itself as a music station. Alas, we never stopped running into people who didn’t know we were on the air in Boston at all. We’re grateful for our superb production colleagues at WGBH. We’re confident about finding the right way to keep distributing Open Source to stations and podcast listeners far and wide.
And speaking about podcasts and radio and Open Source, Mark Glaser has written a nice post about us on PBS’s Media Shift blog. Check it out.
June 14th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
That’s tragic! How abour WERS or Harvard Radio. Perhaps ROS should be a pirate radio stations. Let’s do internet or Sirius!
June 14th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
It’s a shock! And what disappointment in WGBH I feel.
WGBH never helped ROS near as I can tell but they expected the local audience to appear. When they could have reminded us during the day to listen and about what was coming up that night they did not for some strange reason. I get a mailing once a week about what not to miss on WGBH 89.7 and you think they would have mentioned ROS. They did not!
June 14th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
a link to that Media Shift post:
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2007/06/digging_deepercollaborative_ra.html
June 14th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
It’s uncanny the synchronicity of what’s happening at WGBH and what’s happening at my business. I’m about to make some dramatic changes. As I read about the mixed bag of advantages and disadvantages to the WGBH relationship, I wonder if you are experiencing something similar to me: in retrospect I feel that I have made compromises along the way because it seemed that I couldn’t go forward without doing so. But those compromises compromised the vision and I need to move back toward the original path. I can’t regret where I’ve been, because it has garnered the relationships I cherish and the experience to move forward in a better way, but it has been harder than it needed to be. Ultimately, when it feels like the universe is putting too many obstacles in my path, I need to carve a new path.
I look forward to hearing how you move forward with production and distribution. Meanwhile, I will keep the faith….
June 14th, 2007 at 8:18 pm
What a terrible shame.
With luck you will find another station to pick you up soon, it’s too good of a show not to be snatched up quickly.
June 14th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Truly a sad moment. I find it interesting that a manifestly superior talent like Chris Lydon has trouble finding a place in the public discourse of the nation, let alone the erstwhile Athens of America, Boston. What motivates the flaks at WGBH and at UMass-Lowell? All our worthwhile public spaces have been colonized by free-market interests and ideologies. The space for intellectual discourse narrows. Where is George Soros?
June 14th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I’m concerned about ROS. WNYC dropped you, now WGBH. You’re losing a place on major stations in the most important markets. Either something’s wrong with them, or something about ROS can use improvement.
One thing I miss is Chris taking phone calls from listeners. Once you’ve lost that there’s little point in doing a live broadcast. Recording to tape in the present manner, without live audience participation, makes the show sound like a low budget interview show with skeletal production. Chris’s brilliance as a host (and surely Mary and the staff’s skill as producers) usually compensate for that, but not always.
I love the idea of open source public radio, but I’m still not convinced it works better than the conventional live call-in format. Can’t we have both? Isn’t it possible to have an active website with an online community participating in the pre-production of shows and also take listener calls live on the air?
Also — I dread saying this — the natural home for ROS is not WGBH, but rather WBUR.
The dropping of ROS from major public radio stations means ROS isn’t catching on the way it should. What will ROS do differently to address this?
June 15th, 2007 at 12:33 am
I’ll ask directly: what does this mean for the production and distribution of the show?
June 15th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Dalton Jones above says it for me at this moment.
Momos- I had that feeling when WNYC replaced this show with another of lesser quality. Many times I have commented on missing callers on ROS- I think you are right something important is lost. OTOH- Terri Gross does it.
After two years- and it strangely seems like more ( maybe I am putting the 7 at WBUR together with this in my mind-)- something has been created here- or has grown and evolved here, a gathering of folks from all over ( the world! -as Chris says), and interesting, intelligent, thoughtful. challenging conversation.
Allison is, of course, in the right frame of mind. Assess the positive and negatives of this turn of events, soul search, and take it from here, onward and upward.
On my ipod playlist are 180 ROS shows I downloaded over two years- most favorite shows mostly plus a few I look forward to. The closet competitor, one that produces alot more shows per week, I have 135 of on my playlist.
As well I agree with Momos about WBUR- WBUR is a more natural home for Lydon. With the change in management- perhaps this is an option.
June 15th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I think of ROS and the Charlie Rose show as audio and video analogues — but one thrives and the other wilts. Sad. I suspect that ROS in dying, but sometimes I wonder if Chris and his team are simply caterpillers preparing to go into an Autumn cocoon, retrench, and emerge as butterflies in some unknown future. I suppose we will be the last to know what’s going on in Chris’s mind (I certainly wouldn’t share my hopes and fears out loud!). But even if ROS dies, I suspect Chris will be back. Heck, thousands of other products — including cultural products — relaunch… Why not CL? What about televion, Chris? And now that I think of it, why NOT an hour segment getting interviewed by Charlie Rose? Stranger things happen in our bizarre world!
June 15th, 2007 at 9:03 am
Nassir Taleb’s ‘The Black Swan is an appropriate book to read at this juncture. At one point he makes the point that people like to learn about successes, but that we often learn more from failure than from success. It’s just that people foolishly think that success is based on skill and secrets — but that in truth it often is simply luck. Those who are felled by decisions and circumstances beyond their control disappear, while the lucky loudly declaim to the gullible mass how wonderful they are. And eventually they too fall. As a survivor, many of us can only say, ‘Tough times never last; tough people do!’
June 15th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Dang. This is too much like the Sopranos finale. WTF?
Will C.Lydon & co. ever catch a break with a damn radio station?
June 15th, 2007 at 11:55 am
I’m really sad to hear this, guys. A local on-air home is, well, a local on-air home. Now you’ll just have to more fully realize the web 2.0 of it all, and sink or swim with web distribution. I’ll be pulling for you. Curahee!
June 15th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
ROS does not need listener call ins. They would distract and derail more interesting conversations than contribute insight. It is only an hour-long show, one which currates guests interesting enough to listen to for the entirety.
I avidly listen to ROS because it is unlike much of public radio. I only listen to it as a podcast despite living within broadcast range. It feels more like premium channel cable than radio. It is something I would pay for. I know, as a demographic, I am not in the majority and constituents like me don’t pull the same weight as live broadcast listeners. ROS could be produced in advance for cheaper and broadcasted from a can. It could be produced under less hectic conditions and publish less frequently and still retain the quality we have come to enjoy. but, none of that speaks to any real world finances.
For what it’s worth: keep it up, however you can.
June 16th, 2007 at 7:05 am
rahbuhbuh- I am not pushing for call-ins not now especially and not if there is no enthusiasm for them ( or there are not enough folks on staff to handle this) but I would like to point out that many shows that have some callers are only one hour long. The Connection shows were one hour long (each topic) and Chris was terrific with the callers. Many times callers, with their thoughts and stories and opposing views, made a real difference to a show.
June 16th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I’ve been thinking the same thing as momos for some time. When the show fails to gain acceptance with the audience it is important to look at how something about the show itself might be causing this. It’s easy as an underdog to fall into the place of blaming the larger and more powerful decision-making forces and lose sight of the part oneself plays in it. The show did so well in its incarnation as the Connection and never took off in the transition to the blooging thing. Same host, same producer - it doesn’t seem like rocket science to wnder whether the change in format might be the cause. For me it definitelt lost something when it cut off the live call-ins. And at some point, when it repeatedly does not engage sufficient numbers of listeners, you have to consider that there are many others who feel the same way. Its true that some of the call-ins are dead-ends, but the vocal and human - as oppposed to the electronic detached - connection is more engaging. My sense is that Chris got carried away with his romance with the blogosphere as venue for live radio. It just doesn’t work. How much more evidence to you need?
June 16th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Perhaps ROS, being an open source show, should do a show on its history, including its successes-and current travails and troubles-and the larger picture of internet radio . . .. Perhaps it could do a series on the current media environment, and includes folks like Jay Rosen. This might also lead to more asture thinking by the staff concerning the show’s strengths and weaknesses, and the best future path for it to seek to take.
Perhaps podcasting and other WWW distribution is the show’s future-but, the universe of available podcasts is expanding so swiftly . . ..
June 18th, 2007 at 11:40 am
The problem with many people not knowing Lydon was “back on the air” does stem directly from ROS not being on WBUR; that’s the natural home for NPR news/talk and there’s really no way around that…sort of buying underwriting time on WBUR promoting the show on WGBH (something I doubt WBUR would sell).
After all, WBUR is “Boston’s NPR **news** Station” whereas WGBH is “Boston’s NPR **arts & culture** Station”. Despite GBH’s increase in news/talk programming as of late, there’s no denying that it’s not the core part of their overall branding.
Things have changed a great deal at WBUR since Lydon and Jane Christo had the meltdown that led to the end of Lydon’s tenure there (Feb.2001, IIRC). There’s a lot of new staff and, most importantly, a new general manager (Paul La Camera) with (as far as I know) no particular dog in that fight. So he could make an objective decision as to whether or not to carry ROS.
Of course, I’m sure Chris & Mary are (or soon will be) on the phone with WBUR already.
June 19th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Mary & company - you might be aware of this, but you don’t NEED to be a member of PRI, or NPR, or anyone, to put a show out over the Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS). Us folks over at The Infinite Mind have been independent for 10 years but we’ve always distributed over PRSS (now ContentDepot). Pacifica Radio and Pacifica-related shows (like Democracy Now) also distribute over PRSS, I believe. AFAIK, PRSS’s rates are pretty reasonable.
June 20th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
I don’t listen all that often (and I was something of a Lydonista), largely because there are no live calls. My computer is acting wonky, so to listen online, I need to hunt down my headphones, and it’s not worth the effort without the live feel.
Sometimes I watch Charlie Rose, but I’m starting to find it boring. Having a blog is great, but some people are great talkers without being great writers.
I don’t really like Terry Gross all that much, but her thing is different.
My favorite show which doesn’t have live-in callers achieves a simialr effect by having different guests on to discuss their own thing. Radio 4’s “Start the Week” is great, but part of the fun is that you can hear people thinking aloud, not just see it. All of the guests read each other’s books too or go to their exhibitions.
I’m mostly tired of American talk radio. I’d hoped for more from Chris and Mary, but I have to say that I have been disappointed. And I really missed you all so much for a couple of years.
June 21st, 2007 at 6:21 am
terrestrial radio is sooo over. I consider this the cutting of the umbilical chord. Podcasting is the future and it is exactly the way Open Source should be ingested. The decision to cut ROS is yet another example of how out of touch Public Radio has become. Long live the internets!
April 27th, 2008 at 4:31 am
[...] Lydon, announced that Boston NPR affiliate wgbh had decided to pull the plug on funding. Nohttp://www.radioopensource.org/marys-notes-june-14-2007/Welcome to WGBH. [...]