On the road today wanting to hear the proceedings of the House Intelligence Committee, I first sought out Buffalo's only commercial news-talk station but found it was in normal programming mode. Next stop, WBFO, which offered gavel-to-gavel coverage of Acting DNI Joseph Maguire's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, followed by objective analysis. Well-played, WBFO decision-maker(s).
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Credit Due WBFO
- Thread starter Element9
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Credit due to WBEN, too...
On Wednesday "Buffalo's only commercial news-talk station" ran ABC anchored coverage on the whistleblower transcript release. Well-played, WBEN decision-maker(s). That's much more newsworthy than airing a droning political granstanding session.
On Wednesday "Buffalo's only commercial news-talk station" ran ABC anchored coverage on the whistleblower transcript release. Well-played, WBEN decision-maker(s). That's much more newsworthy than airing a droning political granstanding session.
Most NPR member stations usually do this if it has this grand magnitude.
...if only a transcript HAD been released. Instead, it was just a memo. A damning memo, but a memo just the same.
Im a commercial radio on air talent/production guy of over 15 years... but i ended up as the program/production director for a rural npr station for 18 months. I've never been an NPR listener before, but not for any specific reason, just because
LOCAL NPR stations have some of the most fair, balanced, well thought out, in depth, well planned local news coverage you'll see, er hear anywhere, I worked for a very small station with a small staff.. and anytime there was a conflict of interest, potentially, real or imagined by our news guy.. or he was worried about his coverage, we had a staff meeting to go over it.
Heard WBEN. Heard some of the NPR coverage. Most of the grandstanding came from the sycophants on the committee braying about Dear Leader like the callers heard on 930.
Embarrassingly, I learned this only a few years ago myself. All along, before I spent much time listening, I believed they were the liberal answer to rightwing talkradio, but no, they really are an example of the way it should be done.
Many consumers of rightwing media are taught that any media left of them is hyper-partisan. Many on the right believe this because either: A) they assume since they're hyper-pasrtisan, then everyone must be, or B) they know it's not true, but pushing that line of BS makes their own outlandish conspiracy theories more acceptable and/or digestible.
Moderator Comment: This is as far as this thread is going to go in the area of pure politics. Whether it is the left calling the right out or the right throwing words at the left, that is partisan opinion and thus partisan politics which is not permitted here.
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That's your opinion. I am familiar with may cases where it is felt that NPR focuses disproportionately on issues and causes favored by the center-left and progressives and not enough on the issues of importance to those on the other side of the spectrum.
None of the people I hear that from are uneducated boors; more often than not they are better educated than I am and fall in the "community leader" category.
Personally, my criticism of NPR is that, like with the New York Times (which I also subscribe to), many stories are too long-winded. The style of delivery is not "friendly" enough for me, but that's my own taste as a considerable veteran of commercial radio.
If we want a quantitative analysis, we can look at the performance of NPR affiliates in red markets vs. blue ones. The outcome is quite predictable.
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Thank you for a substantive and real evaluation of what is a truly topical subject.
We can discuss radio and TV subjects that have political coloring or grounding, and this post shows how your personal experience sheds light on the discussion.
Are you saying that the average commercial AM News Talk stations offer "balanced" viewpoints? You admit that you don't like like NPR. That's fine, but NPR is much more credible than the rabid venom on the Commercial AM side...
Thanks
And i dont come at this as a republican, democrat, liberal or anything.. i come at this from the view of substance and content. Politics don't enter my judgement when evaluating what i hear or the news i produce myself (insomuch as, i dont let politics influence or affect what i do and i separate politics/opinion from facts in the news i hear)
Nobody objective could or would say that. Commercial AM news/talk stations are intended to be entertainment for what is the largest remaining available audience on that band. Many of those stations have good news operations, but almost all lean conservative and program that way because it gets the most audience.
I do not dislike NPR; I just don't find it a particularly inviting listening experience and its long-form coverage generally tells me more than I want to know while other subjects don't get covered at all in the time span I might listen.
Generally, I prefer the BBC world service for its vastly superior international coverage as well as its superior writing and reporting.
I think that there's a substantive difference between programming produced by NPR, programming distributed by NPR, and programming from other sources like PRI, PRX and APR. It also seems to me that there's been a bit more "lean" since some of the older NPR hosts were replaced during the "Me Too" movement.
If NPR is a couple of clicks left of the political center, WBEN is a LOT of clicks right of center.
Overall I think its a shame that politics has infested every nook and cranny of the "news" business. It's obvious that political posturing is part of the pursuit of profit in news programming. It's not about public service. It's about corporate profit - whether that corporation is for-profit or not-for-profit. NFPs may actually be teaching commercial radio that limiting sponsorship opportunities and getting more for the those opportunities can work.
If NPR is a couple of clicks left of the political center, WBEN is a LOT of clicks right of center.
Overall I think its a shame that politics has infested every nook and cranny of the "news" business. It's obvious that political posturing is part of the pursuit of profit in news programming. It's not about public service. It's about corporate profit - whether that corporation is for-profit or not-for-profit. NFPs may actually be teaching commercial radio that limiting sponsorship opportunities and getting more for the those opportunities can work.
There is no evidence that limiting commercial availability will increase the rate that can be charged per spot.
Agency buys are priced based on audience delivery within the target of a campaign. It is next to impossible to get on a buy if you are priced higher per GRP than your competitors. And with more and more agency business being bought with programatic systems, there is no chance to make a verbal argument for a higher rate... you just don't get bought.
Part of the problem was when the government itself stopped being concerned about public service. That all began in the 1980s. The FCC is now in the for-profit business, selling off spectrum space to telco companies. Those telco companies are so rich they're buying up media companies. Meanwhile, radio companies are forced to operate like its still the 1930s. If the government is no longer concerned about public service, why should radio companies?
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