[yyyyyak]

"Legacy business" or not, I believe that listening to local public radio makes me a better citizen of my city. NPR needs to do everything it can to keep the local stations alive because it's not just the nationally popular programming that matters. Honestly, my local NPR station, WNYC, is the only remotely intelligent source of local news. Where else am I going to hear Andrew Cuomo, Bill de Blasio, and other influential people having a frank discussion on important local issues? The only alternatives are random internet blogs, NY Daily News, and Fox 5, and some crazy right wing talk shows in Jersey.

I don't see any problem with doing what it takes to keep these stations alive, even if it means that Ira Glass can't tell me to download this American Life using iTunes (which I already do).

[xzi]

I'd agree with you for the most part. But podcasts have a huge advantage in many ways over listening to radio.

What would be nice would be a system where NPR bundles stories, and fundraising appeals, from the listener's local public radio station into the podcast. To give the same experience as listening to Morning Edition or All Things Considered locally. I suppose this would be a nightmare to implement but it's worth consideration.

[dantiberian]

I don't know a ton about public radio in America, but I'd bet that WNYC is one of the most well funded (they produce Radiolab, among others). As discussed in the article, most local stations are just republishing NPR content, not creating the kind of great content you're talking about.

[Amezarak]

> As discussed in the article, most local stations are just republishing NPR content, not creating the kind of great content you're talking about.

All public radio stations I know of do republish NPR content, and that's usually the bulk of their programming, but I live in a very poor, conservative state and the local public radio station has local news and many other local programs. I can't imagine it's different elsewhere.

In fact, a quick look at the schedule shows all the programming from 8:30-12 on weekdays is local programming, with different shows on different days. If the affiliate in my state can afford that, I can't imagine others can't.

[baldfat]

I've listened to WNYC for years but I have also lived all over the States except the Northwest and nothing can touch the quality of WNYC. I now live in PA but I stream the station all the time with my phone.

[fezz]

Why don't they tie the local stations into the apps so revenue can be tracked by either sposorship or geolocation? As well as locally relevant content?

[cuckcuckspruce]

I would imagine that would open a whole can of works for clearing licensing for clips used on shows produced at the local NPR stations. Right now, you can be pretty well assured that there's a limited audience for these based on signal propagation. The moment that you take a local station and put it online the agencies through which you clear these clips are going to squeeze you for more money because the potential audience size is larger.