[cjensen]

It's long saddened me that you can't get Prairie Home Companion as a podcast: there's too many songs from too many authors so they don't even try to acquire the rights. Our copyright regime still needs to adapt to the modern world.

[wikibob]

I came here to say this. For years I thought of setting up something to automatically record and catalog the shows, and sadly it's too late now.

Has anyone found an online source for full archived shows?

Surely someone somewhere has them saved...

[cjensen]

PHC provides an archive[1]. I've used Audio Hijack [2] in the past to grab some of them, but that's a bit of a pain in the neck.

[1] http://prairiehome.org/shows/

[2] https://rogueamoeba.com/audiohijack/

[jgoewert]

http://prairiehome.org/shows/ has the archive, and it is kind of sucky to use their player when out on a road trip here on the prairie. I'm not on the same edge of the prairie as St. Paul, but the cellular network isn't exactly top notch on the roads I travel here in SE Indiana. So, I yank down the episodes that I miss the live broadcasts.

The APM player is open source.

https://github.com/APMG/APMPlayer

But no need to deep dive the source.

When you open a player page's source, you see a line like this:

var playables = [{"identifier":"apm_audio:\/phc\/2016\/07\/02\/phc_20160702_128.mp3"}];

Looks like the end of a URL, but what is the beginning? It isn't prairiehome.publicradio.org where the page is served from.

Opening the apmplayer-all.min.js, there is:

function(){var d={"apm-audio":{flash_server_url:"rtmp://ondemand-rtmp.stream.publicradio.org/music",flash_file_prefix:"mp3:ondemand",http_file_prefix:"http://ondemand-http.stream.publicradio.org",buffer_time:3,t...},"apm-live-audio"

You get the beginning of the URL for the file. Put two and two together, you get:

http://ondemand-http.stream.publicradio.org/phc/2016/07/02/p...

Now that we have the format and know that PHC is a weekly show, you could directly grab or make a bulk download script.

http://ondemand-http.stream.publicradio.org/phc/YYYY/MM/DD/p...

Note: the archive only has Sept 2012 onward - http://prairiehome.org/shows/2012/09/ Before that, episodes are Realplayer RAM files on the old archive page.

[kenbellows]

How do copyright laws differ between podcasts and broadcast radio? Wouldn't the rights need to be acquired anyway to put it over the airwaves, or is there some fundamental difference between how things are handled on radio vs. the internet?

[lambda]

There's a fundamental difference. Radio broadcasts are generally considered public performances, and generally handled under blanket licenses with ASCAP, BMI, and the like. There is also a separate blanket licensing scheme for digital streaming radio, SoundExchange. There is no blanket licensing for digital downloads; thus, to provide digital downloads that contain music, PRI would have to negotiate separate contracts with each of the copyright holders.

[empthought]

Radio stations can pay royalties to a middleman (SoundExchange) for "ephemeral" rights, but since the mechanism of podcasting requires on-demand playback and downloading to the device, acquiring ephemeral rights is not sufficient.

I think streams where you don't pick the song that comes up next can also be licensed more similarly to radio broadcasts.

The law itself isn't really the question here; it's more the economic entities and standard agreements built to sustain broadcast use of music can't be adapted to podcast use in a cost-effective way.

This is also why we don't have the Massive Attack song as the intro to "House, M.D." on streaming services any more.

[technofiend]

I don't think GK hates anyone or anything but I remember the day I completely lost interest in PHC: it was the day an interview ran and the intro explained Garrison lives in NYC.

The thing is sometimes there's not much distance between an homage and a satire. Fred Armisen's Portlandia is a good example of a show that wobbles between gently poking fun and outright mean-spirited mockery.

Once I learned all the Prarie Home Companion episodes were written from New York City it became much easier to see some of those skits as GK laughing at Lake Woebegone residents rather than with them.

[HelloImDumb]

GK was 45 years old when he first did a show in New York. He moved back to St. Paul five years later. The show is typically touring around the country and the world. He has split his time since 1987 living in New York and Minnesota. How does the fact that he decided, in his middle age, to live in New York at various times. suddenly change his work into mean-spirited mockery?

I don't think you understand his work. You don't have to like it, but that doesn't mean you know what he's trying to say.

[technofiend]

It's obviously a matter of perspective: for me writing an opening monologue of "Well, it's getting colder here each night in Lake Woebegone" from a Starbucks on Broadway doesn't feel as sincere as writing the exact same words in St. Paul.

I understand he's trying to depict a bucolic lifestyle and portray himself as a resident and narrator of this fictional little town. But in my opinion if you're sitting at a remove from the area that inspires these stories it's possible for another perspective to color your view. Culturally NYC and St. Paul much less Lake Woebegone are vastly different.

Nobody's saying you have to agree with me, but I do get what he's trying to do. I just find it harder to believe it's anything but entirely fiction as opposed to a tapestry woven from an underlying truth with the names changed to protect the innocent, and for me that makes all the difference.

[modfodder]

So you don't read any Science Fiction or Fantasy.

It'd be one thing if he was born and raised in NY, but he grew up and spent most of his life in Minnesota. Surely as a writer he is able to invoke his past memories with sincerity in creating this fictional narrative. Or do you believe that as soon as he crossed the Minnesota border, all that was lost, and as he stepped into a NYC Starbucks he became a jaded cynical New Yorker.

[HelloImDumb]

I hate to break it to you, but it is entirely fiction. There is no Lake Wobegone. St. Paul is not a little town either. Sorry to further shatter your suspension of disbelief.

[jhbadger]

Yeah, exactly. St. Paul and New York City have more in common with each other than either do with rural communities in their own states.

[kaitai]

Don't worry; Garrison is plenty attached to St. Paul, getting in spats with the neighbors, enjoying his lovely house. All his love affairs started in Minnesota and that's something. I don't think they all ended here though.