There's a New Neighbor in the 'Hood
Folks at NPR were secretly listening to a new competitor this morning. The Washington Post has launched a new radio channel and have made no secret of the fact that they are going after the public radio audience. Marc Fisher, a radio columnist for the Post, wrote:
"The station will try to appeal to listeners who might find all-news radio too superficial yet think of public radio as too dull."
Hey. Back off buddy. You want to take this outside for a debate over globalization? I didn't think so.
I do find it interesting that one fading medium, print newspapers, looks around and decides their best option is to jump to another struggling form, radio. Ironic. Newspapers started many of the first news radio stations so editors could read the paper on the air and spur sales.
So how does WaPoRadio sound? Hard to tell. They seem to have adopted the classic news radio model: mattress ads, a guy with a booming voice and plenty of self-promotion. But in between, I heard a couple of fairly interesting interviews with Post reporters. Stay tuned... to NPR of course. We'll let you know when/if you can change the channel.