NPR Begins the Slide to Irrelevance

Current.org, a trade magazine for public media has an article about NPR in which they spout a marketing study as some kind of scientific theory.  The strength of my disdain for the entire marketing industry is difficult to express.  I decided to point out to the author and NPR how fucked up stupid this idea is with the following letter:

Cc:  NPR ombudsman

re:  http://www.current.org/audience/aud1017npr-opportunities.shtml

Dear Karen Everhart,

I'll be up front and tell you that I think "marketing" is generally a complete and utter fraud run by shallow, simple fools that believe in what they're doing while it drains dry the businesses it advises and our society in general.  This "study" is marketing research and in my mind is about as plausible as Scientology.

That being said, there is one enormous problem with the idea NPR can "expand" its audience by becoming more "accessible" (read:  by dumbing itself down):  As NPR attempts to lighten its content it will lose the people that already listen to NPR.  The television news networks did this same thing in the late 70's to "capture the youth demographic" and the result was that the people that watched the news quit watching it because it was more flash and chattiness, cute pandas and celebrity gossip than news.  None of the kids started watching it because it was the NEWS.  So viewership continues slowly to decline.  All sorts of attempts have been made to place blame on societal changes, different age groups, etc. but the fact is the people that don't listen to NPR aren't going to start but those that do listen to NPR may very well stop listening as the programming gets reduced to stupidity.  A perfect example of this is the flagship talk show Talk of the Nation.  This show has been dropped by stations around the country since it was broken up into multiple short segments around 2001 by the current host to "keep it moving."  Well, the reason people listened to the show was to hear long, serious discussions with experts about complicated issues.  You can't have that when your programming is designed to "keep it moving" and "give it energy."  As a result I know I quit listening to TOTN a few years ago and it was removed from my local NPR's lineup without so much as a whimper of protest from local listeners.  They had to keep Science Friday or the listeners would have stormed the station with pitchforks and torches.  Why?  Because Science Friday tackles difficult questions without dumbing it down and isn't afraid to bump the next subject if the host senses they have really started to make headway in explaining the topic.

I've sensed for years that NPR was heading down the road of listening to marketing professionals and focus groups rather than trying to report the news as thoroughly as possible.  This study and your cheerleading coverage of it I'm sure will be more nails in the coffin of one of the few reliable news sources we still have in this country.

Sincerely,

Alan Miller