WBUR

Good news for Robin Young fans

NPR and WBUR are announcing that the locally produced "Here and Now," hosted by the locally grown Robin Young, is expanding to four hours on July 1 - although she'll be joined by a co-host:

When the expanded program launches July 1, she will have a co-host, Jeremy Hobson, currently host of Marketplace Morning Report. Hobson began his career in journalism at the age of 17 as an intern on NPR’s All Things Considered and since then has gained deep experience as a producer, reporter and now host. Meghna Chakrabarti, co-host of WBUR's Radio Boston, will be the program's primary back up host.

Of course, something has to give with the extra hours - and that something is "Talk of the Nation," which will disappear into the ether.

The moves are part of a "strategic partnership" between NPR and WBUR.

Pioneering court livestreaming project quietly shuts down

Robert Ambrogi reports that WBUR's Open Court is no longer streaming live video from Quincy District Court. No money, natch.

WGBH wins battle against WBUR with purchase of public-radio program distributor

Joel Brown analyzes the local context of WGBH's purchase of Public Radio International, which distributes shows such as "This American Life" and the 'BUR-produced "Here and Now."

Despite all the nice talk abut how the WGBH deal isn't going to affect [WBUR's relationship with PRI], it's impossible to believe that 'GBH won't have an inside track to get national shows like "This American Life" the next time the contract comes up. And to get their own shows syndicated. They'll all deny it now, but just watch. And if you were running WBUR, would you want to entrust your own shows to a syndicator controlled by your crosstown rival?

Car Talk guys to ride off into the sunset

NPR reports Tom and Ray Magliozzi are retiring this fall from the locally produced show that gave them - and their accents - national prominence.

"Car Talk" will continue to air, but only with repeats from 25 years of car-advice call-ins, recorded at WBUR's studios. Hopefully, they'll keep their Dewey, Cheetham and Howe offices in Harvard Square.

Bostonians are a resilient bunch

Allen Rines reports Robin Young's segue from a Sox report on her "Here and Now" show this morning:

Well that's over, let's talk about sperm banks.

Meanwhile, what are the odds these bus ads will stay up as long as that Coraline thing on the Red Line?

Quincy court TV goes live today

Starting today, WBUR is livestreaming proceedings at Quincy District Court. OpenCourt.us is an experiment in further opening the court system to the public:

Putting a live-streaming camera in a courtroom is a touchy subject. While we have a goal similar to C-SPAN to provide government transparency, the judicial branch affects the lives of ordinary citizens in a way than the legislative doesn’t. So we’ve spent the last few months working with every stakeholder who would have us, from judges, clerks, attorneys, domestic violence advocates on the local level to a high-level advisory board that meets at the Supreme Judicial Court in Boston.

We want to find the right a balance between the public's right to know and citizens' rights to a fair trial and to be able to come to the court system for protection.

Reporter tags along with cabbie for story; cabbie writes his version first

The Hack reports on the WBUR reporter who rode with him one night for a story about Boston cab drivers:

All this chatting distracted me. I found myself driving aimlessly. Other cabs had cut in front of me to pick up fares I should have stopped for. I was getting frustrated.

"What about the airport?" Adam asked. "You must get a lot of good fares from there."

Actually, I hardly ever go to the airport, other than to drop off fares from the city. The taxi pool at Logan is a black hole, a place where hundreds of cabs cram themselves into a parking lot and become trapped for hours on end. By the time you get out of there you're likely only to get some passenger going to a downtown hotels. It's not worth it.

Angry at NPR? Don't take it out on WBUR

WBUR's Andrew Phelps tweets:

WBUR is now allowing donors to specify their money not go toward NPR programming.

WBUR gets all Crossfired up in Andrea Cabral's grill

Mike Ball listened to 'BUR's Deborah Becker grill Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral on Philip Markoff's suicide and thinks Becker ran amok:

Becker started out like a real journalist and quickly went tabloid on Cabral. She clearly came in with her conclusions and was not about to let truth or knowledge interfere.

Judge for yourself.

WBUR wins grant to enable wireless liveblogging and reporting in Quincy courtroom

WBUR's won a $250,000 Knight Foundation grant to work with Quincy District Court to set up a way for bloggers and reporters to report on court cases as they happen - and to develop standards for other courts to use. Laura McGann interviewed 'BUR's John Davidow on the Order in the Court 2.0 project.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but it doesn't seem to have helped WGBH topple WBUR yet

Boston Music Intelligencer takes a peek at the latest Arbitron numbers for WGBH (and WCRB) and WBUR.

Radio Boston goes daily on Monday

Will air from 3-4 p.m. with host Meghna Chakrabarti and Adam Ragusea doing reporting. Their first week will features interviews with all five people running for governor (quick, can you name 'em?).

Radio Boston goes daily May 3

Dan Kennedy gets the scoop on WBUR's plans for the newly expanded show, whose "lead host" will be 'BUR reporter and producer Meghna Chakrabarti.

WBUR to answer daily local shows at WGBH with one of its own

The battle for ratings between our two bigfoot public-radio stations is stepping up a notch: 'BUR is turning Radio Boston, which now airs only on Fridays, into a daily show.

Nerd art

Go to wbur.org, then click on your browser View button, then on View Source. Maybe tilt your head a little to the right.

Apparently nobody at Boston magazine ever watched Zoom or heard of Robin Young

Boston magazine has a long article on the public-radio war between WBUR and WGBH that I'm sure is just absolutely fascinating, but which I'm having trouble reading because it's just so full of mistakes, starting with the very first paragraph:

Battle at the low end of the FM dial

Alex Beam reports on the war between WGBH and WBUR for public-radio supremacy in this most NPRish of towns:

... 'BUR staffers have an almost mystical faith in WGBH's management ineptitude, and in the past they have not been disappointed. ...

But 'GBH is hiring 10 new reporters and producers (Quick, Robin! To the Bat Resume!).

Earlier:
WGBH's new slogan sounds awfully familiar.
WGBH plans to stay unique by doing the same thing as other stations.

WGBH's new slogan sounds awfully familiar

Where have we heard that before?Where have we heard that before?

It's not enough that WGBH is stealing WBUR's news/talk format; now it's trying to wrest away its slogan, too. The station, which used to call itself "Boston's NPR Arts and Culture Station" is now calling itself just "Boston's NPR Station," as if WBUR, "Boston's NPR News Station," no longer existed. As 'BUR reporter Andrew Phelps sums up: Pretty ballsy.

The Delores Handy Word of the Day

Eeka has started posting a daily word that the WBUR newsreader gives a different spin to.

wbur.org home page to get newsier, ad-ier

Ken George unwraps the new look of WBUR's Web site, which looks a lot more like the sort of site you'd bookmark for breaking news than today's model. Interestingly, it's all being done in WordPress (well, interestingly to Web geeks who enjoy such back-end details).

Why does WGBH torment its listeners so?

Philil Greenspun runs some numbers, concludes that WGBH on-air fund drives don't bring in enough to cover the costs of annoying listeners and driving away advertisers sponsors and that the non-profit station could make up the difference in the compensation of the 14 vice presidents who made between $200,000 and $350,000 a year in 2006. Because, he says, WGBH no longer has a monopoly for the high brow in Boston:

... I'm listening to CBC Classical right now, which is free of all commercials, free of fundraising solicitations, and streamed at a much higher audio quality than WGBH's Internet feed.

People still pining for WBOS

Pamela Rosenthal reports posts she put up a year ago about the sudden disappearance of WBOS still get hits - but she also explains how she's moved on, and how WBUR gets it when it comes to audience retention.