WBUR

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.

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

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?

They've shut off the ovens and hung up the toques at Public Radio Kitchen.

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.

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?

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.

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.

WBUR's Andrew Phelps tweets:

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

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'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.

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

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?).

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.

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.

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

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:

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.

Eeka warns the WBUR yakker: If you say "TARP program" one more time, imma beat you over the head with an ATM machine.

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.

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

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).

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.

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.