update: this was “Please Distribute the Love,” but it grows as information is added.
Please repost this story and picture as you please.
The Bryant Park Project has been canceled. This doesn’t make us happy.
Of all NPR programs, the BPP has most actively embraced online media (I hesitate to call it “New Media” anymore; it should be universal). We first found them on Twitter, and their blog is one of two news outlets in my RSS reader.
Their use of social networking and blogging and video has allowed them to create, in just a few short months, the kind of personality and relationship with their listeners that takes other programs years to develop.
If you, too, dislike their cancellation, please call the people at these phone numbers, and let them know (politely) how you feel.
- NPR media relations: 202-513-2300
- NPR listener service: 202-513-3232
Laura Conaway, the BPP online editor, posted the following on the BPP blog:
A lot of you have asked where you can write to register your unhappiness with NPR’s decision. Here’s the answer: Go to npr.org/contact/. Click on the “I want to contact a program” option and pick Bryant Park in the drop-down menu. I’ve been assured that NPR has set up a special folder for these so they’ll be separated quickly from the rest of the audience e-mail and directed to the right person. Don’t send it to “contact an NPR office/management,” since it will go into the general pool of incoming mail and will take longer to be forwarded.
You can also write to our Ombudsman, Alicia Shepard. She can be reached here.
There is now also a “Save BPP” Facebook Group.
 Blog Reactions:
- Carlo Scannella posted an open letter to NPR Executives.
- John Proffitt is not surprised.
- WBUR and The ConverStation offer some likely explanations (and think we’re incandescent with rage).
- Our friend Zach thinks we’re crazy.
- Another friend, Lindsey, wants to help us help, and has kind words for Laura Conaway.
- Eliz. S. swears the BPP hasn’t taken over her blog. (It has.)
- Beau Yarbrough wonders why NPR didn’t even try to have the BPP raise its own money.
- The ArtsJournal merely aggregated the New York Times story. The link whores.
- The Wikipedia page was updated in a manner best described as “depressingly prompt.”
- The Huffington Post is still processing my account status, so I can’t comment.
- Sky Bluesky knows the show was/is big-time great.
- We never learned what all the damn drilling in the BPP studio was about.
- Daniel O’Toole has a brilliant idea for a uniform, coherent message.
That, thus far, is our call to arms. This post is officially dead, but please head to our home page for new updates.
 Thanks, and keep ideas and links coming in the comments!
11 Comments
Posted on my vox, for whatever that’s worth. =(
Man, I love your blog and hear what your saying about the programming that fully embraces new media. They do indead, get it.
I truly wish they weren’t cancelled and had more time to suss out the issues.
One thing I will say, the content was just handled wrong. Ditto for Faith Salie. I just can’t dig the sound of public radio for hipsters. In trying to forge some kind of new sound they totally took their eye off the ball–bigtime.
But, the experiment is extremely interesting. Again, I wish the show wasn’t cancelled. We’ll see if The Takeaway will succeed where other have failed.
Save the BPP!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18816647695
I’m with “Adam A” on this one. BPP and Fair Game were both too clever by half in their approach. And sorry, Jesse Thorn, you’re too clever for your own good, too.
There’s an elusive voice not yet found that balances the best of public radio’s heritage with a new, younger, more connected and more human style. Not cool — human, authentic, real, accessible.
I could imagine being “friends” with Faith Salie when she was doing interviews, but during the set comedy pieces she was too fake to be approachable. I could be friends hanging out with Jesse Thorn on Twitter, but not on his “America’s radio sweetheart” show, in which he’s the smarmy guide to what the kids are talking about at alternatively the cool kids table or the theater kids table. Luke Burbank was probably the guy in NPR that I thought was closest to the right “voice,” but now he’s gone because NPR didn’t understand he had the DNA they were looking for. Mike Pesca is my next choice from within NPR, but he’s got a really strong news/journalist streak that sets him a little apart. Maybe a slightly buzzed Pesca would make a fantastic host?
Anyway, BPP was a great concept with a flawed implementation. Most of the flaws were situational and not due to lack of trying. It doesn’t have to go away, but it will never survive in its current form, especially not at NPR.
@John Proffit, @Adam A
I’ll be the first to admit that the on-air personality of the Bryant Park Project doesn’t always suit me. At times I find it too playful or clever, but that’s why All Things Considered was my favorite part of the day when I was 16.
I never felt that they were pandering. The staff was young; they like “Gen X” things.
Keep in mind that Gen X’ers are aging too. The youngest of them is reaching 30.
The Bryant Park Project never really tried to be anything other than what it was, and I respect and embrace the program for that.
Agreed, Matthew. I didn’t feel like the BPP folks were ever pandering.
If any program was going to break through to a new model, it was likely to be the BPP (at least at NPR). To kill it with less than a year on the odometer is really bad form.
That said, if I were a Boomer looking at this apparent disaster (staff problems, no stations picking it up), and all I knew was public radio — as my generation had built it — I’d probably have reached the same conclusion to kill it. It’s still the wrong conclusion in the long run, but it’s understandable.
Look, I never said you were crazy. Nor do I think you are crazy. Jesus, you know most of my friends and co-conspirators. You kids are pillars of society compared to those miscreants.
I stumbled on this site while looking for news on the BPP, and just thought I would correct a common misconception. It seems many people felt the BPP only appealed to “net hipsters” and short attention span types. I for one am nearly computer illiterate, and it was a struggle for me to pull up KCPW Salt Lake’s live stream of the show the first few times.
Still, I enjoyed the BPP. I grew up listening to NPR, and will agree that Morning Edition could be a bit stodgy at times. BPP seemed the perfect medium…smart commentary presented in an enjoyable format. I enjoyed “The Ramble”, “The Most”, and Bill’s calls in to talk sports.
For those of us of a certain age, who remember seeing Allison Stewart sitting next to Curt Loder on MTV News…well, it was good to see one of our own make good.
Hopefully, the execs at NPR will see posts like these and realize that the show truly did have an audience. I doubt it…
If it weren’t for “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “A Prairie Home Companion” they’d lose my yearly contribution.
I’ve already got plenty of Tote Bags already…
I never have any idea who Steve Inskeep or Linda Wertheimer are – what movies they like, what kind of music they prefer, if they’re cat or dog people, what kind of day they’re having. I have a pretty clear idea, on the other hand, when Mike Pesca or Allison Stewart are having a good or bad day, or when they’ve got a segment scheduled that really really excites them.
Some of their segments annoyed me, sure. That’s what happens when you try to inject some personality into radio. But I loved that they cared about what they were doing, and that they cared what their audience thought about them. And more often than not, their instincts about good radio were dead-on.
I’ll admit that Mike Pesca often bugs the hell out of me. I feel like he’s trying to an impersonation of Luke Burbank – loud! edgy! almost too politically incorrect for radio! Now that I’ve said that, I must confess that his intro to yesterday’s show damn near brought tears to my eyes.
This is one of my favorite shows in the radio world, right up there with Radiolab and This American Life. NPR’s making a colossal mistake cancelling the BPP.
I’ll tell you what NPR really needs is just a better version of ATC and ME…
Take everything that worked with BPP and add it to NPR’s flagship programs. Also, add it a couple younger voices. Why couldn’t Luke Burbank co-host ATC. Case in point: Look at how great Andrea Seabrook is with WATC.
One thing I just can’t deal with though is the sound of Gen-X, and I’m 30. I’ll take content over a focus-group idea of what young people are supposed to cotton to any day. I just wish NPR could find some middle ground with being a little more creative/innovative with what they have rather than pigeon-holing the entire 20-40 demographic into an “edgy show”.
I think it is worth noting as well…ATC and ME have gotten alot better in the last five years. Mostly because the door has opened for better reporting talent a la Alix Spiegel, Robert Smith, Jason Beaubien, Kestenbaum, David Greene, etc.
LAMENT OR SAVE?
I don’t know details, but I think there are a handful of ways to save the BPP, at least in some form.
Possibility one – NPR Corporate is convinced that they can’t afford to lose the BPP in terms of future funding AND a nice underwriter is found. I don’t know exactly how underwriting works, but I think it might be the only way for money to go directly to a program.
Possibility two – An NPR member station takes the BPP on in the same way that Car Talk comes from a member station and, I think, get some funding help from NPR Corporate.
Possibility three – Some other company or organization essentially re-creates the BPP under a different name, as it’s NPR’s program (unless, somehow, NPR can sell the program, and I have absolutely no idea if that’s at all possible). So either something like American Public Radio or Sirius?
Possibility four – Any other ideas?
Does anyone in this group have any sway to make any of these options happen? Does anyone know more details or have the time to work them out?
(I posted this on the Facebook bulletin board, too. I hope someone has some ideas.)
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