NPR visuals team blog→ Multivariate testing: Learning what works from your users at scale

2015-02-26 Multivariate and AB testing are generally used to iterate on products over time. But what do you do when your product is always different, like the visual stories we tell? For the past year, NPR Visuals has been iterating on a story format for pictur …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Work with us this summer!

2015-02-19 Hey! Are you a student? Do you design? Develop? Love the web? …or… Do you make pictures? Want to learn to be a great photo editor? If so, we’d very much like to hear from you. You’ll spend the summer working on the visual …›

RadioSutton→ The Impact of Sustaining givers on Public Radio Fnd Drives

2015-02-17 The movement to monthly sustaining givers has been good for many public radio stations, improving annual donor retention and monthly cash flow. The impact on fund drives is less clear.There's not a lot of readily available national data on the subject, …›

RadioSutton→ It’s Taking More Leverage to Generate Pledge Drive Contributions

2015-02-12 Our last post covered how it is getting more difficult to generate contributions during public radio pledge drives. We introduced the idea of public radio pledge drive Leverage.  (Pleverage?)Leverage is the weight of the incentives offered to gen …›

J-Lab RSS Feed→ Four Diverse Media Startups Win Encore Entrepreneur Funding

2015-02-05 Posted To: Press Releases For immediate release Feb. 5, 2015 Contact: Jan Schaffer jans@j-lab.org Washington, D.C. – Four media startups proposed by entrepreneurs over 50 have been selected to receiv …›

RadioSutton→ RadioSutton 2015-02-03 02:52:00

2015-02-03 It’s getting harder to generate contributions through public radio pledge drives.  Most stations are still getting good overall results, but the cost of getting those results is going up.Sometimes the cost is more on-air fundraising. It is tak …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Baking Chart Data Into Your Page

2015-01-28 Do you use our dailygraphics rig to create and deploy small charts? We’ve introduced a new feature: The latest version of copytext.py (0.1.8) allows users to inject serialized JSON from a Google Spreadsheet onto their page with one line of templa …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Putting Radio On The Television

2015-01-22 For election night 2014, we wanted to do something different. We guessed that the dedicated wonks — the ones who want to drill down into detailed data and maps — would probably go to sources like the New York Times or Washington Post. Rather than …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ The Official PRPD Transition

2014-12-31 As I leave the office for the last time as PRPD President, just want to thank you all for 8 great years in that job and over 36 wonderful years in public radio.  PRPD is now in the capable hands of Jody Evans... and, of course, the PRPD board.My o …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ PRPD Office Move in Progress

2014-12-26 As the year end approaches, PRPD files and records are "in the mail" from Hamilton, NY to Asheville, NC - the new World HQ of PRPD.  Jody Evans is now on board and officially becomes new PRPD President next week - Thursday, January 1, 2015.As of J …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Responsive Graphics In Core Publisher With Pym.js

2014-12-19 Editor’s Note: Core Publisher is a content management system that staff at many NPR member stations use to maintain their websites. This post is written for that audience, but may be useful for users of other CMSes. Over time, many member statio …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Improving User Engagement Through Subtle Changes: Updating the Book Concierge

2014-12-12 The NPR year-end 2013 Book Concierge was a big hit. Instead of writing a bunch of lists, the books team solicited over 200 short reviews by critics and staff and put them into a single, beautiful website designed to make discovering great books fun. Re …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Nielsen: Milennials DO Listen to Radio

2014-12-11 A new Nielsen report, THE MEN, THE MYTHS, THE LEGENDS: WHY MILLENNIAL “DUDES” MIGHT BE MORE RECEPTIVE TO MARKETING THAN WE THOUGHT reports that:Millennial men are also heavy music listeners. Eighty-eight percent of all Millennial males in …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Book Concierge Update

2014-12-08 …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Thompson to Atlantic, Wilson to NY Times

2014-12-04 More news about NPR staff (current and former) this week.  Matt Thompson1) Matt Thompson will be leaving NPR to become Deputy Editor of The Atlantic. Matt was NPR's Director of Vertical Initiatives  (and Mischief).  Among his many accomp …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Total Radio Cume Up, TSL Down

2014-12-04 Nielsen's latest Total Audience Report, December 2014 shows that radio cume rose year to year for the 3rd quarter.  All Access reports:"...radio's overall number of 2+ users was up to 258,734,000 in Q3 2014 versus 257,420,000 in Q3 2013. TSL, howe …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Baldwin’s Podcast Returns

2014-12-01 Photo: WNYC/Mary Ellen Matthews"Here's The Thing", a weekly podcast series hosted by Alec Baldwin has returned.  The WNYC produced show posted its first in the latest series last week. According to All Access, the latest (3rd) season will be relea …›

RadioSutton→ Audience 98: Enduring Insights or Now Useless Information?

2014-11-21 Yesterday's keynote speech at the Public Radio Super Regional meeting was by Paul Jacobs. He's a radio researcher, radio web app developer, and the incoming Board Chair of Greater Public -- the trade association for fundraising, development, and market …›

RadioSutton→ Is Local News the New Classical Music?

2014-11-19 Digital News Guru Ken Doctor presented the opening session today at the public radio Super-Regional meeting in Las Vegas.  His premise.  Local news presents a great opportunity for public radio.His logic. There is great potential in the digit …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Three interesting code snippets from NPR’s Election Party

2014-11-17 NPR’s Election Party app has a lot of moving parts. It displays live election results from the Associated Press, ingests posts from our Tumblr liveblog, bakes out visualizations of our data, and presents all of this in a slideshow that, on election …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Hoban, Abramovitz to Fill PRPD Board Positions

2014-11-14 Matt AbramovitzJon HobanTwo PRPD board positions vacated by recent resignations were filled today by Matt Abramovitz, PD at WQXR, New York and Jon Hoban, Chief Content Officer at KJZZ, Phoenix.   They will assume their seats immediately and will s …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Greater Public Announces New Board Leadership

2014-11-14 Starting January 1, Paul Jacobs (Jacobs Media) will assume the chair of the Greater Public board of directors.  Connie Walker (WUNC) will be secretary and Norm Silverstein (WXXI) will assume the treasurer post. …›

J-Lab RSS Feed→ The Story Behind the Geezer Grants

2014-11-13 Posted To: Ideas & Innovation > Blogically Thinking Masters Mediapreneurs and the J-Lab were featured in three MediaShift articles: J-Lab’s Jan Schaffer Reflects Back on 20 Years of Journalism Innovation; J-Lab Launche …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Sample clocks for fundraising with the new Morning Edition

2014-11-11 Editor note:  This is a companion piece to an earlier post about fundraising with the new clocks. It may be shocking to realize that the new newsmagazine clocks for NPR start on Monday.   While many stations are busy planning their regul …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ AIR to Expand Localore Projects

2014-11-05 The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) has received funding to expand three of its Localore projects - Curious City, iSeeChange and Sonic Trace.  The funding will allow producers of those projects (located at Chicago Public Media, KVNF, Pa …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Joyce Mac to CPB

2014-11-04 Continuing the changes at NPR, Joyce MacDonald has accepted the position of VP of Journalism at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  According to a note to the NPR Areps from Jarl Mohn:"In this role, Joyce will be able to amplify what she has …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Jody Evans Named Next PRPD Prez

2014-11-03 The Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD) has named Jody Evans its next President and Chief Executive Officer.  Evans is currently President and CEO of Western North Carolina Public Radio, Inc., which operates WCQS-FM in Asheville, NC. …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Car Talk’s Tom Magliozzi Dead at 77

2014-11-03 Co-host of the popular program Car Talk program has passed away at the age of 77. Tom Magliozzi had been battling Alzheimer's for some time.  Much more at NPR.org. …›

J-Lab RSS Feed→ Twenty Years on the Front Lines of Journalism Innovation

2014-10-31 Posted To: Ideas & Innovation > Blogically Thinking J-Lab director Jan Schaffer is wrapping up 20 years of raising money to give it away to fund news startups, innovations and pilot projects. She is pivoting J-Lab to do more writing, …›

J-Lab RSS Feed→ Journalism Education: It’s Time to Craft the Gateway Degree

2014-10-31 Posted To: Ideas & Innovation > Blogically Thinking J-Lab director Jan Schaffer is wrapping up 20 years of raising money to give it away to fund news startups, innovations and pilot projects. She is pivoting J-Lab to do more consultin …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Clock Tips From NPR

2014-10-29 In advance of the introduction of new broadcast clocks for NPR, here are some tips from NPR:1. Download and review the new clocks- Clocks are available for all NPR shows at NPRstations.org.    You'll also find more resources there, inclu …›

J-Lab RSS Feed→ Encore Media Entrepreneurs Invited to Apply for Four $12,000 Startup Grants

2014-10-29 Posted To: Press Releases Washington, D.C.  -  Encore media entrepreneurs, age 50+, are invited to apply for seed funding to help them launch news projects in 2015 as part of a new initiative launched today by J-Lab: The Institute …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Bannon Named PRPD Secretary

2014-10-28 Chris Bannon of WNYC, New York, has been elected Secretary of the PRPD Board of Directors replacing Gabe DiMaio, who has accepted a position outside of public media.  As Secretary, Bannon will now be part of the Executive Committee of the organiza …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Gomeshi and CBC Split

2014-10-26 The CBC has fired Jian Gomeshi, host of Q.  In an announcement today, the CBC said in an online statement"The CBC is saddened to announce its relationship with Jian Ghomeshi has come to an end, This decision was not made without serious deliberati …›

NPR visuals team blog→ Apply NOW for a spring internship with NPR Visuals

2014-10-26 Hey! Are you a student? Do you design? Develop? Love the web? …or… Do you make pictures? Want to learn to be a great photo editor? If so, we’d very much like to hear from you. You’ll spend the spring working on the visual …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Adobe & Nielsen to Launch Digital Content Ratings

2014-10-23 In a new partnership, Adobe and Nielsen have announced plans for a Digital Content Ratings system.  While initially focused on TV and online video, the announcement states that it will include all kinds of digital content, including audio.In an ar …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Working on fundraising breaks and the new clocks? Greater Public’s Jay Clayton has some tips.

2014-10-22 Today's blog post deals with on-air fundraising with the new clocks.  Thanks to Greater Public for making this post available to PRPD.  by Jay ClaytonOn November 17th NPR will begin using new clocks for Morning Edition, Weekend Edi …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ NPR offers details on November 17th clock changes

2014-10-21 Throughout October, PRPD's blog will be offering posts about the upcoming clock changes to the NPR newsmagazines.  Today's piece is a summary of a recent clock webinar by NPR.   This was initially published on NPR's ENGAGE …›

PRPD News for Programmers→ Handling newscasts and breaks with the new clocks. MEGS trainer Tanya Ott offers some ideas.

2014-10-17 By Tanya Ott Now that we know what NPR is doing with its newscasts in the New World Order, we have to figure out how we handle ours.     Each station is different – different size, different resources, different news philosophy.&n …›