Public Radio Is Enjoying Boom Times

Larry Mantle, right, host of KPCC's
popular "AirTalk" program/LA Times

While its TV counterpart struggles, National Public Radio listenership is up and there are plans to greatly expand its reporting.
James Rainey at latimes.com writes more listeners continue to find public radio and, as evidenced by a couple of developments in recent days, the network and some of its executives want to make the footprint even larger.

The expansive news came from NPR Chief Executive Vivian Schiller and public radio's most aggressive entrepreneur, Bill Kling of American Public Media and Minnesota Public Radio. Both discussed plans to improve public radio's local coverage by putting more reporting boots on the ground.

With NPR already well established as a national and international news source, its biggest gaps are on the local front. And that happens to be where newspapers and other media have cut back.

Public radio executives join the growing push by new media to fill the local news void. AOL's Patch.com has websites in nearly 300 communities and is growing steadily. EveryBlock, owned by MSNBC.com, aggregates property, crime, education and other public records to help people better understand their neighborhoods.

Don't count on any clarity in the local news space any time soon as newspapers tenaciously cling to their incumbent advantages — including staffs still larger than most of the upstarts — and upstarts continue to crowd the space.

Read more here.