Mohn Leads NPR Into ‘Golden Age of Spoken Word’

Jarl Mohn

Seven months into his new perch as CEO of National Public Radio, Jarl Mohn tells Current.org that “broadcast radio is the cockroach of media. You can’t kill it. You can’t make it go away, it just gets stronger and more resilient."

According to Mohn, two things are happening. One is the great technological innovations that give people more ways to expose themselves to media — on-demand television, on-demand radio, streamed radio. This convenience brings increased usage; podcasts are certainly a great example of that.

Another is the decline of commercial radio. "It’s suffering right now, in part because of the incredible consolidation and cost-cutting that has occurred in the business. There’s less room for creativity, innovation and local relevance. Most often, it’s not live. People have become less interested in it."

He adds, he’s “wildly optimistic about public radio – because public radio is committing money to being more local and live. And many stations are investing in journalism.” But on the commercial side, he believes the business is “suffering, in part because of the incredible consolidation and cost-cutting.”

When he signed on as president, Mohn took over an organization that had undertaken deep staff reductions and other cuts and was still working toward its goal to hit a break-even budget by fall 2015.

Mohn sat down with Current Senior Editor Ben Mook last month for an interview in his office at NPR’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Read the Interview: Click Here

Mohn  began his career as a disc jockey in 1967 and as Lee Masters was on the air on WNBC 660AM in New York in the 1970s.