Blogging about online radio

I’ve been pondering what issues I’d like you to think about as you write a blog item on the talk given to us yesterday by Robin Lubbock of WBUR. One thought that I think we need to wrestle with is the idea that the current distribution model — over-the-air broadcast radio — is working very well.

Unlike newspapers, whose readers are fleeing to the Internet, public radio stations are thriving, mainly because tens of millions of commuters want to listen to high-quality news while sitting in their cars. Given that, how will experiments of the sort that WBUR is trying pay off?

Of course, the power of time-shifting can’t be denied. For example, National Public Radio’s “On the Media,” a weekly program, is broadcast by WBUR in the middle of the afternoon on Saturday or Sunday — I forget which. I literally have never heard the show via broadcast. Every week, though, I download the podcast via iTunes and listen to it sometime over the next few days.

But what about all of WBUR’s other projects involving Twitter, listener-submitted photos, multimedia and the like? Are these keys to radio’s future? Or are they marginalia?

Consider, too, that the most popular programming on any public radio station, including WBUR, is the national content provided by NPR. What happens to local radio stations such as WBUR when NPR can reach listeners directly through satellite radio (as is already happening) or, in a few years, via a wireless, ubiquitous next-generation Internet? How do local stations protect themselves from becoming obsolete?

I’d like you to use Lubbock’s talk as an inspiration and jumping-off point for a blog post (again, about 350 words) on radio and the Internet. Explore some of the links I sent you in my earlier post. Seek out other sources of information — I’d like to see at least two links to things we haven’t talked about. Other than that, I urge you to be as creative and thoughtful as you can.

I want to take advantage of the holiday to catch up on your blogs in a comprehensive way. By the end of Monday, please bring your blogs up to date with this post and anything else you have not yet done. And have a good Columbus Day.