AllThingsD » public radio

Indie Radio God Nic Harcourt Gets a New Gig: Picking Videos for "The Live Buzz"

Peter Kafka — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 12:00:13 +0000

For a certain kind of music fan, Nic Harcourt is a rock star. Even though he doesn’t play any instruments.

From 1998 through 2008, Harcourt was the driving force at KCRW, the super-influential public radio station broadcasting from Santa Monica, Calif.: Even if you’ve never heard of him or the station, you’ve heard music and bands he helped make famous via airplay.

I don’t know if his Wikipedia entry is technically accurate (crowdsourcing!), but the list of musicians he’s credited with breaking in the U.S. should give a sense of his vibe, regardless: Coldplay, Norah Jones, Pete Yorn, Franz Ferdinand, etc. Awesome headline of a 2005 New York Times Magazine profile: “The Star Maker of the Semipopular.”

But outside of his work picking music for TV shows and movies, Harcourt hasn’t had a forum for the past two years.

Now he does: Blog network Buzzmedia is putting him in charge of “Live Buzz,” a new site that focuses on music videos.

There are plenty of those, so what’s different? Harcourt says it’s the emphasis on live tapings recorded specifically for the site. But there are plenty of those, too (check out “From the Basement,” which does a really good job).

So what Buzzmedia is really banking on here is that Harcourt’s brand will be enough to attract surfers and keep them coming back. That’s why the site’s homepage announces that it is “Curated by Nic Harcourt” right at the top.

Certainly worth a visit. Here are a couple examples of what you’ll find there. I’m particularly fond of the acoustic Jay-Z:

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller at D8: The Full, Uncut Interview

Beth Callaghan — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:04:20 +0000

At D8, NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, a former New York Times (NYT) digital exec, talked with Kara Swisher about the future of radio, the prospects for high-quality journalism and the ways the public radio unit could help create a more powerful network of many stations.

Here’s the full video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Want to see it larger? Click here.

NPR's Honchos Talk Digital at "Think In" in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)

Kara Swisher — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:14:24 +0000

Last Friday, National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller and Digital Media SVP and GM Kinsey WiIson came to San Francisco for a “Digital Think In” to pick the brains of some Silicon Valley types about where the public radio icon should go, digitally speaking.

While NPR actually has been pretty fast-forward with podcasts and a robust Web site, it still has to think about what social networking means to it and whether a day is coming when broadcasting online will be bigger than offline.

Also, what’s up with Twitter?

These and other questions were discussed at frog design Friday with a passel of Web types like investor Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners, Toni Schneider of Automattic, craigslist founder Craig Newmark and LinkedIn founder and Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Also, ubiquitous blogger Robert Scoble, who wants NPR to open itself up like a can of beans.

The Think In participants were charged with making suggestions related to five main topics: Social media and connection to the audience, NPR’s national network of more than 800 stations, the potential of its open API, expansion of platforms and how to diversify its revenue model.

BoomTown always likes crowdsourcing innovation, even among the digital elite.

While at the event in the morning, I talked to Schiller, who came to NPR last year after a stint as general manager of the New York Times online unit, and also to Wilson, who previously worked as executive editor for USA Today and ran its digital efforts before that.

Along with my video interview with them, below, you can check out some more detailed information from the event here.

Here’s my video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Charlene Li and BoomTown Talk Yahoo on KQED's "Forum" Radio Show

Kara Swisher — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:00:09 +0000

If you want to listen to an interesting discussion on what happened with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang’s leaving his job and what’s next for the troubled Internet giant, well-known Internet analyst and now consultant Charlene Li (pictured) and I talked yesterday with Forum host Michael Krasny for the “Forum” radio show on San Francisco’s KQED public radio.

The first part of the show is about Iraq (also a great talk), but if you are interested in just Yahoo, click through to the 24-minute mark.

Here’s the show:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.