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Comment by dctoedt | Hacker News Reader

If this catches on, it might disintermediate (EDIT: or accelerate the existing disintermediation of) the local public radio stations, which will then lose donations, which will then be less able to do local reporting. (Of course I'm not sure our Houston public radio station does all that much local reporting to start with.)

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Concerns around disintermediation and what they stations call "bypass" ( NPR delivering audio direct to consumers and bypassing terrestrial FM) is what prevented this from launching earlier, not the tech or UX concerns. They had to launch with a plurality of stations, localizations was required, and they had to work donations into the mix. Donations is particularly challenging since there is no one donation form (every station is independent, each has their own form/account, and no one would agree to a central account powered by, say Stripe or whatever). They couldn't launch an MVP like Swell, they had to go live with way more. That said, public radio has its strengths, one of which is that they own their content.

I think this has happened in part already. Although I try to listen to my local station (KUT) via their app, I also use the NPR app to time shift programs like All Things Considered that I tend to otherwise miss. (If you miss a program by an hour or so, the NPR app won't let you listen to a program that's within some window of its broadcast time, but you can listen to it any public radio station currently broadcasting it.)

I also listen to shows that aren't carried locally, and of course, time listening through the NPR app is time not spent listening to KUT directly (which I probably would do if there weren't alternatives, because I'm pretty much an NPR junkie).

This app seems to reverse the trend of separating NPR from local content as does the regular NPR app. When I use the regular NPR app I either listen to the local stream, or more commonly, grab all the newest segments from Morning Edition or All Things Considered, throw them in a playlist, and listen. In this way I miss all the local content.

This new app seamlessly mixes in content from your local station and features the local content prominently.

I think they have done a fantastic job here and are working hard to do good by their local stations.

>If this catches on, it might disintermediate the local public radio stations,

Just glancing at the app, I don't think there is anything here that you couldn't currently do in the NPR app ecosystem. For example there is already an NPR app that lets you choose radio stations or just programs from around the world and a lot of local stations built their own, independent app (though in my experience those are lower quality)

I think you're on to something. When our local public radio stations start their pledge drives, I almost immediately switch over to the podcasts for the duration. There's more latency in the stories, but you also miss the continual pledge advertising.

Perhaps with the local content it promises to play, it will play local pledge drives?

Although they're separate entities, they seem to understand that they're all in it together, and cooperate. If this results in a drop in donations, I imagine they'll add in-app donations and pledge drive info and whatever else would be appropriate, directed towards your local station.

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