Tuesday, June 26, 2012
THE SUBWAY FUGITIVE, NOT A SLAVE TO FASHION: When Car Talk goes off the air this fall, Ira Glass would like to see NPR stations not air its reruns during what he calls "primetime," but rather use the slot to promote "new shows, new talents, new ideas" (and names several favorites). Moreover, he's fine with the same happening when This American Life is done as well: "When we’re done making new episodes, take us off the air. I want to make room for someone else."
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I fully agree, Ira. No more Car Talk.
ReplyDeleteRadiolab is great, and the Moth, while uneven, is sometimes okay and sometimes the greatest thing you could possibly have on the radio. Both of those shows could build a This American Life-like following. But the truth is that I understand the desire to prop up the corpse of Car Talk, Weekend-at-Bernie's-style, for as long as possible. Every other program on NPR is insular to the core NPR audience. WWDTM is a quiz show that exists mostly as a distorted echo of weekday NPR programming. TAL is the NPR news listener at play -- educated professionals bonding over absurdities that fall just inside the sphere of shared relatability. Radiolab, the Moth -- postgraduate science experiments and aural book club. Those shows all exist on the spectrum from left tote bag handle to right tote bag handle.
ReplyDeleteCar Talk is such a boon to NPR because it brings people to the station who wouldn't gravitate there normally. Its principal topic is universal, and to the extent it is not, the people it excludes live in Manhattan, Brooklyn, San Francisco, and Chicago, where you don't need to reach out to get NPR listeners. And its secondary themes, which are mostly the province of hack comedians (battle of the sexes; kids just don't understand) are more foregiveable because they come from people who pretend to be mechanics, not comedians, so we expect less sophisticated humor. The tone also aims for a wider audience than most NPR shows. As a broad show with broad humor about a broadly understood topic, Car Talk does something that no other show on NPR can do. I don't disagree with Ira Glass that the network needs to develop its next generation of programs and should spend its key hours on rising shows, not retiring ones. But he shouldn't pretend that that isn't a costly strategy in the short term or that anything can replicate Car Talk's business import long-term.
Car Talk works both on the straightforward "call in show about cars" level, and as a gentle/affectionate parody of that sort of show. (So does Prarie Home Companion.)
ReplyDeleteOf course I meant "forgiveable."
ReplyDeleteCar Talk has had a new episode in the last twenty years? How on Earth could you tell?
ReplyDeleteBecause they keep answering questions about the 1990 Toyota Corolla.
ReplyDeleteBecause they keep answering questions about the 1990 Toyota Corolla.
ReplyDeleteCar Talk is also the #1 show on NPR in listeners and fundraising, so one could argue that it's audience is the core NPR audience and the other programming brings other people to the station.
ReplyDeleteWiki has it as #6, behind Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Marketplace, Fresh Air, and Prarie Home Companion (with Talk of the Nation just behind it).
ReplyDeleteJust give me a second, and I'll fix that. :)
ReplyDeleteI think this table is a huge compilation from all over, I've seen a few places a 4.4 M number for Car Talk, and I'm not sure how the weekly numbers for 5x weekly shows can be compared to this show. Perhaps it's the #1 non-news program?
(Also somewhat ironic that This American life has been a repeat 2 out of the past 4 weeks...)
Hey, I owned a 1990 Corolla! That car never needed the Car Talk guys!
ReplyDeleteI know, I'm the last person still reading this thread, so I'll turn out the lights, but I realized what else is galling me about this thing, and it's that Ira Glass feels the need to come to the public with this whole thing. It's an internal NPR decision, what to program, when, etc., and making the TAL audience into NPR programmers (without the information that NPR itself has) is an ass move, in my view. Yes, he's a big NPR star, and yes, he can get a bunch of people (who weren't like big Car Talk fans, in the Venn diagram of NPR isaac_spaceman discusses, though there are a bunch of people who just kind of have the button stuck and listen to whatever's on and have two thumbs and are this guy [points to self]) all to write in and opine, but really, Ira? I'm sure people take your calls at the HQ and at the stations. And it's not like there aren't new shows out there that are getting a chance.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I may just still be mad on Lynda Barry's behalf. And Gary Covino's.