As we approach the one-year anniversary of the media meltdown over the removal of Bob Edwards as host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” it’s time to recant.
The revamped show wakes up fresher these days. Getting the anchors out of the studio and on location, something Edwards resisted for years, has paid off.
The bicoastal collaboration of host-reporters Renee Montagne (Los Angeles) and Steve Inskeep (Washington, D.C.) is working smoothly. The long-perceived East Coast bias is diminished. Arts coverage has grown in depth. The globe-trotting hosts have delivered amazing reportage, including notably colorful work from the Vatican by Montagne during the papal succession.
Last week, NPR nabbed one of only two interviews with The Boss (Matt Lauer of NBC’s “Today” got the other) in advance of Bruce Springsteen’s latest album release and tour. Even the interstitial music is livelier.
Edwards landed at XM satellite radio while the more contemporary-sounding “Morning Edition” has more listeners than ever.
In spite of dire predictions, “Morning Edition’s” audience grew by 800,000 in the past year. That’s a 7 percent gain over last year to a weekly 13.2 million listeners. NPR overall reaches a cumulative 23 million listeners a week.
So much for the vitriol that greeted the on-air change.
Jay Kernis, NPR’s programming chief, said, “We deserved the pile-on. We didn’t handle it well in the way we spoke to the public” about Edwards’ removal. But now, after a year of work to make it a new show, “We’re thrilled, and 800,000 new listeners agree.”
Ellen McDonnell, executive producer of “Morning Edition,” is a gracious winner.
“I’m glad you know now what I knew three years ago. I knew I could not increase the audience, let it grow to the point it’s going to grow, by having a studio-based show.”
McDonnell observed that, when critics were beating up on NPR, “it was an easy thing to say ‘Morning Edition’ is pandering to youth. No. That was never in the forefront.” The network denied charges of age discrimination at the time. What amazes McDonnell in retrospect is that “nobody asks Montagne’s age.” (She’s 56; Edwards was 57 when he was removed from the anchor slot.)
“There was a tone, a certain kind of music that went with Bob,” McDonnell said. “The story mix, presentation, everything’s different.”
The descriptor unfailingly attached to Edwards’ soothing voice is sonorous. The rich, resonant voice is gone; the sound is more conversational now.
Change, resisted by listeners with entrenched morning habits, was the only way to keep growing.
According to Kernis, the show is ahead of its plan in terms of audience acceptance of the East- West format and spending more time in the field.
Business reporting and medical and health coverage are next in line for improvement, Kernis said.
“We will be one-year on May 3,” McDonnell said. “And we’ve only begun to tap the potential.”
NPR listeners who resist pop-culture coverage in favor of more serious topics may have bristled at Montagne’s extended interview with Spring-
steen in Asbury Park. Hearing The Boss chuckle between sentences may not have been as fascinating to non-baby boomers. But McDonnell argues that the story was equally about the new DualDisc CD/DVD technology and trends in the music industry.
“One of our first series was about Afghanistan, last May. What’s important is the same person who did Afghanistan did Bruce Springsteen.”
Kernis says that despite fears the show would lean more toward lower-brow pop culture if Edwards left, “the fact is, our arts coverage has become more news-based.” Stories last month on Bach, Brahms, the Disney concert hall, poetry noir, an African film festival, Lauren Bacall and Charlie Parker were all harder-edged than arts coverage in the past, he maintains.
“The standard for arts coverage is the same as for news coverage: Can we bring something to the story?”
Looking ahead, Kernis hopes “Morning Edition” can add another million listeners by next May. Another domestic bureau and a foreign bureau are in a budget proposal, to be funded by the interest on “the hamburger money.” (The estate of Joan Kroc, of McDonald’s fame, left $200 million to NPR in 2003.)
Meanwhile, Kernis is well beyond the calls for his resignation. He has got bigger dilemmas:
“If you’re eating crunchy cereal while listening, for a few seconds before that cereal gets soggy with milk, I guarantee you the name of the guest is totally blurred. Those are the things we pay attention to, learning when to repeat the name in a way that doesn’t seem annoying to remind listeners what they’re hearing. All because you can’t turn the page, you can’t reread the lead.
“It’s very granular work.”
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
