RIP for BPP on NPR

The lead story on yesterday morning’s “Bryant Park Project” was that National Public Radio had cancelled the show. Unfortunately, they’d already been scooped by the New York Times. Fill-in host Mike Pesca led off by confirming that NPR was pulling the plug on the experiment designed to draw Internet-oriented young listeners to public radio. To some extent it succeeded. The Times quoted one insider as saying the web stream of the two-hour weekday program had drawn a million unique listeners each month recently. But it only aired on five broadcast stations, plus 19 HD2 channels. That doesn’t cover the budget for a national network program. Host Allison Stewart, who had been with the show since its debut last October, will return from maternity leave next week to host the final five days.