Get ready for MPR's Newscue ... or NewsQueue ... or ...
I'd planned a longer pre-release feature on MPR's new, redesigned website, which debuts tonight or Thursday. However, after tramping over to St. Paul for an interview, station higher-ups decided I couldn't see the site or even get screen shots. In return, I decided not to run the interviews until I can look at the actual product.
Despite MPR's control fetish, I still can't resist an unofficially sourced teaser.
Apparently, MPR newcast hosts will soon start pitching a new news-specific address: Newscue.org. Or Newsqueue.org. Or MPRnewscue.org. Or MPRnewsqueue.org. As of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, they all refer back to the MPR.org home page. (Dot-coms go nowhere, by the way.)
What does this mean? Like the Pioneer Press and Twincities.com, MPR will be splitting its brand. There will still be news links at minnesotapublicradio.org — the site hosts have drummed into your head for years — but the main news site will have the distinct identity.
Will it be revolutionary, evolutionary, or a dud? I'll let you know when I finally get a look!
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Comments (3)
I just got my second letter in one week from MPR begging me to become the prodigal member after not renewing a few years ago. MPR is an arrogant, self-congradulating corporate behemoth who has bought up every small radio station they could in MN and surrounding areas and broadcast the same St. Paul voices from all of them. They are the Viacom of Public Radio. SInce I discovered my local public radio station (KAXE, Grand Rapids) here up north, I don't miss them a bit.
I've shifted my support to KBEM and KFAI, fed up with MPR's WCAL deal and then shutting out jazz coverage by eliminating Maryann Sullivan's show (the successor to Leigh Kamman's "Jazz Image"). Maryann's "Corner Jazz" is now on KBEM on Saturday nights.
Sandwiched in between way, way too much coverage on Michael Jackson (and much more coverage than on health care lobbyists) was a plea for more money from the station...just a reminder of how the station has lost its nerve to cover real stories, and is trying to attract the supermarket tabloid crowd...