Public Radio Podcasts

November 24, 2008 7:31 AM

Public Radio Podcasts
NPR is a treasure trove of great audio content but most of it is not accessible via a podcast feed. This site uses the NPR API to construct proper podcast feeds for their shows that don't current have feeds (e.g. Morning Edition, All Things Considered) as well as per reporter and topic based feeds. Enjoy (and try to look beyond my comically bad web design)...
posted by mmascolino (9 comments total)

This project was posted to MetaFilter by Effigy2000 on December 11, 2008: Public Radio Podcasts

This is awesome. I've been wanting a feed for 'Wait Wait Don't Tell Me' for such a long time. Thanks!
posted by thebigdeadwaltz at 3:57 PM on November 24, 2008

This would be even better if you included syndicated independent shows that are carried on public radio stations, like "Interfaith Voices" and "The Sound of Young America"
posted by parmanparman at 7:02 PM on November 24, 2008

I suppose the name of the site is a bit of a misnomer since all I really intended to do was unlock NPR's API to show podcast feeds that they weren't already offering. I wasn't intending this to be a true catalog of all public radio podcasts. I left he NPR bit out of the hostname because I didn't want to upset any lawyers.
posted by mmascolino at 8:47 PM on November 24, 2008

Thanks!
posted by defenestration at 6:59 AM on November 25, 2008

There's already a "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me" podcast feed from NPR. At least there is via iTunes. Is it deficient in some fashion?
posted by silby at 6:33 PM on November 27, 2008

None...that was one that I forgot to hide from my UI.
posted by mmascolino at 8:28 PM on November 27, 2008

Very nice! Thanks for this!
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:11 PM on December 11, 2008

This is awesome.

Plus, on the scale of 'oh crap I could get sued' to 'I'm totally safe', you seem to be on pretty solid ground -- after all, you are deep linking, but not including anything copyrighted (the show descriptions, like tv guide info, has been found to be not copyrightable in past legal cases, I think).

News of this kickass project will spread, of course, and when it does, you will likely get a polite letter from NPR asking you to stop. I got a similar one from PRI a couple years ago when I created an unofficial podcast of This American Life (deep linking, as you do). PRI told me that I could either stop, or they'd spend my donation on lawyers to force me to stop.

If NPR's people do send you such a letter... you'll be in a difficult situation. If you say no, they may opt to shutter the API, or seriously reduce its functionality, rather than have to deal with the unofficial podcasting of their most valuable content.
posted by genome4hire at 4:05 AM on December 12, 2008

This almost reduces my efforts to redundant. NPR now has a tool that let's you do what I have done (except that they have disabled All Things Considered and Morning Edition).
posted by mmascolino at 8:52 AM on December 20, 2008