Public radio will continue to grow steadily for at least the next 5-10 years, and there will be wonderful opportunities for innovation and work for indepentdents as public radio's leadership leaves behind its culture of financial scarcity. Satellite radio will be a flop. The Internet will prove to be more a programming opportunity for public radio than a bypass threat.

    The next 5-10 years will be the best time ever for independents in public radio. Stations are starting many programming projects that will need help from independents, as staff (e.g. Julie Burstein to Studio 360), working in a consulting role, or continuing to function as independent producers. There will be growing demand (and higher rates) for independent productions that can be incorporated into programs.

    This is a golden age for public radio. Audiences have been growing at about 5% per year for as long as we have been measuring them (since 1980). At least since the mid-90's station listener-sensitive revenues have been growing at twice that rate. Programming projects have been popping up at stations all over the country. Perhaps our biggest challenge is staffing all the new jobs that open up over the next five years (and replacing people lost to the booming economy).

    Satellite radio will go the way of cable radio. We have our case study in cable radio, which was deployed at the same time as cable TV and was as easily available, yet had an unmeasurably small impact on radio listening.

    Cable radio's form looked a lot like the satellite services preparing to launch now - dozens of commercial free channels for a monthly subscription fee of $10 or so. The problem for cable radio was (and for satellite radio is) that radio is inherently a broadcast medium. We take it with us - from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen to the car to work and home again. Setting aside the monthly subscription fee charged by cable, a competitor not available in all those places can't compete. We don't go to the stereo to listen to radio (the place where cable radio was available). We do listen to the radio in the car (where satellite radio will be available), yet that only represents about half of our listening.

    The Internet is a programming opportunity for public radio producers more than it is a competitive threat to public radio. As a wired service, it has the same handicap that cable radio did and satellite radio does - it's not portable (of all the new delivery technologies, there is one real potential threat - wireless Internet, which is already widely available for email, could be significant competition if it migrates successfully into audio). Whatever happens with the Internet, it will take longer to develop than the 3-5 years some people are saying it will.

    The view of the future that predominates in public radio is much darker than mine because of concern for the competitive impact of audio on the Internet and Satellite radio, but even the belief that "the sky is falling" in public radio will benefit independent producers. Strategic plans at public radio stations all over the country call for responding to the new technology threat by enhancing local programming. This means larger news staffs, local talk shows (which require producers), and in some cases significantly increased local arts coverage, all staples of the independent producer trade. There is a lot of money available in local public radio stations to make the shift to a greater focus on local programming.

    The demand for local programming comes after a time when stations focused on becoming more effective schedulers of music and national programming, and lost their ability and/or capacity to produce local programming (talk shows, long-form productions, etc.). The concurrent build-up of local programming capacity across the system is causing a tidal wave of demand for skills that now primarily reside in the independent community.

    This is a period of unprecedented strength and prosperity for public radio. We expect growth to continue at least in the mid-term (5-10 years). Continued prosperity in public radio and the belief that the way local stations can combat new technology is through stronger local programming, will benefit independent producers by driving up acquisition rates and creating consulting and job opportunities for positions utilizing the skill sets of independents.