I think though perhaps the opposite was part of it too. They became comfortable in their baby boomer audience (every pledge drive featuring Joan Baez being the

I think though perhaps the opposite was part of it too. They became comfortable in their baby boomer audience (every pledge drive featuring Joan Baez being the giveaway) and they haven't really groomed a younger audience coming up. A certain smugness and belief that they were just naturally a superior option to the mainstream garbage meant they didn't put the effort in to innovate and improve their product. Where they did innovate is in sponsorships which are no different to ads nowadays - often npr-washing unsavory companies through extended "brought to you by..." then a bunch of copy worse than any ad, stated unchallenged. I stopped listening partly because I was getting really offended by some of that stuff, and as stated above this brain science stuff really got on my wick. But also because the quality of the news in the morning was garbage. Firstly very little news, way too much human interest story. Secondly the reportage was pretty shoddy. Thirdly the analysis was facile, ill-informed and wrong way too often. Certainly not as bad as something like CNN, Fox etc. but not the quality they boast about. And when you can now get the BBC news anywhere in the world you can easily see what a poor product the NPR news has become. I guess finally the talking heads are just so outdated. They represent a washington-insider-y worldview that has little or no bearing on reality. They're an aging media corps which still thinks things run the way they do at their cozy DC cocktail parties, genteel disagreements but we all get along. They have little to say that matches the bitter corrupt partisan nature of things in the US today. It's not that I want them to perpetuate that, but denying it exists helps no-one. Describing debates as though they're these deep seated points of principle and taking every statement at face value benefits no-one when it's easily determined, and apparent to anyone listening what's really going on. IMNSHO