Every show that broadcasts-or aspires to broadcast-in the public radio system has a clock. This is the All Things Considered broadcast clock, which NPR and stations across the country refer to on a daily basis: Big red digital clocks, huge round analog clocks. There’s even special software and time calculators, where 60 + 60 = 2’00.Įach show has a ‘clock’, a set template, from which the show almost never varies. Credit: Julia BartonĪt NPR’s studios in Washington, DC, there are clocks everywhere.
All Things Considered director Monika Evstatieva during a live broadcast in NPR’s Studio 2A. Inside of a driveway moment, time becomes elastic - you could be staring straight at a clock for the entire duration of the story, but for that length of time, the clock has no power over you.īut ironically, inside the machinery of public radio - the industry that creates driveway moments - the clock rules all. There’s a term that epitomizes what we radio producers aspire to create: the “driveway moment.” It’s when a story is so good that you can’t leave your car.
