I’ve heard NPR a few times in the US and I listen online to a few programmes. Their announcers sound kind of robotic, are they excessively enunciating, attempting to neutralise their own accents or reading slower than announcers on other radio stations or e) am I nuts?
They always sound like they’re reading off a script, transparently so, as if they’re quoting a written article all the time.
And this differs from the BBC, the home of Received Pronunciation, how, exactly?
Well, they are. That’s how news radio works. Someone writes the article, someone else reads it.
Announcers should write their own copy, as should anchors. Why this is not the case I’d love to know.
An is right. There’s a definite Public Radio voice. It’s slow, relaxed, hypnotic. I’ve noticed it on the NPR announcers, as well as on local announcers on public radio stations in upstate NY and in Oregon. It’s far different from, say, the newsreaders on 1010 WINS in NYC or KYW 1060 in Philly, which are of the “weather and traffic every 10 minutes” variety.
It is a nice break from the frenetic speech of the “Morning Assholes” shows.
Most of the good announcers and news people on NPR do write their own copy.* The pacing is simply part of the NPR culture.
*I don’t know who the new idiot on Talk of the Nation is, but Monday he called Cheech Marin “Cheech Martin,” which as far as I’m concerned is all by itself reason enough for me to refer to him simply as “the new idiot on Talk of the Nation” whether he writes his own copy or not.
Neal Conan is on vacation until the end of this week. The new guy is kinda dry, huh? Well, he’ll be gone again soon.
No, there definitely is a “voice”. I rather like it, as it’s more soothing and calming, and IMO helps you to listen to what he is actually saying more than getting distracted by accents or whatever. I think they do try to eradicate their accents and be sure to speak slowly and enunciate, and I think a lot more of us could work on at least the last one (enunciate). Especially when you’re trying to get a message across.
I don’t dislike it, it just seems strange to me that nearly everyone you hear on NPR have “the voice” or regional equivalents. Mr. Excellent I’m aware that they read off a script, but most radio voices don’t sound scripted, I meant as in the sense that they sound like they’re speaking words that are not and are not meant to be their own.
I think it has something to do with those pods they emerge from before going on the air.
The guy who does the sponsor/underwriter announcements for NPR does sound like a robot. There are weird unnatural pauses in his speech, although I seem to recall that they interviewed him once and he said it was intentional. I don’t recall that his “normal” voice sounded like it does when he does those announcements.
Are NPR shows frequently broadcast on the Public Radio stations of other countries? Perhaps the extra enunciation is to make listening easier for a foreign audience.
Malodorous I had thought that perhaps that was a reason, although for native anglophones it would be unnecessary. It reminds me a bit of how Super Channel (early European satellite tv) had slow speaking announcers.
I’m going to take some heat for this, but the one NPR voice I can not listen to is Diane Rehm. I fully understand that her slurred speach is the result of a medical condition, but for me, listening to her is not “soothing and calming” as the stereotypical NPR voice is. Instead, it is decidedly unpleasant.
Obviously she is very, very sharp, and I’m sure that a face to face conversation would be fine. I’m sure there is some place for her in the news radio business, I just don’t think that on-air is it.
So I didn’t mishear that. Now my anger is justified! Hurray!
I met the guy who does the regional announcements at the local station here (KQED) when I toured their facility. He sounded pretty much like he does on the radio.
Thanks for the reassurance, KneadToKnow. I would have loved to ask my late grandfather if he wrote his own copy. He was an announcer way back for what is now KNBR. I would assume he did for everything except news wire stuff.
I agree, but it annoys the piss out of me for reasons I can’t entirely articulate but are probably along the same lines as why “smooth jazz” causes me to want to commit multiple homicide. I feel like they’re trying to lull me with their mesmerizing tones, and it makes me want to shout, “I am not a number! I am a free man!”
Curiously, I don’t have this reaction to announcers on the Beeb. Even “Received Pronunciation” has more character than NPR’s monotone eunciative droning.
Stranger
You is funny. 
I observed long ago that in commercial radio, the men have distinctive voices while the women all sound the same.
In public radio that’s reversed, with a few exceptions. Liane Hansen, Sylvia Poggioli, Susan Stamberg, Nina Totenberg are all instantly recognizable as themselves.
On the other hand, do I know when I’m listening to Robert Siegel, as opposed to Steve Inskeep or Daniel Zwerdling or Noah Adams? No, I do not.
A significant exception is Scott Simon, whose gently amused voice I could listen to all day long (but which I only get to listen to for two hours every Saturday).