Some National Public Radio listeners are bypassing its semiannual fund drive and instead loading up their MP3 players with the various NPR programs available as podcasts, writes Wired. Both blessing and curse, the medium is expanding NPR's convenience and access, but it's also siphoning listeners away from local stations. Affiliates rely on member donations to air some of the very programming listeners can download as MP3s.

Moreover, there's the prospect that fans of various podcasts will donate to stations in other markets instead of their own. When users download On the Media, for example, they hear requests for donations from the show's originating station, WNYC, which has recently added some 200 new, mostly out-of-market, members.

Some stations worry that such a trend could lead to richer stations' getting richer, and poor ones getting poorer. As a result, NPR now sells its podcast underwriting sponsorships - the current sponsor is Acura - en masse into all podcasts, with local stations receiving some revenue.

"The question we're asking ourselves is, 'Is the business model of public radio prepared for a future where geographic boundaries don't exist?'" NPR VP Maria Thomas is quoted as saying. NPR says more than 18 million of its podcasts have been downloaded.