In March of this year, National Public Radio (NPR) revealed that by the end of 2008, 23.6 million people were tuning into its broadcasts each week. In fact, NPR's ratings have increased steadily since 2000, and they've managed to hold on to much of their 2008 election coverage listenership bump (with over 26 million people tuning in each week so far in 2009), unlike many of their mainstream media counterparts.

Compared to cable news, where most networks are shedding viewers, and newspapers, where circulation continues to plummet, NPR is starting to look like they have the future of news all figured out. Or at least, they appear to doing a lot better at it than the rest of the traditional media.

But what is NPR doing differently that's causing their listener numbers to swell? They basically have a three-pronged strategy that is helping them not only grow now, but also prepare for the future media landscape where traditional methods of consumption (TV, radio, print) could be greatly marginalized in favor of digital distribution.

A Focus On Local

Though most people think of NPR as a radio station, it's actually a news gathering and production organization that sources and creates content for member stations (which are different than affiliates in that they're completely independent entities). According to new CEO Vivian Schiller, that means that NPR has a culture incredibly devoted to local coverage. "To me, local is the big play, because local commercial radio has abandoned the local market. Local newspapers are withering or sometimes dying. The big national media companies, including excellent ones like The New York Times, cannot afford to be covering every single community. So that leaves a big, gaping hole to serve Americans' local coverage," she told mediabistro.com in April.

Focusing on local information is a very smart approach for two reasons. One, because as Schiller says, it fills a gap in coverage, and two, because many people feel that delivering and aggregating hyperlocal content will be an important part of the future of media. In 2007, Alex Iskold, the CEO of semantic web application company AdaptiveBlue, predicted the rise of hyperlocal information, indicating that extremely targeted local advertising could be the path forward for the ad industry.

"Despite globalization, hyperlocal information is very valuable both to people and advertisers. In the coming years, we will be seeing the rise of a new way to look at information - geography. Inspired by utility and the promise of hyperlocal advertising, startups are racing to build businesses that deliver highly relevant, local information to users," he wrote.

Earlier this week we noted here on Mashable just how much more useful information can be when it is locally relevant. So for NPR, going local is a way to reach disenfranchised listeners, provide more utility, and potentially offer greater value to advertisers when the ad market rebounds.

A Focus On Social Media

Another aspect of NPR's winning approach is their adoption of social media. Social media tools are changing the media landscape by allowing consumers to define what's worthy of attention. NPR hasn't sat idly by — they're one of the few mainstream media organizations that is leading the charge in social media channels. Their Twitter account has over 780,000 followers, making it one of the top 25 on the social network (and third among news organizations behind only the New York Times and CNN). Their Facebook Page has over 400,000 fans.

But NPR has embraced social media in more ways than just having an active presence on top social media channels. They've also put social media to work for them. In October of 2008, for example, NPR asked listeners to factcheck the US Vice Presidential debates and communicate findings via a Twitter hashtag. And in February, NPR's social media strategist (@acarvin) talked about Twitter on air, including hundreds people tweeting back comments in the conversation. Their conclusion? Twitter lets us all share the media consumption experience together, and that's a very positive thing.

NPR doesn't stop at social networking, either — their social media efforts extend to podcasts (they have over 650), blogs (they publish almost 20), mobile apps, and even their own social network. NPR has been recognized for these efforts year after year with multiple Webby Awards.

Social media is helping NPR reach new audiences and connect better with the one they have (which, of course, helps with audience retention).

A Focus On Ubiquitous Access

Perhaps the most important aspect of NPR's approach to new media, is that they have an organizational level commitment to allowing listeners and readers to access their content on their own terms. Schiller, who prior to joining NPR at the start of this year was the SVP-GM of The New York Times web site, told mediabisto.com that NPR aims to bring people access to content "online, mobile, whatever people want, podcasts — you name it — so that you have that same sense of the NPR experience wherever you are. As far as NPR.org — sure, I want the traffic to increase, but to me the ultimate goal is not just bringing people to this walled garden that is NPR.org."

That's nothing new for Schiller, who at the Times led the charge to shut down their pay content service, TimesSelect, even though it was pulling in tens of millions of dollars. "Change is happening so fast in the media and the economy that you have to be able to say, 'Forget about what we did then — let's look at what makes sense now,'" she said, which is a very enlightened view for someone who holds a position of power in a mainstream media culture that has for so long been resistant to change.

The same sentiment is echoed by NPR's Senior SVP for News, Ellen Weiss. "We need to put NPR wherever the audience is, and that has to happen online and has to happen on the radio," she told PBS in January. And NPR has delivered.

In July of 2008, for example, the radio organization released a content API that allows developers to remix and reuse any content created by the network. That's led to interesting mash ups like NPRbackstory, which attempts to figure out the news behind trending topics by searching through NPR's archives.

More recently, NPR released a mix your own podcast tool, which gives listeners the ability to easily create their own programming schedule from the organization's audio archives. That, as Schiller and Weiss promised, is NPR at work allowing users to consume media on their own terms.

NPR's commitment to going to its audience rather than making its audience come to them is a smart strategic move. Schiller is convinced that walled gardens and pay walls just drive audiences to "lesser quality news content that is free." If that's true, NPR's blueprint is not only about attracting eyeballs (or in this case, ears), but creating an environment where quality reporting from trained journalists can continue to exist.

Not Everything Is Rosy

Unfortunately for NPR, even while their ratings soar, they have not been immune to the economic woes gripping most industries. They cut 7% of their daily news staff in December of 2008 and axed two underperforming shows. NPR faces a projected budget gap of $8 million in 2009, though that's better than 2008's $23 million shortfall.

Still, the future looks bright at NPR. Their 26.4 million weekly listeners are 11 times more than the daily circulation of USA Today, and greater than 9 times more than the prime time viewership of the #1 cable news channel in the US, Fox News. They have 860 local stations in their member network and operate 38 news bureaus around the world — 18 in foreign markets, which is greater than any other news gathering organization. NPR's amazing growth over the past 10 years prompted FastCompany magazine in March to call NPR the "most successful hybrid of old and new media," and wonder if NPR could be the savior of the news industry.

And they owe that success to the culture of open access and audience participation that they've cultivated over the past decade.