A Sleep Podcast Where a Radio Station Reads Its Own Paperwork

A radio station's unusual podcast

Marfa Public Radio, the public radio station in the Texas town of Marfa, has a show with an unusual promise: it wants to put its listeners to sleep. "Marfa Public Radio Puts You to Sleep" is a sleep podcast in which station staff read aloud the boring documents that keep a radio station on the air — FCC compliance rules, NPR's code of journalistic ethics, internal protocols and paperwork.

The station's own podcast page explains the premise: Marfa Public Radio operates 24 hours a day, "except when lightning strikes", and an enormous amount of work happens behind the scenes — fundraising, compliance, protocols, emergency response and maintenance. The station admits it may never be able to explain what running a station really takes, so instead it reads those documents out loud.

Hosts and episodes

The show is hosted by Zoe Kurland and Christopher Dyer. Its episode list mixes dry institutional texts with the station's local concerns: "The Dark Sky Ordinance read by Annie" runs 19 minutes and 24 seconds, while "US Postal Regulations read by Yvonne" runs 18 minutes and 53 seconds. Both episodes are dated October 8, 2023.

A dark sky ordinance is exactly the kind of local document a West Texas station knows well — rules about outdoor lighting — while postal regulations are the federal text nobody reads voluntarily. That is both the joke and the format: institutional prose, read calmly, as a sleep aid.

Why it matters

The podcast is tied to the station's fall membership drive, and the ask is never hidden: listeners who wake up are invited to donate at marfapublicradio.org/donate to help keep the station, and its reading of boring documents, going. Marfa Public Radio is a 501(c)3 non-profit organisation.

For a small non-profit station, the format does double duty. It turns the administrative burden that keeps the transmitter running into programming, and it makes the case for membership in the same breath.