There were similar issues in Connecticut when WNPR refocused programming to include more news and information. WNPR took a big hit from unhappy members. Looking back, the numbers turned around quickly. If you include underwriting and membership as Listener Sensitive Income, revenue increased in the first year. So did the audience. In the long run, the biggest benefit was increased community connections and community support.
Check out the article in Trib Live.
WDUQ not only won't double its audience, it will be lucky to retain half of it. WDUQ was tied to the Pittsburgh community, a community that has deep ties to the development of the jazz tradition in the United States. From 1949 to 2011, WDUQ built, little by little, its place in that tradition, growing organically out of the local soil. Of course it also provided the best from NPR and PRI and other services.
ReplyDeleteThen the empty heads with money took over, claiming that call-in shows (drawing from the endless list of inane topics), and seeming endless hours of BBC programming, and cutting back jazz programming to a mere 6 hour per week, all this, they claim increases the station's public service to the community. As long as words have meaning, this claim will be seen for the empty sloganeering that it is. The station has become a Romeroesque zombie robot, rootless, stumbling through the day.
I used to be a sustaining member: now I'm going to pledge $6 per year, one dollar for each hour of jazz programming.