Big Cuts for Public Broadcasting in Virginia

The Richmond Times Dispatch reports that Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation will be making cuts to the groups entire educational services department and the Community Idea Stations. The 17 layoffs may only scratch the surface. The article does not mention the impact on other public broadcasting entities in the state of Virginia.
There's more in this article by Wesley Hester.


Update
The cuts go beyond the Commonwealth Public Broadcasting Corporation in the Richmond area. All of public broadcasting that has state tax support will feel the effects of the cuts in Virginia. Blue Ridge PBS and WVTF-FM are facing cuts that take effect July first. According to an article in the Roanoke Times,  the cuts could affect programming, educational outreach and jobs. The cuts represent 11% of the budget for Blue Ridge PBS.


When Governor Bob McDonnell  first trimmed the public broadcasting budget in 2011 with a line item veto he said, “In today’s free market, with hundreds of radio and television programs, government should not be subsidizing one particular group of stations,” McDonnell said. “We must get serious about government spending. That means funding our core functions well, and eliminating spending on programs and services that should be left to the private sector. This is a smart, practical budgeting decision to make Virginia government smaller and more efficient and save taxpayer dollars.”
At that time the cut amounted to 0.00053% of the State's $80 billion budget. The only other cuts proposed in May, 2011, targeted government funding of abortions and planned parenthood.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/capital-land/2011/05/mcdonnell-trims-public-broadcasting-funding-line-item-veto/144690
This round of cuts take effect July first.

WDET Video

Izzi Smith shared this video in a public media group. Take a look at this creative take on WDET by the Numbers.

Fundraising Cases

I spent a couple of hours this morning fundraising with Jack Callahan on WNPR.
We had a few incentives going.

• There was an iPad drawing for today only. 
• We also had some challenge dollars between 7a and 8a.  
• There were a couple of hot membership items. We had Mother's Day Flowers (for a limited time only) and a double walled porcelain travel mug that is very popular. It's a mug with the I Heart Public Radio logo (Also in a limited quantity). 

These things helped drive listeners to the phone.

There is still a need to keep the content fresh to keep the momentum going. Finding fresh case messages can be problematic...at least for me. Closing, on the other hand, is easier.

One way to keep fresh is to relate pitches to the content. As a theme I talked today about how Morning Edition gives content context and background to stories that are often only covered on the surface. I selected stories that I thought might best illustrate the point. I chose one story per pitch to keep it simple.
And, I limited the number of stories chosen. That was because I didn't always have time to talk about the content given the incentives, premiums and closes I had to cover.

The stories I used as examples were...
Working Mom's Challenges
This added much more depth to the heat surrounding the campaign rhetoric about stay at home moms.
(50% of mothers with young children work)
Money and Politics
It's an election year and the amount of money changing hands has a wow factor.
(The rules are clear: Lobbyists use money from their political action committees to get access to lawmakers.)
StoryCorps
A few years back, WNPR brought StoryCorps to Connecticut. I talked about how it helped the station engage with its audience.


Other stories could have worked but, these were the stories I could relate to listeners.


What do you use to create fresh case arguments while fundraising? I think it matters but, perhaps your experience is different. What works for you?

KCET Struggles

The LA Times published an article today about the continued struggles of KCET. Last year KCET cut ties with PBS. A big reason was the cost of belonging to PBS to acquire national programming like Frontline and NewsHour.

Without PBS and the national programs, KCET is floundering. The audience droped around 50%. Funding has also dropped off sharply. That's not a surprise since audience and funding are directly related to each other.

There's a lot more in this article by James Rainey for the Los Angeles Times.

KCSM-TV Sale - Two Finalist

KCSM-TV has been up for sale for a while. No deal has been closed yet but, They are close. The two finalists for the station, owned by the San Mateo Community College are FM Media and San Mateo Community Television Corp., both groups from Colorado. There's more on this in this Patch.com article.


There's an inaccuracy in the article. 
"FM Media, one of the two finalists, is part of Public Media Center/Public Radio Capital. Historically it has been a license broker. They arrange the buying and selling of stations to conglomerates –– such as National Public Radio, for expansion." NPR is a program provider. NPR does not own any radio stations. NPR is not a conglomerate.

Hawaii Public Radio Re brands Itself

Hawaii Public Radio is running two services. One is mainly classical and fine arts. The other is mainly news and information. In an effort to differentiate the services for its listeners HPR launched a new branding initiative. HPR-1 is the fine arts service. HPR-2 is the news and information service.
There's more in Pacific Business News.
Running parallel services has worked well when in other markets when it comes to increasing audience and increasing listener sensitive income.

Public Radio for Delaware

RBR.com and TVBR.com reports that Delaware will soon have its own public radio station.

The station start-up funding is coming from Delaware First Media, the University of Delaware and Delaware State University. WDDE-FM plan to be an NPR affiliate. It will broadcast out of Dover. The station should be up and running this summer.


WDDE-FM

Political Ad Ban For Pubcasters

U.S. ban on political ads on public TV struck down

I think this is a really bad idea. Among the values of the public broadcasting users...getting away from the commercial clutter.

The rulling seems to run counter to the intent of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

So what matters most? Is it the values that bring listeners and viewers and to public media or is it the potential advertising revenues when SUPERPACS start placing ads adjacent to All Things Considered and Frontline?

NBC Fires Producer

The producer responsible for an edit of an audio clip of a 911 emergency response call during coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting has been fired. The edit inflamed controversy surrounding the shooting of an unarmed teenager in Florida by George Zimmerman. The edit made it seem that the shooting was a race based crime. (Isn't it bad enough that an unarmed teen was shot and killed?)


There's been debate in one of the media groups I belong to on LinkedIn about whether it is okay to take quotes out of context to make a point.  The argument goes that it is impossible for a reporter to be completely unbiased.  The results of the poorly chosen edit was reckless. To me it seems the content was manipulated. To what end? To enhance the story? The edit was misleading. NBC news agrees. The producer was fired. 


 http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/0/1919138/US.News/NBC.fires.producer.over.edited.Trayvon.Martin.call

CBC Cutting Job and Programs

The CBC also announced that it will seek advertising and sponsorships for CBC Radio 2 and the French language service Espace musique.

This is the second round of cuts for the CBC. In 2009 CBC made up for a $171 million shortfall with program cuts and layoffs. 

The CBC announced they will be cutting 650 positions after their budget was cut $115 million by the Conservative Canadian government. There's more in an article in Billboard dated April 6th.

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/radio/canadian-broadcasting-corp-announces-cutbacks-1006692152.story

Classical music radio may soon return to St. Louis

It looks like St. Louis may have a full-time classical music station soon. According to an article in the Post Dispatch, The Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, which provided considerable financial support to the old "Classic99," KFUO-FM, hopes to be on the air with a new FM station in early June, pending FCC approvals. 

Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/classical-music-radio-may-soon-return-to-st-louis/article_7bf3a6cc-5d6d-5c83-9d8c-43e035cf44af.html#ixzz1rBGXfeDW

 The same organization bid for KUFO-FM which was owned by the Lutherans -Missouri Synod. A Christian broadcasting company paid around $20 million for KUFO-FM which pretty much shut anybody else out of the bidding process.

Can a non-profit classical station sustain itself? I think the answer is yes. Sustainability is much more difficult public radio stations that mix the classical format with the public radio news format.  Non-profit classical stations are having success in Minnesota, Denver, Tampa and Los Angeles to name a few.

Real Life Survival Guide (RLSG) at IKEA

Last Sunday Bruce Barber's Real Life Survival Guide (RLSG) went to IKEA where the running joke was "Get a room!"

If your think about it they have about 60 of them on display starting at about $2000.

The topics discussed included Spring Cleaning, Dumpster Parties, breaking old Food habits which degenerated into a lengthy discussion on the virtues of bacon, how to fight spring allergies and, making time for families.

The Real Life Survival Guide isn't your typical public radio show. It's a mix of good table conversation, The Kitchen Sisters and a touch of the Algonquin Round Table. The conversations do not get contentious. There's a mutual respect among the guests.

Should the conversations have more depth or controversy? Maybe. One of the core values of the program is to have fun during the conversation. You can have some influence over the guide by taking the Barber Poll. While on the website, make suggestions and comments. We're trying to build an online community.

IKEA treated us very well. They put the show in one of the room displays near the entrance and fed us with items from their food court. We didn't get any Swedish Meatballs but, the Gravlax were delicious.

The program airs Sundays at 4:30pm. You can listen anytime on line.

CBC facing $115 Million Budget Cut

The CBC is facing a $115 million budget cut in the government's new budget. So far management has been mum on how it will face the cuts.  CBC president Hubert Lacroix says the broadcaster will have more to say about how it will adapt to its new economic reality at a town hall meeting next week. Some experts believe the smaller markets...communities with less that 50,000 population...will feel the cuts most. Others say that Radio 2 will go dark.


There's more in an article by Jordan Himelfarb in the Toronto Star.