Maybe Fox News should be renamed

Obamacare v. Philippines typhoon: How cable covered two big stories

Pew Research offered information on coverage of two major stories during the same time period last week.

Pew did analysis of the amount of time spent on each story by Al Jazeera, CNN, FOX and MSNBC.
The two channels with a political agenda, Fox and MSNBC, spent most of their time on Obamacare. Al Jazeera and CNN were much more balanced in their approach.



Al Jazeera focused more on news. The American counterparts were more focused on opinion instead of news.  The report points out, "In the sample studied, it offered by far the least amount of opinion (41%) when it came to commentary and opinion versus reporting or fact-based statements. That compared with 72% opinion on CNN, 86% on MSNBC and 97% on the Fox News Channel."
The report also pointed out that Al Jazeera's audience is really small. Does that mean the American audience prefers opinion over news? ( I think the avoidance of Al Jazeera runs much deeper.)

Since Fox News is 97% opinion...are they really a news organization? Maybe they should just be FOX.

Layoffs Continue in Houston

Houston radio station fires its main on-air talent

Bold Predictions Fall Short

The news from Houston is stunning...but not in a good way. Four mainstays KUHT's classical service (KUHA) were let go. Back when KUHT acquired KUHA from Rice University...management predicted Houston Public Media would double its audience. Despite the predictions, layoffs started in 2011 and have continued. The article in Culture Map - Houston says the layoff came shortly after a disastrous on-air drive for KUHT and KUHA. An update to the article states, "A media relations representative claims that the leaked results of the recent fundraising drive are not accurate — and that they did not play a role in the layoffs."
The four let go include Bob Stevenson, Elaine Kennedy, Chris Johnson and Chris Hathaway. Bob Stevenson has been a part of Houston Public Media for decades.

Recurring Fundraising Dream

There was a time when I was responsible for the fund drives at WNPR. That continued even after Connecticut Public Broadcasting united donor development into one department. The fund raiser became a partnership...a collaboration.

Dreaming about Fund Drives
Just before every drive I had a recurring dream. In that dream nobody called. Since I was also responsible for content, the dream also meant that my choices for programming had no appeal to the audience. The axiom of "Significant Programming for a Significant Audience" proved false. The implications of the dream was that the programming was not significant and the audience it generated was not interested in voluntarily supporting the programming. The dream never came true. I worked with some talented content people who worked hard at programming that appealed to a significant audience.

There were ways of measuring what we were doing that helped predict what areas of our scheduled would be successful during the fund drive and what areas would be more difficult. I wrote a couple of articles with the help of the folks at Audience Research Analysis for Audience 98. You can read about it. Public Service Economics and Connecticut Public Radio By The Numbers. It's public radio geek. When I presented this stuff to upper management and the board, their eyes glazed over. They didn't get it. Because of the time put into the research, because we did our homework trying to understand how the audience used the content, the bad dream never came true.

That Same Old Feeling
I'm experiencing some of the same foreboding. We're about to launch an appeal for donations for the FOCUS Center for Autism. I'm working for them as Development and Marketing Coordinator. The audience is much smaller but, the content is significant and meaningful. FOCUS Center for Autism became a non-profit organization in 2000 under the name of FOCUS Alternative Learning Center. What began in 1996 as an after-school program and a camp in the summers for children and adolescents on the Autism Spectrum is now an intensive and growing clinical continuum of care. In 2009 we expanded our Extended Day Treatment Program to include the morning hours and to offer a Clinical Education Program that targets children who are having a difficult experience in their traditional school system. This program coupled with our After School Program offers a comprehensive clinical model that promotes social, emotional and academic growth. The FOCUS Extended Day Treatment Program has developed into a well respected community-based model of treatment that has now served over 500 children and families.

The challenge is getting the word out to a much smaller audience.