Ebbing Loyalty

Straight to the Source

Earlier today, I wanted to listen in to the debate about Scott Walker's proposed cuts to the University of Wisconsin System. WBUR's On-Point put together a program about the cuts with several guests including:

• Karen Herzog, higher education reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (@herzogjs)
• Noel Radomski, director of the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. (@noelradomski)
• Christian Schneider, columnist at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. (@schneider_cm)
• John Sharpless, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Republican candidate for the United States House of Representatives from Wisconsin’s Second Congressional District in 2000.

Convenient Listening

I used to work at WNPR in Connecticut. I still live in their listening area. You would think I have a certain amount of loyalty to the station. Despite my layoff from WNPR in 2009, I still help them raise money during pledge. I still listen while driving. But now, I hardly ever listen at home. Instead of listening to the feed from WNPR, I chose to listen to the feed from WBUR. I went directly to the source. 

Since I was unable to catch the program from the start (I listened on-line about half-way into the program), I will listen to the first half of the program later through the On-Point web page. It's a lot more convenient.

Loyalty

Does this mean I'm less loyal to WNPR?  It does! Here's how the Radio Research Consortium looks at Loyalty.

Loyalty is the total QHs of listening to your station expressed as a percentage of all QHs of listening to radio in your listeners’ diaries. It is a measure of how well (or how poorly) your programming elicits listening by your cume. Here is how to interpret this Loyalty rate: Of all the quarter-hours of listening to radio over the entire survey week by your 106,700 metro area cume persons, 37.1% of those QHs were spent with WRRCFM. The audience is 37.1% loyal to the station. What does the level of loyalty indicate? Low loyalty suggests you may be trying to serve too many constituencies. High loyalty, but low cume says you are superserving too small a target audience. High loyalty and high cume means you are doing a good job of bringing people in and keeping them involved with the station.

My loyalty may actually be the same. The percent of Quarter Hours devoted to WNPR might still be the same as before, but my listening to radio is less than it once was. The total number of Quarter Hours is a lot less than it was ten years ago. I still I listen to WNPR 50% of the time...that share of pie is still the same, but the pie is smaller.

Does this Matter?  

Loyalty is important when it comes to fundraising. So is the number of Occasions. My total listening time is down.  The more loyal I am as a listener to a public radio station...the more likely I am to contribute. My time spent listening matters to. As I spend less time listening...My willingness to contribute diminishes.        

AQH Persons

A way stations can determine if listeners are spending less time with their programming is to look at Time Spent Listening and the Average Quarter Hour Audience. For this example, I did for WNPR. In the past two years AQH is down 29% and TSL is down 19% in the Hartford Metro Area. The trend suggests it will be harder for WNPR to raise money from listeners. John Sutton from RadioSutton, a Public Media consultant, suggests that reductions in AQH require stations to use more leverage during fundraisers to meet their goals. For more information on the use of leverage, please read, "It’s Taking More Leverage to Generate Pledge Drive Contributions."

What's Next?

WNPR can help itself. It can make sure they are making the most of forward promotion opportunities. They can also carefully examine the appeal of its programming. They can look at which programming elements are drawing audience and which are not. WNPR can also realign resources to programming that defines their audience. They can then determine where changes are needed. They can also make sure they have a robust on-line and social media presence. I will need reasons to listen to their content on-line and on-demand. If they can do all that, they might be able to get me to spend more time listening to their content. By doing that, my time spent listening to their content will rise.

Radio Drives in Storms

Maybe it's me. Maybe it's the public radio audience. Whenever I fundraise during a storm, the response is very light.

In December we tried to raise money during an ice storm. This week we tried to raise money during a snowstorm. In both cases, response was light for Morning Edition. Morning Edition is usually a lucrative daypart, because the audience is at its peak.

What are the reasons?

I was a common denominators in both cases. Maybe it was me.

More likely (at least to me) the audience was elsewhere. We were on the air trying to raise funds around the measles outbreak, the fighting in Ukraine, and conversation about transportation woes in Connecticut. It could be a lifestyle or listener behavior issue. Listeners may have been:

• Watching TV coverage
• Figuring out what to do with their kids (schools were closed)
• Concentrating on driving (roads were treacherous)
• Clearing snow
• Chatting with friends on social media
• Sleeping in

It would be interesting to see what happens to the public radio audience on snow days. And, what happens to that audience as the day wears on. I've noticed response to pledge appeals increase later in the day. Morning drive seems to suffer the most.

KGPR's Small Market Challenge

Community Support Coming Up Short

KGPR (Great Falls Public Radio) is in jeopardy of losing $97 thousand of its funding...all at once. KGPR does not generate enough non-federal support to qualify for CPB's Community Service Grant. According to CPB guidelines, Great Fall Public Radio should be generating $100,000 in community support. They're currently $30,000 short of that threshold.

A Numbers Crunch

Is the Great Falls Market large enough to support a Public Radio Station? According to Census data about 59 thousand people live there. If 10% of the population listened to the station, they would have a weekly cume of 6,000. Of that number maybe 20% would be part of the core audience, or 1200 listeners. KGPR reported to The Great Falls Tribune that they have 450 contributors. That means an estimated 38% of the core audience is contributing. Given the market size, there isn't much headroom. This is a numbers crunch many small market stations face.

ROI for NPR Programming

Great Falls Public Radio pays Montana Public Radio $34,000 to carry NPR and APM programming. I'm not sure of the arrangement between Great Falls and Montana Public Radio, but under an LMA agreement with NPR, Great Falls must carry Montana Public Radio's entire feed. My understanding of these agreements is that Great Falls would not be allowed to cutaway from the feed to carry their own announcements or to fundraise during the feed.  One solution might be to return a portion of the fundraising dollars to Great Falls Public Radio based on the zip codes of the contributors.   That might not alleviate the entire funding issue, but it would contribute to the solution by having contributors to Morning Edition, All Things Considered and A Prairie Home Companion in Great Falls go to support their station.

                                                                                                                        

Station management is holding a series of meetings to get input from listeners about what they should do. 40 showed up at the first meeting on Saturday.

Wisconsin Public Broadcasting Facing Cuts

Walker Proposes Big Cuts

Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Television could see as much as 34% of its state funding cut. The cuts are proposed in Republican Governor Scott Walker's Budget. The cuts could affect 8.5 positions out of a staff of 56. Walker spokesperson Laurel Patrick says, "We estimate that the ECB will be able to make up the difference in program revenue through grants, gifts and private donations as program revenue has come in ahead of estimates in recent budgets," Patrick said. "For instance, the ECB anticipated an increase of $1.8 million in additional program revenues during the next two fiscal years."

The Impact Will Be Felt

The cuts would go into effect next year. My experience is raising an extra $5million from listener and viewer sensitive income is not like flipping a switch. It will not happen immediately. If the cuts go through as proposed, some services will suffer and some jobs will be lost. Cuts seem likely. Both houses of the legislature in Wisconsin are controlled by the Republicans.



Gene Purcell, the Executive Director of the Educational Communications Board calls the cuts significant. WPR's and WPT also get support through the University. The Univeristy System in Wisconsin is also facing cuts in the Walker budget of about $300 million.




Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/jessie-opoien/more-questions-than-answers-on-proposed-cut-to-wisconsin-public/article_bbd80036-ed8e-55a1-b6f1-4f1324cb4367.html#ixzz3Qz9xRh8a

Millennials & Unedited News - Getting it Wrong

Millennials and News

"Check all your sources twice...Except for your mother. Check her three times!" Attributed to Ben Bradlee.  

Pew Research has found that young adults are more likely to say vaccinating kids should be a parental choice. 41% percent believe the choice should up to the parent. That is, despite the fact that measles in this country was almost eradicated after the development of the vaccine in 1963.

Part of the concern is the false link between the MMR vaccine and Autism. The link was discredited several years ago. Vox reinforced the information that the link was a deliberate hoax in a posting today.

This study, lead by the discredited physician-researcher Andrew Wakefield, is where the current vaccine-autism debate started. It has since been thoroughly eviscerated: the Lancet retracted the paper, investigators have described the research as an "elaborate fraud," and Wakefield has lost his medical license.

Wakefield's study included 12 children, and only five had Autism. The results of his study could not be duplicated and 1.3 million children studied since has debunked his research.

Study of 1.3 Million Kids Reveals No Link Between Vaccines And Autism

The hoax lives on...feeding on fears through the Internet and social media. The hoax is perpetuated by celebrities and  partisan politics. According to Pew Research 34% of Republicans think the choice of vaccinating should be left to the parents despite the clear risk to the rest of the population. More Republicans are likely to believe the link exists according to Pew. According to Pew Research 34% of Republicans think the choice of vaccinating should be left to the parents despite the clear risk to the rest of the population. Governor Chris Christie added credence to the hoax today.  He came out in favor of parental choice. You can find out more about what Christie had to say on a post at the Time Magazine website. Other Republican hopefuls are on the choice bandwagon including Rand Paul and Sarah Palin who say they have spoken with countless parents with heart rending stories.

Chris Christie’s Terrible Vaccine Advice

How Millennials Get News 

Research by University of Texas at Austin journalism professor Paula Poindexter points out that Young people do not make it a priority to stay informed. They feel that media talks down to them, comes off as propaganda or is just plain boring. They also think most news media do not cover issues important to them. The consider most news to be garbage. Instead they rely on smart phones and apps and share news through social media, and texting.

The result is a misinformed generation

News from social media is unfiltered. Press releases and pronouncements from pundits, politicians and celebrities is all about a point of view and partisanship. It has nothing to do with the facts. To reach millennials we need to find ways to reach them. Making sure news is available on the platforms being used by millennials is important. Equally important is having the news delivered in a way that relates to that generation.




http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2015/01/31