At Wits End

All Things Millennial?

I don't have much to say about the cancelling of Wits. It was touted as A Prairie Home Companion for a younger crowd.

I listened...sometimes. It was on Saturday night. That's not exactly prime listening time for radio. Even in its heyday, A Prairie Home Companion lost over half its audience in the last half hour on the stations where I worked.

Wits had its moments, but not enough to draw me in every week. I only listened if I happened to be in the car.


Wits was an attempt to find a new hit to replace Public Radio's aging stars like Wait, Wait, Car Talk and APHC. Those programs were anomalies. Most attempts to create the new shining star have failed, especially one hour programs. It is hard for a program to gain audience...unlike programming. Listeners have trouble finding a single program. Landing on, and listening to, a program stream with a consistent appeal is much more conducive to habitual listening. Being able to listen to programming that consistently meets a listeners expectations on a regular basis can lead to greater loyalty and a large enough audiences to support the programming.

There's a difference

Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Weekend Edition and Marketplace are programs that work well together and resemble programming. Wait, Wait, Car Talk and APHC appeal to the same core audience. It just seemed like Wits, with it's out of the way scheduling, was trying to change the way people listen to radio. That's an uphill battle. We had a music director at one of the stations I worked for who vowed he was going to change the way people used radio. All he managed to do was drive the audience away.

I was at a PRPD retreat in 2002 when a network exec stopped by to give us an update on the status of public radio programming. He told us there were a handful of programs that were breaking even or better. There were over 350 programs being offered at the time. The odds of success weren't good...even when times were good.

Location Matters

All of the public radio hits mentioned above air when people use radio...except for APHC. The programs are all well produced and appeal to the lifestyle and values of the public radio audience. They also air during times when listening to radio reaches its peak. They air during morning and afternoon drive, or during the midday bulge on the weekend. A Prairie Home Companion is the exception. We aired APHC twice on WNPR. We carried the live broadcast on Saturday evening. We repeated the program Sunday at noon. It was not long before the Sunday broadcast outperformed the Saturday broadcast. The reason...The potential for an audience was greater on Sunday at noon because more people use radio at that time.

There is no shame or blame. The effort to create something new and vital should be encouraged. We should endeavor to create new audiences and, more importantly, reengage the audience we already have with new ideas and perspectives.

Eliminating Seams

Saying Goodbye Less Than Seamless

I was listening to the last minutes of Science Friday Today. At least I thought it was the last few minutes. Ira Flatow was saying goodbye. He was reading the credits. He told me to have a good weekend. The PRI button played. The show was over! Well, maybe not.

He told me to tune away.

So, I did. I got out of the car and did my errand. I got back in my car. I turned on the radio and there was the second half of Science Friday. I thought you were gone. You said goodbye. What gives?

I remember learning in my PD classes we were supposed to promote time spent listening by not creating barriers to listening. Telling listeners goodbye is a big sin. When you do this you're telling listeners to go away. You're creating seam. You're creating an excuse to tune out.

I would hope the network people would know about something as basic as the avoidance
of seams. Yet, I hear it all the time. The halfway point of Weekend Edition has a long goodbye. Garrison Keillor spends a good two minutes saying goodbye. They say goodbye every night on All Things Considered.

Why?

As a PD responsible for keeping listeners listening and engaged...you're doing your best to send them away. It is supposed to be about the listener. We're supposed to think audience. The audience tunes in and out all the time. They do not listen to programs from top to bottom. Instead of saying goodbye, how about an opportunity to forward promote?

Why is this important for public broadcasting? Building audience and promoting time spent listening creates loyalty which allows stations the opportunity to grow funding and build partnerships within the community. It's basic. It should be a part of best practices.

Gaming the Ratings?

Voltaire claims to smooth out the rating bumps.

Does it work? Is the magic box, Voltaire, junk science, or voodoo technology? Nielsen has looked into the processor. Nielsen's testing was done in a lab. Now the Media Rating Council (MRC) is looking into the technology using real world testing by working with stations that use the processor.

There are plenty of complaints in public radio circles about the wild swings in ratings under the PPM system. Part of the problem of PPM is the short sample time which will lead to volatility in the ratings. I prefer to look at ratings over periods of time to help eliminate bounce. Six month trends seem more stable.

Voltaire claims to improve sound processing to enhance PPM's ability to measure a station's encoding.

The tests by MRC will continue through August.

Classical Sell Off

Classical gives way to Christian Format

APM is selling off it's on-air presence in South Florida. With it goes the classical music programmed on the stations (Classical South Florida). The changes reflect a broader change for APM Group with staff laid-off throughout the system. The three stations in South Florida have been sold to Educational Media Foundation for about $21 million. EMF programs Contemporary Christian music

The Board Up In Arms

Members of the  Board feel betrayed. According to an article published by Inside Radio and Current, seven board members resigned since the deal was first approved in late June. According to Current, AMPG signed the deal without consulting the board when EMF gave APM one day to decide.

Due to Circumstances...

There are influences outside the realm of control that adversely affected Classiccal South Florida.
The way listeners use radio has changed dramatically in the past three years. Time Spent Listening is down. So is the Average Quarter Hour Audience. That means listener loyalty has taken a hit. Lower loyalties means diminishing returns on Listener Sensitive Income. Cume and Cume Rating have also dropped for many public radio stations because of the Advent of PPM.

Winter 2015
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 4,000      1.2                116,100               4:15

Winter 2014
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 3,300      1.0                137,500               3:00

Winter 2013
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 3,100      0.9                159,200              2:30

Winter 2012
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 2,700     0.8                150,300              2:30

Winter 2011
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 5,800     1.5                219,100              3:30

Winter 2010
             AQH      AQH Share   Wkly Cume        TSL
WKCP 6,100     1.9                 226,700              3:30
(All data from Radio Research Consortium, Nielsen and Arbitron Person 6+ Maimi, Ft Lauderdale, Hollywood)

There has been a trend downward in most statistical categories over the past five years, The Winter 2015 quarter saw a bounce upwards. I'm not sure of the benchmarks APM is using to measure success, but revenue consistently is falling below the break even point, A major factor contributing to the shortfall is our flagging economy. CSF was launched just as the Great Recession began to unfold. Uncertainty in the economy, suffering portfolios, unemployment and underemployment are all factors affecting Listener Sensitive Income. A robust recovery from the recession may have made it possible for APMG to carry its debt load.

Classical South Florida has been posting deficits since 2008. APMG took on $30 million in debt to set up the network. By accepting $21,1 million from EMF, APMG is selling the three stations at a loss.