Shorter Fund Drives Are Back

You just gotta work at it!

An article by Tyler Falk in Current...the newspaper for people in public media...highlights what some public media outlets are doing to cut down on the number of days spent on-air fundraising. It's the return of the shorter drive.

WBUR in Boston recently completed a drive where they raised over $1 million in 26.2 hours. The them for the drive was based around the Boston Marathon. The amount raised was over 100% more than previously raised in a day. They did it with a whole station effort with pre-drive promotion, They utilized digital platforms and  social media including updates with Facebook Live and on-air reports with Luke Burbank. There was even a pre-drive rally with the staff.

Occasionally, I work on fund raising and stewardship campaigns and at one of the seminars I attended last year at the Hartford Seminary on fundraising, Mike Piazza held up NPR stations as a shining example of how to do it. Your station can be, if you're willing to try things and innovate.

Resistance to Fund Raising

Innovation is becoming more important. John Sutton put it this way in the article, "Better listening data...has shown how much fund drives disrupt listenership; and fear that on-air campaigns will drive listeners to other audio content." Sutton said a couple dozen stations are experimenting with shorter fund drives. Sustaining members are one of the factors making this possible.

The pressure to make drive more efficient has been with us all along, and the concept of shorter drives has been with us almost as long. You can't use the same concepts over and over. They will lose effectiveness, but they can be part of a station's fundraising strategies. If you've done shorter drives in the past, pull the concept out of your toolbox, dust it off, update your ideas, and go for it.

The article goes into much more depth about shorter drives. I suggest you read it. You'll also find more example of what is working and who is working on these projects. If you're not sure, ask these people for help.

Radio Still Leads Time with Audio

News of Radio's Death is Greatly Exaggerated

Edison Research is reporting that Americans spend 54% of their audio time with AM and FM radio. This is giood news for Public Radio. Lately there's been a debate that Public Radio is losing it's grip. Podcasting is the hot platform and the disruption will soon eclipse radio broadcasting.

Not So Fast

Podcasting is just another means of reaching the public media audience. According to the research...

• 54% of the timeis spent with AM/FM
• 16% of the time is spent with owned music
• 15% with pureplay streaming audio
• 7% with SiriusXM
• TV music channels such as Music Choice command 5% 
• Podcasts account for 2% of all time spent with audio.

You can read more about time spent with audio by linking to Inside Radio.

To be sure, younger listeners are gravitating to mobile devices, but the amount of time spent with radio suggests Content and Program Directors continue to pay attention to the craft of good radio.
I remember looking at some of the early research done for public radio by Church and Bailey. The research mentioned that public radio listeners were avid consumers of all media. The same is still true today. There's just a lot more platforms and a many more opportunities.

Public Radio Utopia

Location Matters

In real estate...it's all about location, location, location. The same may be true for public radio. There are markets with high concentrations of really smart people where it can all come together for public radio. Stations that air and create content that appeals to the values and lifestyles of their listeners manage to garner a sizable audience. That's a long way from the days of declaring, we have a small but loyal audience.

Public Media Audience is Smart

The most significant cohort for public radio is education. Educated, intelligent people seek out and use the content on public radio and other platforms. The educational cohort was one of the most significant findings of Audience 98. The application of VALS research confirmed that the public radio audience is served by programming that informs and entertains educated listeners. Seven-in- 10 have advanced degrees, and virtually all have graduated from college. Along with a good education comes the opportunity for increased income.

Location does not preclude good programming practices and attention to content creation that consistently appeals to the audience. All elements must come together to create success. The idea that you can put just anything on the air and the audience will come is so '70's.  Audience 98 put it this way...

The appeal of a program is inseparable from those who listen. The program creates the audience, and the characteristics of that audience define the program’s appeal. Programs that serve very similar audiences – i.e., programs with highly congruent appeals – work better in combination. The degree to which the appeals are congruent is called affinity. Programs that serve the same audiences have high affinity. Programs that serve moderately different audiences have only moderate affinity. Programs that serve different audiences have no affinity.

In other words, it is easy to fail. That's why there are under performing stations and content providers in ideal markets. Conversely, with hard work, stations and content providers can overcome less than ideal markets and over perform.

Programming Causes Audience

If the content you create and program consistently appeals to your target audience...the more successful you will become. That is, if the audience is willing to voluntarily support your offerings. Again from Audience 98, "Certain kinds of listeners are attracted to certain kinds of programming. So when we choose what we air, we select who will listen – and also who won’t." I think this holds true no matter the platform. Podcasters should be paying attention. Figure out what the audience wants and go for it! Perhaps, intensive audience research is in order to find out more about the highly educated millennial cohort.

There are  markets with high concentrations of educated people and high performing public radio stations. The top 25 markets with the most educated populations according to Wallet Hub are listed below. The compilation is from 2015. Among these markets are high performing public radio stations. I chose stations with a share in the top 5 among all stations measured in their market. 13 stations are performing exceedingly well when it comes to audience share. 12 are not. There may be mitigating circumstances for under performing stations, but a look at why might prove helpful if your station is in the top 25 of the educational cohort among the 150 metro areas included in the study.

So What?

Think of it this way...stations that perform well with the public radio audience are more likely to generate listener support. That support makes it possible to create content more suited to the platforms used by smart millennial listeners.

Stations in the Top Five

Ann Arbor  WUOM - Michigan Radio  9.8% Share

Washington DC  WAMU  8.0% Share

Madison  WERN  5.8% Share

Boston  WBUR  4.4% Share

Raleigh-Durham  WUNC  7.1% Share

Tallahassee  WFSU  7.9% Share

Portland, Maine  WMAE  8.1% Share

Austin  KUT  5.3% Share

Denver  KCFR-Colorado Public Radio 5.6% Share

Portland, Oregon  KOPB  7.4% Share

Albany  WAMC  4.7% Share

San Francisco  KQED  5.5% Share

Huntsville  WAYH  3.8% Share

Overall Rank	MSA	“Education Level” Rank	“Quality of Education & Attainment Gap” Rank
1	Ann Arbor, MI	1	4
2	Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV	3	19
3	Madison, WI	2	51
4	Provo-Orem, UT	11	6
5	Colorado Springs, CO	4	47
6	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	6	31
7	Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH	5	63
8	Lansing-East Lansing, MI	15	1
9	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	7	59
10	Raleigh, NC	10	49
11	Tallahassee, FL	17	15
12	Durham-Chapel Hill, NC	18	9
13	Portland-South Portland, ME	12	68
14	San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA	21	5
15	Austin-Round Rock, TX	21	11
T-16	Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO	9	119
T-16	Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA	13	66
18	Albany-Schenectady-Troy, NY	14	92
19	Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD	23	30
20	San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA	16	110
21	Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT	8	149
22	Manchester-Nashua, NH	19	128
23	Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT	20	116
24	Honolulu, HI	30	14
25	Huntsville, AL	25	99

Making Election Coverage Real

Are real needs being lost in the election rhetoric?

Here's a list of what really matters to working Americans.

The South Central Federation of Labor in Wisconsin polled a wide variety of Wisconsinites including middle class, working class, small business owners, people with jobs and the unemployed. They wanted to measure the importance of the "Right to Work Bill" to Wisconsinites.

Right to Work did not make the cut. What Did?

• Raising wages
• Maintaining quality schools
• Basic community improvements
• Job training opportunities
• More affordable education
• Good housing

What would have more impact in news coverage? What would make for positive outcomes? What coverage would engage the community? The six points above would have a meaningful effect on the community. Or, do we let others set the agenda?

As journalists, we owe it to our audience to continue to bring these issues up. I live next door to one of the poorest cities in America. Deep poverty and joblessness bring with it all sorts of issues. The solution was presented as building a new stadium and commercial development funded through city taxes. The local public radio station and the local paper are going deeper.

With pending budget cuts and layoffs in Connecticut and Hartford, there will be plenty of stories. Many of the cuts are coming at the expense of the most vulnerable...those who would benefit most from the list above. Public radio's audience is filled with the people who have the resources and the inclination to do something about these issues.

Go deeper...Think audience!