I recently saw a posting from somebody in charge of content at a public radio station wondering about what program she could acquire to replace "Dinner Party Download." The question made me pause. As somebody who was once in charge of content at a small statewide network, I worked diligently to create a consistency in programming. The question for me was not about individual programs, but about the service as a whole.
Coming out of the 80's, public radio was in a quest to create a consistent appeal through the selection of content that had a affinity. Disparate programs could have that affinity, but that does not mean that all content worked well with other content. One of the discoveries was that patchwork programming resulted in barriers and rifts in the audience. The more programs in the daily program grid would likely result in audience churn and lower time spent listening and lower core loyalty. The idea was to create consistency across day parts. A question that was often asked of PD's in those early days was, "Can you tell me what is on the air at your station right now?" Programmers with a crazy quilt of programs had a hard time answering that question.
The big discoveries were the inconsistent appeals between news content and music programming like classical and jazz...and the opera with everything else in public radio. But, even content that on the surface seemed to have consistent affinity and appeal might not have. At a network in the Midwest with a consistent schedule of locally produced talk shows had problems of churn. The audience was not carrying over from program to program. The audience was defined by the programs not the programming. The loyalty was built among a micro-set of listeners and did not carry over to other programs or day parts. The host would sign-off and so would the audience.
The station mentioned above has been drifting toward patchwork programming with inconsistencies in program selection horizontally across hours. That's a problem because radio listening is habitual. Listeners tend to tune in at the same time everyday. If the programming they seek is not there, they tune away.
Public station that perform well with their audience have a consistency across day parts and even horizontally across hours. Look at stations that perform well and take note of the consistency of their schedules.
The question should be, "How can I best serve my audience and my community." There are so many good programs. How do you make room for them all? You can't. You're the gatekeeper. You need to make the decisions. It's never been easy. For example, What are you supposed to do with something like "Science Friday?" You can only answer that question by looking at the numbers. Make informed decisions and measure the results.
