It's Not There!!!

A Listener's Rant

I went to tune-in to  my local public radio station to listen to a daily news and interview program, but it wasn't there. Because I wasn't able to tune in at the start of the hour...there seemed to be no explanation as to what happened. Not tuning in at the beginning or end of an hour is pretty typical of listeners.

So...I'm left to wonder.

When to comes listener loyalty...that's a bad idea. Loyalty is based on habitual listening habits. When a listener wants Morning Edition, it should be there. When a listener wants to find All Things Considered...it should be where it always is. The same goes for local programming.

Consistency

Consistency leads to listener loyalty. Loyalty is important when it comes to AQH and Share...and membership dollars. Keep messing with the listener and your giving him or her an opportunity to tune away.

The special in it's place was pretty good, but I didn't hear any promos for the program. They're easy to miss. To reach half the audience in a week...optimum effective scheduling is needed. That could be as many as 64 spots in a week. If the special is important enough to bump regular programming, perhaps effective promotion might be in order. At the very least, producers could have created announcements for the breaks with horizontal promotion to the next "Where We Live," or a reassurance that the program would be back.

A daily program that has built an audience should be there well...daily. The best way to build audience and loyalty is by consistently meeting the listener's expectations. It might take a little extra work, but the rewards are worth the effort.

Okay...I'm done.

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.

Why We Give - Listener Participation

Listen and Engage

Social Media marketers often talk and write about listening. TechTarget defines listening also known as social media monitoring, is the process of identifying and assessing what is being said about a company, individual, product or brand. Google Alerts and Hootsuite are two of the tools used. During the membership drive at WNPR we used a less sophisticated tool. We asked.

Telling Stories

An effective tool in fundraising for non-profits is storytelling. The stories are an effective tool in reaching potential donors. So, instead of focusing on the needs of the station, I asked how the station was fulfilling the needs of the listener. In essence, we were listening and then engaging by reading the comments of listeners. It seemed to work. This morning we went over goal again. We tried it last week and went over our goal by 25%. This week we had challenge funds to go with our pitching and exceeded out goal by 33%.

 A Two Way Street

So much of what we do in radio is one way. We provide the content. The listener listens. That's it. Asking for and using comments is a bit unusual. 

The comments were short and to the point. As listeners started to participate...more became involved.

Here are some of those comments. Many of them speak to the companionship of radio.

• WNPR is my connection to the world!
• I'm a third grade teacher. I get a lot of ideas about current events from your program and share them with my students.
• I like all the points of view.
• You keep me informed and help me to connect the dots.

• Thanks very much. You are a part of every morning and afternoon.
• I listen to NPR all the time and wanted to give back.
• I listen on the way to and from work. It gives me a half-hour a day to catch up on interesting topics. I love listening to you.
• I wanted to make sure I could help with the match. I listen every single day.
• I love NPR! I have been listening to it since moving to Connecticut in 2006.
• I've been listening for years. It keeps me company day and night.
• I see it as continuing education and life-long learning.

Most of these people have been listening for a long time. They tune-in several times a week and listen to several programs. The duration of each tune-in is around an hour. They're loyalty to the station is important. Their loyalty makes it more likely they will contribute.

Why We Give: Generosity and Public Radio

It's Not About the Mug

I sat in at my local public radio station this week asking for contributions. By public radio standards it was a huge success. During Morning Edition we went over goal by 25%. We didn't have a drawing. We didn't have a challenge grant. We had thank you gifts, and for many, that can become the main focus of their pitch. But that wasn't ours. We took it in a different direction.

Pledge Drift

There was a risk in doing it this way. Response has been good to the request for funds based on pledging tied to thank you gifts. At least the focus of the pledge is on something the listener might want. Selling logo'd items can generate a response. Selling books that are the subject of an interview can generate response too. I have several public radio mugs in my collection.  Still, thank you gifts don't get to the reason why people listen or give. Giving is tied to listening and loyalty. Once you've got them listening several times a week, you have a better chance the listener will become a supporter. 

 

Feeling Good

I applied articles I've been researching  on what works. Some of the answers can be found in previous blogs,Why We Give and Why We Give - It Makes us Feel Good.  People responded best when the request is taken to a personal level. When we shared experiences and stories from listeners, we got response. We told their stories.

 

Coming up with the stories was easy. I simply asked the listeners to give me a reason why they find WNPR to be so valuable. Why are they listening? Are there programs they find important? Is there a memorable moment they want to share to inspire others to give?  Most of the comments were a line or two. All of the stories were something the listener could relate to.

 

I still included the facts and figures and the thank you gifts, but the compelling stuff was in the listeners' responses. The focus was on the listener, not on WNPR’s needs. It was a success. We exceeded our goals that morning by 25%.

Caution - Contents are Hot

The key to this approach is the loyalty and the size of the P1 audience has towards the content. If a programming segment has high listener loyalty, the approach is likely to work. If the loyalty is lower, other factors like gifts need to be employed. When I worked in Milwaukee, we could not generate many calls of support during classical music unless there was a premium tied to the pitch. Perhaps the content was not all that compelling. Compelling and well-crafted content always makes the job of the fundraiser easier.