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.

Reading Service for Visually Impaired Goes Quiet

The reading service for the visually impaired in Montana is going off the air. Despite low overhead and signals provided by Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS, the service could no longer meet its costs.
There's more information from the Deseret News and from The Missoulian.

Public Radio / Community Engagement

Some public radio stations are reaching out and trying to engage the community. It's an altruistic effort that is making these radio stations a valued member in their communities.
As a public media manager  are you wondering why you should care? Check out the National Center for Media Engagement. In their website are The Top Ten Reasons to Engage Your Community Beyond Broadcast.

Montana Public Radio will offer a free workshop, “Your Mission, Message and the Media." Christine Dascenzo, MTPR’s outreach coordinator, will lead the workshop, which aims to provide tactics to improve communication that nonprofits can implement on their own, such as how to create strategic messages, maintain their brand and network online. 

Read more in the Clark Fork Chronicle.

WMPG, Portland, Maine teams up with Blunt Youth Radio to create radio and community ties. 

Since 1994, Blunt Youth Radio Project has brought together up to 50 teenagers from a variety of schools to produce a weekly, call-in, public affairs radio show on WMPG-FM, 90.9 and 104.1, the non-profit, community radio station of the University of Southern Maine. The hour-long show features two teen hosts who interview guests on topical issues, interspersed with public radio-style feature reports, produced by the team's reporters.

There's more at Seacoastonline.com

WWOZ, New Orleans has been involved in Gulf Aid. Gulf Aid was a concert to benefit to help with the clean-up and those affected by the spill. The concert was in May. Gulf Aid continues with updates on the station's Website.

In the interest of full disclosure, I did apply for a position at NCME. It's been about a month since I last heard from them which leads me to believe they've moved on. Despite this turn, I think what they propose about public media engagement makes a lot of sense. This is an idea worth any station's consideration, and something I hope to bring with me wherever I land.