Oh, You'll Get Over It

 I've Heard This Before

But for me, some things will never settle. They are not meant to settle. In a way, it's like grief. There will always be feelings for something that is such a significant part of my life. So many things never would have happened if I hadn't responded to that call for volunteering at my local public radio station. That opportunity turned into a whole new direction for me, and  meaningful career of public service. I got to work with some really incredible people, and serve a remarkable audience.

But this isn't all about me. It is about the American people. The mission of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is to ensure universal access to content and services that educate, inform, promote civil discourse, and foster curiosity, with a particular focus on creative risk-taking and addressing the needs of unserved and underserved audiences. CPB stewards federal funding to support more than 1,500 local public media stations nationwide, enabling them to provide essential news, educational programming, and emergency information to all Americans. 

The President and his party doesn't see any value in this because it doesn't serve his agenda. In fact, he resents anything that might seem critical to him. He wants total control over messaging. Therefore, CPB, and Public Media must be eliminated.

About a week ago CPB's Patricia Harrison announced The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be ending operations in a matter of weeks. And you know what is remarkable? The professionalism demonstrated by this letter under extremely difficult circumstances.

Patricia's letter is below.

August 1, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package and the release of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s FY 2026 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-H) appropriations bill, which excludes funding for CPB for the first time in more than five decades.

For nearly 60 years, CPB has carried out its Congressional mission to build and sustain a trusted public media system that informs, educates, and serves communities across the country. Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming, and essential services for Americans in every community.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”

CPB informed its employees today that the majority of staff positions will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025. A small transition team will remain through January 2026 to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations. This team will focus on compliance, final distributions, and resolution of long-term financial obligations, including ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.

“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.”

CPB’s Board of Directors and management are working closely to address the legal, financial, and operational requirements of the closure. CPB will provide regular updates and guidance to stations and producers navigating the profound challenges ahead.

Sinecure

An Easy Job

1. A position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit.

When I told my counselor what I wanted to do and what my major was going to be, he could hardly hold back. He called Mass Communications a gut course. He said students who couldn't cut anything else chose that. I spent the next 40+ years learning about the public radio audience and creating content for that audience.

I joined in this effort a few years after it's genesis. After the launch of All Things Considered, but before the launch of Morning Edition. It soon became clear, to become a true community service, our focus had to be on the audience.

With the help of those who were already involved in developing this service, I learned about what motivated that audience to spend more time listening and learning what might motivate that audience to give. It was the basis that led to phenomenal growth in audience numbers and audience engagement.

A Community Effort

We started with thousands of listeners. We shepherded the system to millions of listeners worldwide.

It was a lot more work than either of us imagined, but I knew back then it was so much more than a gut course for college slackers who need to declare something, anything.

What we did, what we discovered, worked. I think of it as the launching pad for what's to come.

Podcasts: Infinite Choices?

 How far back does this go?

Did you ever do this as a kid? It takes two mirrors facing each other. The reflections seem to go on forever. I often wondered how far back into the the past (or future) I could look. There had to be an end point or beginning, right?

It's kind of like the philosophical question about what came first. If there is infinity, are there beginnings and endings? 

What does Aristotle say about infinity?

Aristotle postulated that an actual infinity was impossible, because if it were possible, then something would have attained infinite magnitude, and would be "bigger than the heavens." However, he said, mathematics relating to infinity was not deprived of its applicability by this impossibility.

What?

What does this have to do with podcasts? Nothing, really. According to the latest statistics there are 2.4 million podcasts and 66 million downloads. 177 million people listen to podcasts. It just seems like there are an infinite number of podcasts. The top podcasts according to Riverside.fm are:

#1 The Joe Rogan Experience

#2 The Daily

#3 This American Life

#4 Stuff You Should Know

#5 Pod Save America

#6 The Ben Shapiro Show

After dropping below the top twenty, or perhaps 50 podcasts, there's the rest of us.

Measuring Success

According to improvepodcast.com, 5,000 listeners per episode almost guarantees a successful monetization. This is where a lot of interesting things start happening. Having more than 5,000 listeners per episode makes a podcast over 29 times more likely to be monetized successfully.

Slamagency.com predicts Less than 20% of the podcasts that have launched this year will make it to next year. Most podcasts fail. 

If most fail, why go there? Improvepodcast.com came up with 21 reasons you should start up a podcast. Here's a few:

• 1) You’re passionate about a topic or have something to say
• 2) Podcasting Is an Easy Platform to Create Content
• 3) You Can Create Long Form Content
• 4) Podcasting Can Help You Build a Personal Brand
• 5) Podcasting Can Become a Second Income
• 6) You Can Develop Multiple Different Skill Sets
• 7) There Are Minimal Start-Up Costs
• And for public media? You're on the platform used more often by a potentially younger audience.  Most podcast users are between 12 and 54.

Put The Hearings in Perspective

 

One Hearing Won't Be the End of This

I remember thinking after the publication of Woodward and Bernstein's Watergate story, that this would change the outcome of the 1972 election. I also remember how disappointed I was when the public ignored the direct link between President Nixon and the Watergate break in. Nixon won 49 states. And it wasn't just the break in, it was the coverup. 

The Election Didn't Kill This Story

There was much more, including the Saturday Massacre.  According to sources cited in Wikipedia, the Saturday Night Massacre marked the turning point of the Watergate scandal as the public, while increasingly uncertain about Nixon's actions in Watergate, were incensed by Nixon's seemingly blatant attempt to end the Watergate probe, while Congress, having largely taken a wait-and-see policy regarding Nixon's role in the scandal, quickly turned on Nixon and initiated impeachment proceedings that would end in Nixon's resignation.

The Saturday Night Massacre was a series of events that took place in the United States on the evening of Saturday, October 20, 1973, during the Watergate scandal.^[1] U.S. President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox; Richardson refused and resigned effective immediately. Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox; Ruckelshaus refused, and also resigned. Nixon then ordered the third-most-senior official at the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, to fire Cox. Bork carried out the dismissal as Nixon asked.^[2] Bork stated that he intended to resign afterward, but was persuaded by Richardson and Ruckelshaus to stay on for the good of the Justice Department .^[3][4]

Then there were Nixon Tapes. At first he refused to release all the tapes. Later he was compelled. The tapes blew the lid off the case. A particular recording from June 23, 1972, became known as the “Smoking Gun” tape. This conversation between the president and his advisor H.R. Haldeman revealed that the president began actively participating in a cover-up of his campaign’s illegal activities less than a week after the Watergate burglary. Nixon was accused of obstruction of justice by the use of hush money and because he instructed various government officials to order other departments to thwart the investigation. Nixon never faced a formal impeachment or other legal proceedings because he resigned from the presidency and was pardoned by his vice president and successor, Gerald Ford. billofrightsinstitute.org  Nixon Tapes: The “Smoking Gun” Tape, 1972

There are issues and events that should go beyond the regular news cycle. The point is, the January Sixth investigation is only a part of a complex series of events meant to overturn the election and create a constitutional crisis. There's a lot more to the story. Public Media has the resources to follow this story over the long haul with it's news reporting, talk programming, round tables, public events, author interviews, blogs and podcasts. The facts matter. Our audience isn't willing to cast this story aside. We should not disappoint them.

1.  Andrews, Evan. "What Was the Saturday Night Massacre?". HISTORY. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
2. ^ "A Brief History Of Nixon's 'Saturday Night Massacre'". NPR.org. Retrieved May 13, 2020.
3. ^ "Bork: Nixon Offered Next High Court Vacancy in '73". Yahoo News. ABC News. February 25, 2013. Archived from the original on March 1, 2013.
4. ^ Jump up to:^a b Noble, Kenneth B.; Times, Special To the New York (July 2, 1987). "Bork Irked by Emphasis on His Role in Watergate". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 13, 2020.

Is your station worthy?

Applying Audience Research to Your Fund Drive

I used to do it all the time. 

I was always looking for ways to connect my on-air appeals to my listeners. Since there was a listener focus to the research, I shared it with the talent at the station and the development staff in the hope they would do the same. Did they always share that information on the air. No, not always.

I still listen to fund drives locally. Some of the talent  makes the effort to connect, but some do not. I still hear a lot of "we need," "our budget." "our reporters." The focus is on the station, not the audience. Ask yourself, how is what you're doing benefiting your audience? Then try to answer that in your communications with your audience.

Coming up with pitches that focus on listener need can be difficult, but with some work, not impossible. It just takes some work ahead of the drive.

I was reading David Giovannoni's artcle in Current from March of this year, "For their listeners, NPR News stations are the last thing worth listening to on the radio." Right there, the title pops out and screams relevancy for the listener. The gist of the article is, Public Media Listeners are back and they are more loyal than ever. More nugget come from David's commentary at the end of the article. 

The headline isn’t that listeners to NPR News stations are back. It’s that listeners are finding the programming on NPR News stations more important in their lives than ever, and by extension, more worthy of support.

They're listening less in the car and at work, but now they have returned to at home listening.

Listeners use of competitors has dropped 30% from the same period a year ago.

If loyalty to terrestrial broadcast sources can thrive in this most competitive environment, would it not be equally sturdy on other platforms? Wouldn’t the last thing worth listening to on the radio be the first thing worth finding on any new platform?

The intensifying loyalty of listeners — their desertion of competing stations and ever-increasing dependence on, even devotion to NPR News stations — cannot be denied.

Your loyal listeners, the ones that listen to you more than any other station, are the listeners that are most likely to give. Understanding what makes them loyal should inform what you say during your fund raisers. 

Feeling motivated? Give it a try. 

• Hit your key points consistently. 
• Make your point and move on. 
• Don't ramble.
• No hand wringing

Who's your audience? Do you care?

 

Determining Audience Needs

Discovery

You should be curious about your audience. If you’re really serious about your obligation to the community, you should have a ton of questions. Especially when considering changes. Here are a few:

• Why does your audience seek your content? 

• What are their expectations?

• Demographically, who are these people?  

• Why are they loyal to your station, your content? 

• Where do they listen? 

• When do they listen? 

The most important answers might come down to core values. Core values might lead you to asking the right questions and the answers you need about listener motivation. If your core values match theirs, you are in harmony with their expectations.

The Public Directors Program Directors Association (PRPD), with the help of research partners and CPB, came up with some answers. As the findings were being revealed, I heard grumblings from some that they were so over Core Values. “It’s time to move on to something else.” “Core values are so, yesterday.” That could be true. First ask, have you seen a significant erosion in audience numbers and listener support? Then ask, is it because the audience has shifted or the station has drifted from its core values?  Knowing your audience is important. Making uninformed decisions can easily lead to being cast adrift in a sea of media.

I found advice about core values at Brandfolder. “There will be times in business when you have to make tough choices. But when you have core values that constantly remind you of what’s important to your business and to the people you’re serving, making the right decision becomes an effortless task. To top it off, you can live with those choices knowing that they’re informed by values that are aligned with your brand’s overarching mission and vision.”

“Core brand values matter because they influence how consumers view your brand, which is important considering that consumers are more likely to support a brand whose core values align with their own. The same is true for employees, as well. In fact, multiple studies show that shared core values have a significant impact on employee engagement.” 

“And the clincher? Building your brand around your core values allows you to grow a business that you can be proud of and be passionate about. And because those core values reflect you and your company, it becomes much easier to stay true to yourself. And in an era where consumer trust is at an all-time low, it pays to have a core set of values that helps you maintain brand authenticity.” (Core Brand Values Examples: Why They Are Key to Differentiating Your Brand https://brandfolder.com/blog/core-brand-values-key-differentiators, James Winter, 2021)

 

Four Types of Audience

Before you get lost in the argument, “This is supposed to be for everybody,” You are not going to be able to appeal to everybody.

The 4 Types of Audience

• Friendly. Your purpose: reinforcing their beliefs.

• Apathetic. Your purpose is to first convince them that it matters for them.

• Uninformed. Your requirement is to educate before you can begin to propose a course of action.

• Hostile. Your purpose is to respect them and their viewpoint.   (https://conorneill.com/2018/04/17/the-4-types-of-audience-for-your-speech/)

Your public media audience is made up of the Friendlies, and to a lesser extent, the Apathetics. Who’s in these two groups? Marketingingenutiy.com came up with this profile of the public radio audience. 

GENDER

Research indicates that the number of men and women who listen to NPR is neatly equal

AGE 

Today's public radio listeners come from all age groups. The largest portion of listeners skews 35+, reaching an audience of established listeners and viewers who are leaders in their personal and professional networks. About half are between 25 and 54 years old.

RACE  

Historically, most public radio listeners at NPR News stations were white. But today’s NPR includes Latinx and Black listeners, and their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion continues to draw listeners from various ethnic backgrounds with relevant content that amplifies the voices of people of color.

 

PRX’s Latino USA, hosted by Maria Hinojosa, elevates the voices of historically marginalized communities through authentic storytelling. Snap Judgment, hosted by Glynn Washington delivers a raw, intimate, and musical brand of storytelling that dares listeners to see a sliver of the world through another's eyes.

INCOME  

Public radio listeners typically fall into higher household income (HHI) categories and have for years. This is primarily related to the fact that households that listen to public media tend to have more formal education than non-public media households.  

The median HHI of an NPR News listener is approximately $103,000 per year. More than 80 percent of listeners have an HHI over $50,000 per year, and almost 70 percent of listeners have an HHI over $75,000. This means public radio listeners generally have more spending power than general market radio listeners. They spend money on travel, books, fitness, and they own financial securities, signaling that they have disposable income.

POLITICAL ATTITUDES  

Approximately 75 percent of listeners identify as voting, providing the perfect opportunity for sponsors to  target politically active listeners, regardless of their political attitudes. Similarly, the diversity among political viewpoints provides opportunity for sponsors to connect with people of all political preferences, including liberal, middle-of-the-road and conservative listeners. 

Some demographics are more prevalent among public radio listeners than others, but they all serve as an influential marketing audience for brand storytelling and building your brand reputation.

You Don’t Need to Reinvent the Wheel

The Wheel May Need Some Modifications

You can find the Core Values of Public Radio at the PRPD website. The basics are available to everybody. If you want more depth, you need to join. Here’s a summary of findings.

The project identified three distinct categories that captured what listeners find and value in our programming. We called them:

• Qualities of the Mind and Intellect

• Qualities of the Heart and Spirit

• Qualities of Craft

We found some common ground among the values held by audiences for all of the formats, most notably intelligence and a desire for high standards of craft. But we also found dramatic differences - particularly in the Qualities of Heart and Spirit – with values that morphed as we shifted our focus from news to classical to jazz. The successful application of this research will rest on a clear understanding of how the values are shaded for each format and can sometimes even stand in opposition to one another. In short, there is no single “one size fits all” set of core values.

 

Disrupted

Core values information is almost a generation old. Things have shifted. The way people listen certainly has changed. Podcasts are big now. Spotify too, but please remember these are platforms, not content. You should look for the platforms being used by your audience. You can find out which platforms they are using by asking. How? Survey them. Have their core values shifted? Ask!

1. Survey Them. One of the easiest ways to find out what your audience wants is to survey them. ...

2. Do a Discovery Call. If you're looking for more in-depth feedback and ideas from your target audience, you should consider doing one-on-one discovery calls with a few people. ...

3. Use Social Media.   (https://www.business2community.com/marketing/3-bests-ways-to-find-out-what-your-target-audience-wants-02150935)

More Depth?

I found this at Socially Sorted:

So here are19  Ways to Survey Your Audience.

Oh and I split them up into 3 areas, so you can find the level to jump in at depending on what type of audience you have right now! They are: 

1. Survey Your Audience with a List.    If you have a list of subscribers, then you are off and racing. If you don't, it's ok – there are plenty of options you can still use.

2. Survey Your Audience via Social Media. If you are just getting started (or even if you have a list) you can easily survey your ideal audience using social media. I've listed out plenty of ideas.

3. Survey Your Audience without a Social Media Following (or a List). All is not lost if this is your starting point. In fact, you are probably in a GREAT position as you can do this the right way,  building your list in a targeted way at the same time.  #Winning.

You can get the complete rundown here.

Grow the audience with a Survey

What You Should Ask

The following hints about surveying the audience were developed with podcasts in mind. With a little imagination these tips can easilty be used for broadcast.

Ease in with Demographic Questions

Simple, basic questions about the responder helps them feel like, “this is easy.” This lets them get used to the podcast survey process, before you ask them opinion questions requiring more thought. These general things that give you an idea of what your audience is like. You probably want to know:

• where they live

• what age range they fall into

• what level of education they have

Opinions about format

Here, you can ask them about the way your content is presented. You can ask them if they prefer interviews, solo talking, or panel discussion. Ask how they feel about the episode length. You can also ask if they prefer to listen to each episode all at once, or if they tend to listen to it in chunks. This gives you some valuable insight. If you have recurring segments, ask if there are parts they look forward to.

What's in it for your listener?

Here's where you'll ask why they listen, and what they get out of it. Unlike broadcast radio or television, people don't turn on their device and listen to “whatever's on.” They have to make a choice. Asking why they listen and what it does for them, in different ways, will get answers with different focus.

Ask what they do while listening. Do they commute? Exercise? Cook? Data entry? Close their *eyes and give it full attention?

Discovery

Always ask how your listeners found out about the podcast. Did they find out about the show through social media, word of mouth, or maybe another podcast? Did they find out through paid advertising? Did someone write a tweet or Facebook status recommending your work?

Survey Showtime

Keep your audience survey posted and open long enough to be able to mention it at the end of at least 3 episodes. Make sure it's heard! Mention it on your podcast's social media and web site. Use a short link system like PrettyLink to make a clear link to your survey. It'll look something like yourpodcast.com/survey, and it's easy to repeat in the recording stage.

Now that you've got the survey data, what's next?

It's always nice to get a pat on the back. When you look at the results of the survey, set aside your ego. Pretend it's someone else's show. The survey results can help you create more content in the future, or tie-in products or perks.

Once you've gathered these responses, be sensible. If people mention something specific that you can change (“the theme music goes on for three minutes and that's too long”), then think about changing it.

If it’s not changeable (“women have shrill voices! history is boring!”), then don’t worry about it. Unless, of course, you get a lot of feedback about it. Then, talk with other podcast creators that you trust.

Find out if they hear what your audience mentioned. For example, a comment about “shrill voice” sound might just be an indication of a need for some gain adjustment.

In a recent blog post about surveys and polls, marketing wizard Seth Godin said, “even asking someone a thoughtful question about their satisfaction can increase it.” Podcast surveys aren't just about getting the word out. They're about looking at what you’re doing right, and planning what you can do better, to engage the listeners you have. (The Podcast Host)

Simple Strategies

How to Find Your Target Audience

1. Use Google Analytics to learn more about your customers.

2. Create a reader persona to target blog content.

3. Look at social media analytics.

4. Use Facebook Insights.

5. Check on website performance.

6. Engage with social media audiences. (Google Search)https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/target-audience

Coda

The genesis for this article came while putting together a contact list for the Paul Winter Consort. A considerable number of stations no longer have a content manager or program director. My question is, who’s in charge of the overall sound of the station, and who is making sure the station is actually serving an audience? Or, is the station serving other needs. The problem with a producer-run station, it is easy to run off the rails. It is easy to lose sight of the station’s core values and the core values of the audience. After the audience moves away because they’ve become disappointed with the overall sound of the station and its content, revenue sources begin to dry up.