Cleaning Up Your Act

Blah - Blah - Blah

With federal grant money in danger of being pulled, what we do now matters more than ever. What you air and what you say matters...all of it. Building audience and loyalty will increase funding. To do that takes a shift in thinking. Change from inward focus to audience focus.

I worked at a couple of music stations in public radio system where the stop sets would often run in excess of five minutes. That ain't nothin' compared to commercial stations that may run 12 minutes of back-to-back to-back-spots. The local ESPN outlet has been known to run 33 minutes of spots and promos in an hour. And yet...the public radio stations mentioned could do a whole lot more to build audience if the announcers would just stop rambling. Nobody cares...except maybe your grandmother. It doesn't take much to cause tune-out.

I used to go to listen to folk singers in clubs. They all seemed to feel they had to spend five or ten minutes setting up the next tune. Not really. It was all so tedious. Then on one occasion, from the back of the room, "Shut-up and play the music!" Laughter rippled through the room, and for that night we heard a lot more music and a lot less talk. He didn't stop telling stories about the music. He just did a better job of editing. What he had to say gave context without drowning us in words.

Fred Jacobs has a blog about improving the commercials in the commercial experience, and at the beginning of the blog he writes about "the era of the PPM ratings methodology has taught programmers about the value of minute-by-minute programming. Meters can migrate on a dime, reacting to everything from a rambling DJ to poor encoding to a weak-testing song."

Public radio should have such an advantage for building audience. No commercials. Yet the numbers often lag. The numbers are important when it comes to listener and underwriting support.

So what are you doing to eliminate the tune out? It could start with "Shut up and play the music." Or...you could focus your breaks. Make them more appealing. Instead of stopping,..move forward. Inform and move on. Advance the story and give context without overwhelming us.

Why Do Commercials Have to Suck?

Public Broadcasting In Florida Struggling

After all state funding for public broadcasting in Florida was eliminated by Governor Rick Scott , stations are left struggling to make ends meet. Eric Deggans reports in the Tampa Bay Times that stations are looking for funding from usual and unusual sources. One station has done a scrap metal drive. That will be followed by a golf tournament. Others are looking for more underwriting and increasing the length of member drives. Some stations have eliminated services like reading services for the blind. Others are cutting back on local programming.

Florida public broadcasters search for solutions to their funding crisis - Tampa Bay Times

Collaborative Marketing for Public Radio

As I read some of what was said at the Public Radio Development Conference about the need for consolidation and collaboration, I thought about a similar effort in public television. Connecticut Public Television, WTTW and a few others created a marketing partnership to garner underwriting funds for stations by pooling efforts.  Market exclusivity was one of the key points. The agreement was competitive. Not only would these station have more marketing clout against local commercial affiliates, but they would also have more clout against public television stations not in the consortium. The consortium failed. They were unable to sign clients interested in underwriting on these stations as a group.

What if the idea was focused on markets? What if public radio stations within a market were to pool resources to garner underwriters?

This idea would work best in markets where there is very little program overlap. Baltimore might be a good example. WBJC offers classical music with an audience share o 2.2%. WEAA offers Jazz and programming aimed to serve minorities with an audience share of 0.6%. WTMD is a AAA station with a share of 0.7 percent. WYPR is Baltimore's NPR station with a share of 3.1%. Individually, station shares are moderate to small. Collectively the audience share is a respectable 6.6%. The top station in the market is WWIN (MAGIC95.9) P6+ in BALTIMORE in JUNE with an 8.9 share.

Of course, this assumes the stations within a market would be willing to collaborate to create more marketing clout.

Philadelphia is another market where the public radio stations could benefit from a combined marketing effort. The combined cume of WHYY, WRTI and WXPN is 6.2% according to Arbitron PPM figures for the Spring Quarter provided by RRC

Some stations already benefit from having more than one signal in a market with a different format on each of the signals. Minnesota Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, New York Public Radio and WGBH, Boston benefit from cross-format marketing. This is something I proposed at CPBI. If approved, the combined share could have been 6%.

Combining shares:

• MPR                  10.8%
• CPR                    5.6% (CPR is about to add a third format)
• WGBH/WCRB    3.1% 
• WNYC/WQXR    4.2%

How could individual stations share combined underwriting revenue? A simple idea would be to divide up the revenue by listener hours. That could be done for the entire topline or for specific dayparts depending the client's contract.