You'll Lose Thousands of Listeners

WAMU recently replaced longstanding big band jazz program, "Hot Jazz." There's the usual reaction with angry calls...even a petition.

‘You will lose a lot of listeners’: Petition fights cancellation of WAMU’s ‘Hot Jazz Saturday Night’

Replacing programs on public radio has never been easy. I've done it. I feel your pain. I feel the listener's pain too. I've logged countless hours listening to complaints about program decisions. I didn't argue. I empathized. I thanked them for their support. I didn't change my mind. I didn't relent.

There's loyalty that builds among the core, but there's core as defined by the listener and core as defined by the program source. It's he larger core, the audience loyal to the radio station that I hoped to serve.

The Small But Loyal Audience

The small cadre of listeners loyal to a single program are always sure the programmers decision are wrong, misguided and foolish. They may say something like, "I've talked with all my friends, and they're really upset." I pointed out to one caller, "That's why they're your friends. You have common interests." That didn't mollify the caller. Despite the negative reaction from disgruntled listeners and flaming letters to the editor, my experience in all of these changes has been audience growth, not loss.

The point is, a station's audience divided up by small but loyal audiences has a much more difficult time generating listener support in numbers significant enough to be self sustaining.

A Bigger Picture

Core for the radio station is among the loyal listeners who tune in several times a week for a variety of programs. These are the people who support public radio over the long haul. They are the listeners who are most likely to be members. In the case of WAMU, that's 80,000 contributors out of a weekly cume of 730,000 listeners.

All Is Not Lost

Use the momentum of the petition to look for another platform. There are public and commercial radio stations other than WAMU that might be interested. Commercial radio stations (AM Stations) are clamoring for content on the weekend. There's also Internet Radio. Could this be the beginning of a big band music station. Then there are the possibilities presented by social media. Find you niche audience and super serve them with Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Podcasts and YouTube. There are many ways to get your content to your audience. Think beyond the box of your Philco radio.

Covering Issues and Ideas

Transcending Geography

This article is not about local vs national coverage. It is about getting the most out of what stations can offer locally. Thinking about coverage from the perspective of the listener will help guide the focus of your content. It is an argument I made for years in music programming. It is an argument that often fell on deaf ears. That is, until we found ourselves creating barriers between our programming and the audience we were hoping to serve. Change came about slowly, but I like to think at WNPR we learned our lesson. It bears repeating.

Users of public media transcend local. Research I was a part of at Connecticut Public Broadcasting demonstrated clearly the world perspective public radio listeners have. This worldly view is not just a phenomenon in Connecticut. Broader research conducted for the public radio system through The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), The Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD) and others demonstrated the preference of public media users to look at issues from a broader perspective. The Sense of Place Study clearly pointed out that local coverage for the sake of being local was not an effective use of the media's resources.

Covering Issues

At WNPR we decided in 2006 when looking at format change to look at the issues and ideas that defined where we live rather than geography. Part of reason was pragmatic. Connecticut is governed by over 160 town governments. The attitude in Connecticut is that the issues in Hamden have no relationship to the issues in Waterbury. Or, that's in Hartford...not here. The thinking in the system at the time was to center coverage on a region like Chicago, New York or the Twin Cities. Connecticut did not have a regional center. Focusing on one area would make WNPR local and irrelevant to much of the state.. We decided to look at issues and ideas from a much broader perspective.

Others are taking this approach. WAMU recently announced they would realign their news coverage to key issues rather than geography. The key areas of their coverage will be Transportation and Development, Education and Inequality, Race and Ethnicity, Power and Influence, and Arts and Culture.

WUWM in Milwaukee is also covering news from an issues perspective. The news drop down  menu on  their website reveals coverage in the Environment, Economy & Business, Politics & Government, Education, Health & Science, World, Arts & Culture, and Project Milwaukee. Station Manager Dave Edwards mentioned that this approach is working out well for his station.

A Lucrative Decision

The decision at WNPR to focus on issues and ideas proved beneficial to the audience and the station. Increases in audience and loyalty followed. The launch of Where We Live by a very talented staff highlighted and enhanced coverage engaging the stations audience, Opportunities to develop partnerships in the community followed and so do did funding opportunities.

A Collaborative Effort

CPB announced in February a collaboration they are funding for regional coverage among several stations in New England. The geographic coverage will focus on issues and ideas. According to a release from Vermont Public Radio, "The New England News Collaborative (NENC) will produce multimedia coverage focusing on the region's energy usage, climate, transportation infrastructure, and its people and immigration issues. This robust partnership will produce dynamic reporting projects for on-air broadcast, digital and web presentations, and a series of public Town Hall-style meetings centered on issues facing New England and its residents."

WNPR will run the collaboration which will depend on the talents of reporters and producers across the New England states. The stations involved in the project are Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network, WBUR,Maine Public Broadcasting Network, New Hampshire Public Radio, Vermont Public Radio, New England Public Radio, Rhode Island Public Radio, and WSHU Public Radio.

Beyond Seed Money

The ability of the stations to keep the project going after the grant runs its course will depend on how willing they are to play nicely with each other. Certainly, the coverage will present opportunities for growth on all platforms. It will be up to the station to use the content to leverage partnerships and funding opportunities and put that revenue back into the partnership. It can work. 

Delmarva Public Radio

Public will have input on Public Radio's future

For smaller public radio stations with smaller audiences, the struggle to survive comes down to sheer numbers. This is holding true for Delmarva Public Radio owned by Salisbury University. In a letter to the Delmarva Daily Times, Charles T. Capute, chairman of the SU Foundation and Janet Dudley-Eshbach, president of SU, explain why they are taking a serious look at the station's situation. The Foundation hired Public Radio Captial to assess the station's situation and make recommendations. Members of the Foundation are now reviewing PRC's report.

In 17 if the past 25 years DPR has run a deficit. Funds from the University have been used to balance the books. One of the questions that needs to be answered is can a station with cume audience less than 20,000 continue to sustain an NPR news and information format? Especially when you consider they are competing for the same audience with WAMU and WESM.

When considering listener support, the size of the P1 audience is much more significant. If 40% of the Cume audience for news is core (P1), the member base is being drawn from 8,000 listeners. Is the size of the P1 audience large enough to support the cost of the news operation?

Delmarva Public Radio runs two formats. WSCL is a mostly classical service on a 33,000 watt station. WSDL is a mostly news service on a smaller, 18,500 watt signal.