WHRO acquires new radio signals - dailypress.com

WHRO is expanding. Through the acquisition of new signals WHRO is expanding its audience. For the past three years, WHRO, which is based in Norfolk, has been acquiring radio stations or setting up transmitters in parts of Eastern Virginia to expand its coverage area. Part of the reason for the expansion is that the public broadcasting station is owned by 18 different school districts in the area. WHRO President Bert Schmidt wants to make sure that all of the school districts are served by a strong signal.

A benefit of the expansion is a broadened base of support. It was a strategy used by Connecticut Public Radio when John Berky was station manager and I was Program Director. If the programming is compelling, the strategy works.


Read more here: http://www.dailypress.com/entertainment/dp-fea-whro-20110723,0,1256585.story

KCET drops PBS

KCET drops PBS, risks viewer loyalty to avoid $6.8M yearly dues

It's a risky decision indeed.

One of the questions we faced on a regular basis at Connecticut Public Radio was the high cost of National Programming. Was the programming really worth it? Could we cut our losses if we just cut a few of the really expensive programs like Car Talk or A Prairie Home Companion. It was even suggested briefly that Morning Edition was too costly. Couldn't we just cancel these programs to reduce our expenses? Surely there must be something almost as good that costs a lot less? If we do that can't we put some of the savings into local efforts?

Fortunately, we took a careful look at how our audience was using the station. I even wrote an article about it for Audience 98, Public Service Economics.

We used listener hours to determine how the audience was using our programming. We then compared revenue per listener hour against cost per listener hour to determine our return on investment. The three programs mentioned above generated a large portion of Connecticut Public Radio's listener hours. The costs per listener hour were more than offset by the way our listeners used the station.

For the sake of argument, suppose we took A Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk off the air to save $32,000 in 1998. Because those programs were carried by two other public radio stations, we would have lost most of those listener hours and the revenue they represented.  In 1998 Car Talk represented about $68,000 in listener sensitive income. A Prairie Home Companion represented about $110,000 in listener sensitive income. Listener Sensitive Income is a combination of the revenue from listeners, local underwriters and local foundations. The combined return on investment was $106,000.

These numbers are a lot smaller than the $6.8 million in dues paid by KCET. The number of viewer hours represented by KCET audience is a lot larger than the 56 million listener hours generated by WNPR.  KCET has probably put a lot of thought into their decision, but they are likely to lose several million viewer hours to the other PBS stations that serve the LA Basin. The drop in viewer hours will represent a drop in viewer sensitive income. The question is, did the viewer sensitive income offset the cost of the PBS programming?
Will the new local focus generate enough viewer interest to offset those costs?

WFPL-FM launches environmental reporting collaboration

Public radio partnerships like the one announced by WFPL in Louisville help stations build on their strengths.
According to an article in Business First, WFPL is teaming with 18 public radio stations in five states to report on environmental issues in the Ohio River Valley. To create the initiative, WFPL also built relationships with three foundations and Hanover College.

The experience we had with other stations and foundations at WNPR to create these kinds of partnerships helped the station enhance it's content around the environment, health issues and, reporting and on politics in Connecticut's capitol region. The collaborations drew the public radio stations in our region closer together, even those with which we shared listeners. It also brought several foundations a platform for their community service issues. The network of community service oriented non-profits was enhanced by these alliances.

I must note there was clear firewall between the funders and the news content. Through regular communications with the funders, WNPR was able to satisfy the foundations' needs. High quality reporting was making the public aware of the issues near and dear to the station's funding partners. We also found that these collaborations raised the bar for regional reporting among all of the stations involved in the initiative.

There's more about how public media can become involved in community service alliances at the National Center for Media Engagement.

WMFE Switches Formats

I heard a few days ago about the impending change to news and information at WMFE-FM. It's exciting news for those who have not had NPR style news consistently in Central Florida. The change will be felt deeply by classical music fans who will be forced to subscribe to a satellite service or get classical music from the web. The music is being offered on WMFE's HD2 signal. There are not many sets and the low power of the HD signal will not satisfy too many listeners. I'm not sure how the HD2 broadcast is going to sustain itself.

News coverage of the change has been scant. The word may not have gotten to the station's classical core audience yet. The station sent a mailing to its members yesterday. There will be more heat around this change after the classical audience becomes aware of the change. When we made the change at Connecticut Public Radio. most of our listeners could still get classical music from other radio stations in our coverage area. We still got over 2000 protests from our membership about the change. A quick search of the Orlando market did not reveal any other stations carrying classical music.

More at Floridatoday.com