WDFH sells to WQXR

New York Public Radio's WQXR gets a long sought after market with the acquisition of WDFH. WQXR now has a signal into a large portion of Westchester County in New York. An area it covered before migrating to 105.9-FM in New York. 105.9's signal was not as strong as the original WQXR when it was owned by the New York Times. New York Public Radio is already looking into alliances with arts organizations in Westchester County.

WDFH had been struggling financially for a long time. WDFH has plans to relaunch as a production company. Among their first projects is the LGBTQ program, "OutCasting."  OutCasting has been picked up nationally. The new production company hopes to have more offerings soon after acquiring funding.


http://www.lohud.com/article/20130730/NEWS02/307300038/WDFH-Westchester-sells-signal-classical-WQXR

WUSF buys WSMR Splits Formats

WUSF buys WSMR, looks to programming format changes - Tampa Bay Business Journal

WUSF is joining the growing list of public radio stations who are willing to split out their news and classical formats. There is risk involved. WUSF bought WSMR for $1.3 million. WSMR will carry the classical format but the signal footprint does not cover the same geography as WUSF.

Those who will be in the WSMR signal area will be blessed with full-time classical music programming. The Tampa/St.Pete market will now be able to listen to NPR news and information programming all day. This strategy seems to be working in New York, Boston, Cincinnati and Minneapolis/St.Paul.

There are plenty of comments on the blogs and online news outlets.
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug/04/041550/wusf-fm-switches-npr-format-moves-classical-progra/news-breaking/

http://blogs.tampabay.com/media/2010/08/tampa-public-radio-station-wusffm-to-purschase-wsmrfm-in-sarasota-for-12million-shifting-classical-m.html

Classical Music in St. Louis

Late this Spring commercial classical station KFUO became Christian Contemporary. KFUO was the only full time classical music station in the market. KFUO promised to run classical music on their HD2 outlet after the format change. Since hardly anybody owns an HD set...hardly anybody is listening.  Late last week KWMU announced they were adding a few hours of classical music to their programming on Saturday night. That's not enough to satisfy the classical music fan.

Classical music has proven to be popular enough on public radio stations in St. Paul, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and a few other places to be self-sustaining. These stations primarily broadcast classical music and the fan base in these markets is large enough to support these stations. Is the market large enough in St. Louis? Is there enough demand. I'm guessing the answers are yes.

According to Arbitron the St. Louis metro market has 2,308,100 listeners six and older. If a public radio station were to broadcast classical music on a full time basis, a conservative estimate of the cume rating could easily be 6% or about 139,000 cume listeners a week. If about 10% of the audience were to become members, the station might expect member revenue to be about $1.4 million. It would not be unreasonable to expect underwriting revenue to be around $300,000. Add in a community service grant and some foundation money, the station could easily expect total station revenue of about $2,000,000.

Of course, all of this hinges on the availability of an adequate FM signal in the St. Louis market. And a lot would depend on the debt load created by purchasing an existing signal, but the projected revenue could easily cover the expenses of a classical music station in St. Louis.

I should note that the Lutheran owners of KFUO got a reported $26 million when they sold their station to Joy FM. KFUO(Now KLJY) has a huge signal of 100,000 watts. The antenna is is over 1,000 feet above the terrain which makes for a broadcast radius of about 60 miles. It's an appealing signal for KLJY

Classical Music Still Feels at Home on Public Radio

Classical Music Still Feels at Home on Public Radio

Stations that have invested in classical music have seen positive results. In all cases gains seem to have been made by public radio stations that devote the entire day to classical music. This is especially good news for WNYC and WGBH. Both stations worked out deals for frequencies...WQXR and WCRB...devoted to the format.

According to Radio World:

“The increase can likely be attributed to several factors: an increase in the number of stations programming the format; … a steady decline of Classical music stations in the commercial band, driving more audience to public Classical stations; and the inheritance of some audience that public News/Talk had lost,” Arbitron stated. The format’s gender composition also has become more male, up to 49% from 45% four years ago; and though still skewing older, its age composition got younger over a year, with the sub-55 audience growing from 29% to 32%. "


AQH shares of tow or three percent for classical music on commercial stations may not have been enough to be sustainable, but on listener supported stations it might be a great starting point.

Public Radio Rediscovers Classical Music

Classical Music’s Comeback, on Public Radio - New York Times

The New York Times has an article about Public Radio and the resurgence of classical Music.
The key to success seems to be single format stations as opposed to hybrid formats (classical music with news and other formats) and market exclusivity. Check out the comments by Marc Hand. A third factor may be market size.  I'm not sure about this but, it may be worth considering when it comes to sheer number of listeners needed to support the station and its programming. The three successful stations mentioned in the article are WQXR, New York, WCRB, Boston and WETA, Washington. Not mentioned in the article are the successes experienced by KUSC, Los Angeles and KSJN, Minneapolis.

Shifts In Radio Listening Habits

The Personal People Meter…the new method for measuring radio listening habits…is changing the classical music landscape. Two high profile changes came about last year when WCRB and WQXR were sold to public radio stations. Recently KING-FM in Seattle reported they would change to a non-profit status and take donations. According to KING-FM, advertisers were no longer willing to support the station. At least in the numbers needed to sustain the programming.

A New York Times article by Stephaine Clifford from December 2009 (Never Listen to Céline? Radio Meter Begs to Differ) asserted that classical music fans listened to classical music on the radio a lot less than they had been reporting under the old diary method.  My experience in Connecticut would seem to confirm that. When the station I worked for started getting information from Audience Research Analysis (ARA), the Audigraphics information was adjusted to eliminate diary keepers who seemed to be listening to our station 24 hours a day. Eliminating those four or five diary keepers per quarter had a minimal effect on our weekly cume, but it had a great impact on core loyalty figures and station use figures. It was the first evidence I had that diary keepers were willing to put down what they thought should be in their diaries rather than a true reflection of their listening habits.

Do I listen to Celine? The answer is yes, but only if I have to. It depends on who I am with and who has control over the radio. If I’m riding in the car with my sons, I get to listen to a lot of hip-hop and urban contemporary. That is not my preferred format, but if I had a PPM device on my belt, those station would register as part of my listening habits. Under the diary system, because I did not choose hip-hop, I might not have put that station down as part of my listening. Under the PPM system, my listening might be considered collateral damage depending on your point of view.

According to research from The Radio Research Consortium, it turns out most of us listen to about 12 radio stations on a regular basis. That three to four times as many as previously thought under the old diary method. The common wisdom was that most of us shared our listening with three or four stations. In actuality we spend a lot less time with our favorite station than previously thought.

The resulting lower numbers means that advertisers are gravitating to stations that do better on the PPM system. According to the article in the Times, Country, Oldies and News have fared better. Niche formats like Smooth Jazz and Classical have not.

More but Selective Music for the New WQXR

Here's a first look at what the playlist will be like at WQXR. Based on my experience, WNYC is headed in the right direction . Everything that is put on the air matters, and the selection of what music to air when is as critical as what the announcers say in the breaks. Because classical music fans are passionate about the music and feel invested in the music, there's going to be a lot of heat around WNYC's (WQXR's) choices.
I'm wondering what they mean by a younger audience. A median age of 55 would be a lot younger than the median age of most classical music stations (65 to 70).
This articles was in the New York Times on September 30th.