JARL MOHN LIGHTS A SPARK AT NPR NEWS STATIONS

When I recently posted the Nielsen Audio listening trends for the five major noncommercial format groups [LINK] I noted that the three-month trend was up for NPR News stations. The gains in listening are due, in part, to Jarl Mohn, the relatively new NPR CEO.

JARL MOHN, NPR PRESIDENT & RADIO GURU • PRPC 2014

At the September 2014 Public Radio Programmers Conference (“PRPC”) Jarl laid out a plan to grow the NPR News audience using inexpensive forward promotion techniques.  The key is to get all of the stations to implement an aggressive schedule of tune in promos for the next upcoming Morning Edition.  The plan became known as SPARK.

SPARK is a collaborative effort by NPR and the participating stations.  The first results are in and they look promising. 

On Monday 4/20 Jody Evans, President of PRPD, released a station-by-station analysis of the first six weeks – two books – and most stations had seen growth in listening to ME.  Here is the chart courtesy of PRPD and RRC: