Friday, July 8, 2016

END OF THE WEEK UPDATES




“CLASSICAL MUSIC RISING” DEBUTS EXCELLENT NEWSLETTER 

Classical Music Rising (CMR), the SRG-sponsored initiative to promote new listening to Classical stations, sent out their first newsletter and I recommend it. 

Not only does it cover the latest news about CMR, it provides station news, interesting links and commentary.

CMR’s Managing Editor Wende Persons deserves kudos for the clean look and newsy style. If you want to be on the CMR mailing list, contact Wende at wende@classicalmusicrising.org.
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RACHEL OSIER LINDLEY NAMED COORDINATING EDITOR FOR TEXAS STATION COLLABORATIVE

Rachel Osier Lindley
Don’t you love it when good things happen to kind and talented people? One of the best audio journalists, Rachel Osier Lindley has been chosen to be Statewide Coordinating Editor for the Texas Station Collaborative. Rachel had been News Director of WBHM in Birmingham.

The Texas Collaborative is a first-of-its-kind public radio initiative designed to enhance the coverage of news and issues in Texas. The founding partner stations are KERA in Dallas, KSTX in San Antonio and KUHF in Houston. CPB provided a two-year startup grant of $750,000.

As Statewide Coordinating Editor, Lindley will be the primary contact for public radio newsrooms across Texas. The initiative is planning news coverage, daily statewide newscasts, additional content for the daily newsmagazine Texas Standard and national coverage for NPR News. Lindley will be based in Dallas.
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WXPN CONVERTS MORE THAN 1-IN-10 LISTENERS INTO MEMBERS

Roger LaMay

TripleARadio.com [link] reports that WXPN, Philadelphia has reached the milestone of 30,000 supporting members.   

GM Roger LaMay says Thirty Thousand Music Listeners Can’t Be Wrong! 

Common wisdom is that 10% of a station’s estimated weekly cumulative listeners are members.  

Most stations seldom break a 6% conversation ratio. In the just released June Nielsen Audio PPM ratings for Philadelphia, WXPN has 273,100 weekly listeners. So, 30,000 members means WXPN’s conversion ration is close to 12%. Sweet.


 LaMay says that WXPN will recognize the milestone and thank station members with a special art installation at the annual XPoNential Music Festival [link] July 22nd, 23rd  & 24th.  



READER COMMENTS

RE: PRNDI IS STILL “PRNDI”
Article ran on Tuesday 7/5/16

Martha Foley
Martha Foley, News Director of North Country Public Radio in far upstate New York, writes:


Hi Ken - It's true the discussion was lively, and the final vote was to not adopt the name change as proposed at this meeting. But, having been there, my sense of the room was that PRNDI members -- voting and non-voting -- are already embracing media beyond broadcast radio.


The name change goes back to the board for a more inclusive discussion about the exact wording. The conference itself was proof that we are public media journalists, not just old time radio sentimentalists.




RE: WHAT GIVES WITH WERS & WUMB IN BOSTON?
Article ran on Friday 7/1/16 [link]

Another Tuesday stuck on a Boston freeway
An anonymous reader writes:

Hi Ken, the WUMB map is misleading. Like I said, the move to that new tower added a bunch of height, which really helped in-car listening. But their ERP is still a miniscule 160-watts. As in, 0.16kW!

[WUMB’s signal] doesn’t penetrate buildings worth a damn. There are two major highways that Boston stations must blanket: I-495, the outer beltway, and I-95 through the city.

Any dependable FM station needs to push 70dBu (not 60dBu) to ensure it can be heard.  WUMB’s 160-watts doesn’t do it.


Thursday, July 7, 2016

THE NIGHT WCCO-AM GAVE UP ON RADIO



WCCO 830 AM was once the broadcasting leader in the Twin Cities. The success of this powerhouse for over nine decades has been based their promise to be “the good neighbor” providing excellent coverage of weather, news and sports. 

WCCO broke that promise to listeners on the night of Tuesday, July 5, 2016.

SPARK! is a blog about noncommercial media and WCCO-AM is a commercial station. But noncom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. What commercial radio does affects noncom too. When commercial radio fails, it devalues the work of everyone on the dial. It makes us less relevant.


If you follow radio news, you've heard about the recent uncertainty regarding the future of CBS Radio.  After years of budget cuts and profit-taking, CBS corporate has signaled it is leaving the radio biz. WCCO is owned by CBS. This must be very distressing time for current 'CCO employees. However, I expect a station with a heritage like WCCO's to keep its promises, even during a lame-duck period.

THE MOMENT WCCO-AM ABANDONED THEIR MISSION

This is my first-hand account of what I heard on the evening of Tuesday 7/5/16.

Storm damage in Minneapolis Tuesday 7/5/16
At 5:50pm CDT the power in my home suddenly went out.  A severe storm with straight-line winds and heavy rain was blowing through Golden Valley, a first ring suburb of Minneapolis where I live.

None of my usual media was available – no power, no Wi-Fi and even my cell phone couldn’t get a signal. You’ve probably been in this situation yourself. This is what life must have been like before electricity.

Power outages are common in Minnesota but usually last only a few minutes.   



After two hours with no power I began to get worried about the perishables in my silent refrigerator. I turned to my Grundig self-powered wind-up emergency radio.  I quickly wound the handle that generates power.  The radio came alive and I tuned it to WCCO AM 830. I seldom listen to 'COO but when severe weather hits I go there first.

When I began listening to WCCO at 7:50pm two guys were on the air, one “in the newsroom” and the other was host of a program about lake cabins for sale “up north.”   

Both were doing the best they could, providing fast-moving coverage of the storm damage. They were putting callers live on the air with first-hand accounts of closed roads, local flooding and where the power was out. It was simple and helpful to a guy like me sitting alone in dark house.

I learned why the power was off at my place.  An Xcel Energy sub-station had been hit by lightning. I was one of over 140,000 customers in the west metro without electricity. The guys on ‘CCO said Xcel “was working on it” and there would be updates soon.

Then, a bit after 9:00pm, there was an abrupt change of programming.  The two hosts who had done a good job said they were leaving for the night. They said the next update would be at 5:00am the next morning.

That was followed by a few seconds of silence and then an audible click.

Next I heard a brief musical interlude followed by twelve (12) commercials, one after each other. They were likely “make goods” of spots missed during the storm coverage.

Then WCCO-AM - aka “the good neighbor” - switched to a satellite-delivered talk show originating from a distant location. The topic was Hillary Clinton’s emails. That is when I turned the radio off. WCCO-AM had broken their promise and gave up on what had ince made them essential.

Shame on them. They turned their backs on broadcasting in the public interest save a few measly bucks. This kind of behavior hurts all of us who work in radio.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

JOHN BARTH & KERRI HOFFMAN SHOW WHY PRX IS A PUBLIC MEDIA LEADER


We have frequently reported how the Public Radio Exchange (PRX) has changed the landscape for noncommercial programming syndication. Now PRX is leading public media onto digital and mobile platforms.  PRX is combining the ubiquitous reach of broadcast radio with the insurgent vitality of podcasts.


[Disclosure: In the past, I have worked as a paid consultant for PRX.]


In the past couple weeks, two of the leaders of PRX – Kerri Hoffman, CEO and John Barth, Chief Content Director – have been featured in high-profile venues. 


Hoffman was interviewed in Fortune magazine by blogger and KALW talk show host Lauren Schiller [link]. Barth spoke at the annual PRNDI meeting in St. Louis where received the Lee C. Lee Award [link]. 


Taken together, Hoffman and Barth offer a clear analysis of where public media, particularly public radio, is today and where it may be heading.



 
Here are some of the key takeaways:

BARTH: IS PUBLIC RADIO THE OLDSMOBILE OF MEDIA? OR IS IT THE TESLA?
 
JOHN BARTH
Let me simplify it: the greatest threat to public radio is not money or politics or even our competitors. It is public radio itself.

And we can boil it down too two questions: Do we want to be the Oldsmobile of media? Or the Tesla?

For now the answer rests a lot with station managers, even more than with NPR or APM, PRI or PRX. And we all know that the audience has the final saybecause public radio is the public we serve. They vote with their ears.

I want to be riding in a Tesla. I hope you do too.

HOFFMAN: WE MUST GO WHERE THE LISTENERS ARE GOING

How do we make sure that our services go where the listeners are going? Right now that’s mobile. The new audience is really where we are where we want to be — the diverse audience and the young audience, and the young people who haven’t been buying radios. How are they finding content and how do we get in front of them?


BARTH: HOW “BIG DIGITAL” VIEWS PUBLIC RADIO

First, the people at Google, Facebook and Amazon are super smart. And they will work with anyone. But they have no allegiance to what came before. The ability of what technology can do, comes first. They know that nostalgia is not a strategy. Their mindset, for good or bad, is very different from Lake Wobegone.


Here’s how they look at legacy businesses like public radio:

a) can we buy them?

b) can we partner with them, make money, get data about their audience and steal those customers away?

c) can we crush them, because after all, our technology will outpace whatever they are doing and in the end they will not be that relevant.


Our public radio world puts public service and respect for audience at the center. That other world of technology…is only about business, period. Not the integrity of our form of journalism.



BARTH: PUBLIC RADIO’S JOURNALISM MUST BE ABLE TO COMPETE ON ALL PLATFORMS

We need to fight for the role that used to come with a press pass and a microphone.

In fact, as Facebook becomes the dominant news distribution site, their algorithms, their presentation…their medium controls to come extent, your message and who sees it. And who sells it. This is one reason PRX launched RadioPublic.
 
JOHN BARTH WITH MENTOR JIM RUSSELL AT 2013 PRPD
We need more control over the next digital platforms that touch listeners, as public radio stations do now. This is another reason why NPR One is so important, too.

Anyone with eyes and earbuds can tell the next wave of listening is mobile, it is digital and it is here. You know that, but I’m afraid many people in public radio still want to debate that point. These early wild west days of podcasting are only one sign. And it, too, will, morph and consolidate.

Ask NPR and almost any station leader how challenging this situation is –the whole structure of how public radio works is at stake. What that means for how public radio sounds, appears, reports in different media is existential.

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

PRNDI IS STILL “PRNDI”


At a sometimes contentious business meeting on Saturday 6/24, the Public Radio News Directors (PRNDI) decided to NOT change the name of the organization.   

Former PRNDI President George Bodarky had championed a new name – the Association of Public Media Journalists (APMJ) – and a broader membership vision that included digital journalists. PRNDI members who have voting privileges said “no way.”

Inside PRNDI, some member’s opinions count more than others because only folks with the title “news director” can vote.  They get one vote per station. So KWIT, Sioux City’s vote is equal to WBUR's vote. With this criteria it is easy for an entrenched minority of members to run the whole show.  That is exactly what happened at the PRNDI annual meeting in St. Louis.

THE TERM “RADIO” AS A SYMBOL OF “CONTROL”

Amy Jefferies
Amy Jefferies from KCUR, Kansas City, provided an excellent and dispassionate description of the meeting [link] in a news release.  What follows are excerpts from her reporting:

JEFFRIES WRITES: 

Public Radio s Directors Inc. will continue to be known as “PRNDI”. Objections largely centered around dropping “radio” and how a new name should encompass digital.

According to a survey conducted earlier this year, PRNDI represents over 1,100 full-time working journalists at the 120 public radio stations in its membership, including news managers, digital editors, reporters, and producers. That doesn’t even count the 200-plus part-time journalists, educators, consultants, and trainers who are also part of the membership.

A year ago, changes to PRNDI’s bylaws were adopted, opening up at-large positions on the board to station newsroom staffers who are not “news directors.”

[NOTE FROM KEN: Though the change expanded who could become a PRNDI member, new members are prohibited from deciding organization policies unless they are “news directors.”]

 JEFFRIES CONTINUES:

[After the name change was proposed] came the outcry from the floor.
“I recognize there is new media,” said Brian O'Keefe of WDCB in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. “But this is an organization of radio journalists.”
Erin Hennessey of KPLU in Seattle, Washington said she, “couldn’t love radio more,” but wanted a name change for PRNDI that could bridge radio and digital. “I think the most important word in that name is 'journalists',” she said.

Alicia Zuckerman of WLRN in Miami…and others also expressed concern that the proposed “Association of Public Media Journalists” did not connote PRNDI’s long-standing focus on news managers.

Without another change to the bylaws – and none is on the table – [another member] noted that the power of the organization would continue to be held primarily by public radio newsroom management.

The back and forth ended after the membership… voted against a name change altogether.

WHO CAN BE A “PUBLIC MEDIA JOURNALIST?”

As we reported on January 8, 2016 [link], Bodarky advocated the name change to signal a strategic expansion of the scope of the organization’s purpose. 

George Bodarky
In January Bodarky told me:

To the outside world, the name “PRNDI” indicates we’re simply a “club” of public radio news directors. But, as those of us on the inside know, PRNDI is an organization that represents all journalists in public radio newsrooms.


Bodarky said the goal of the change was to establish the organization as the premiere trade organization for public media journalists. Bodarky hoped the new name and wider scope of service would add new members and boost conference attendance.

But now that isn’t going to happen. Bodarky could not be reached for comment.

KEN’S TAKE: AN OPPORTUNITY MISSED (Commentary)

I have worked on-and-off with PRNDI for over two decades.  I first joined PRNDI when I was Director of News at Public Radio International (PRI). At that time, PRNDI was mainly intended to be an interface with NPR’s newsroom.

Tripp Sommer

PRNDI’s role in the system changed in the early 1990s when Tripp Sommer from KLCC, Eugene became President. In addition to working with NPR, Sommer turned the organization’s focus towards the needs of news-producing stations. More training, workshops and inter-station dialogue became important parts of the mission.

Sommer also established the notion that PRNDI could play a larger role in the public radio system.  He wanted PRNDI to have a place at public radio table with the PRPD and management.  I worked with Sommer and NPR’s John Dinges to create Independence and Integrity: A Guidebook for Public Radio Journalism (1995) based in part on opinion gathering meetings at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This philosophy continued with Peter Iglinski, Michael Marcotte and George Bodarky.  Always in the background lurked the feeling by some members that PRNDI was only for and about radio stations news directors. To me, PRNDI resembles a closed-shop union.