Two
of our recent stories went viral and caused a massive increase in page
views for Spark News. On a typical day I have 200 – 400
page views. Our story [link] about Pacifica losing a lawsuit with the Empire
State Building regarding past due rent for WBAI’s transmission site has brought
over 2,000 page views so far.
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| Jarl Mohn |
But
the biggest boost in readership was a story we first reported: Jarl Mohn: Our Goal
Is To Have NPR News/Talk Stations Out-Perform Commercial News/Talkers [link]. The view count for it is at 5,900 and still
climbing.
This
is big news for a little noncommercial blog like this one. As many of you know,
I am a part-time journalist and blogger. I appreciate the attention. My goal
with this blog is simple: Terrestrial radio will survive and thrive only if the
content is excellent. I hate mediocre,
boring radio. I want to promote
excellence on radio and all “sister” platforms.
Yesterday (Thursday)
I saw this item in Tom Taylor’s NOW newsletter:
Wow,
Steve Goldstein and his blog AmplifiMedia
[link] is a BFD. He is very influential. So I immediately checked it out.
To
Goldstein’s credit he did “amplify” [pun intended] the story by putting in
additional information about NPR’s digital savvy.
Goldstein
also added context with this observation:
All of this is in
contrast to a frightening complacency in commercial News/Talk. You can listen
to many stations and they sound the same as years ago and most have not built
a meaningful digital presence. Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers last week urged the expansion
from on-air to online platforms as part of keeping the medium
pertinent.
Commercial News/Talk
radio is unambiguously in NPR's crosshairs.
Now is the time to for
commercial radio to use its formidable assets to build, rebuild, and develop
its own culture of innovation on multiple platforms.
SAME TOPIC & ANOTHER
READER COMMENT:
Dick
Taylor, publisher of the DickTaylorBlog [link] wrote this comment:
NPR/Public Radio is in
sync with its listeners and they are a trusted source. The local affiliates
complement NPR with strong local radio news teams, something that has
disappeared on the commercial side of radio -- with the exception being in
major markets that have a strong commercial news/information station.
But we now are seeing
NPR winning over listeners here too. Public Radio comes from a “listener
first” approach to its programming content. Once all radio stations had this
mission based approach but consolidation and large debt changed the focus.
KEN SAYS: Dick Taylor is totally
correct. When Steve Goldstein said said Now
is the time to for commercial radio to use its formidable assets he is
ignoring the fact that most of these formidable
assets are already being spent to service debts and compensation for
senior executives.
SAME TOPIC & YET
ANOTHER READER COMMENT:
An
anonymous reader commented:
Beware the slippery
slope of chasing ratings.
KEN SAYS: I expected this
comment. Anytime I combine “NPR” and “ratings” in the same sentence I hear
from someone who feels that public radio is “selling out” by looking at
Nielsen Audio ratings and other research.
While
it is always good to remind ourselves to not worship data, the reader is
missing the point about why public radio cares about data.
Commercial
radio uses ratings to sell commercial time and to justify the cost of the commercials. It is sometimes called “bulk audience
delivery.”
Public
radio uses ratings data, as Dick Taylor says above, for a “listener first” approach. When a public radio programmer
looks at the numbers, he/she sees people. They might become supporters of the station. The
task ahead then is to super-serve each listener on multiple platforms so that
the value of the content is worthy of their support.
SAME TOPIC & ONE MORE READER COMMENT:
|
An
anonymous reader wrote:
Putting content aside ...
an element which must be factored in: People are fed up with commercials, and
this is one way to escape them! For researchers, how does this balance the
scale? Just a question ... not taking sides.
KEN SAYS: Bingo! It is a fact that most
people don’t like hearing commercials. Noncommercial is a core value proposition of
public radio’s brand.
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