YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE ON THE D/I COMMITTEE • GREAT COLLEGE RADIO FROM THE 80’S & 90’S • RATINGS FOR GRAND RAPIDS, SYRACUSE & ALBUQUERQUE

You may not be familiar with the D/I Committee but if you work in public radio they have an impact on your work. The “D/I” is the Distribution/Interconnection Committee. They oversee the Public Radio Satellite Service (PRSS) and Content Depot. The D/I helps establish interconnection rates and policies and keeps NPR Distribution up-to-date on market trends and new technology.

Legally, the Committee is an offshoot of NPR. For many years NPR has been entrusted with the responsibility administering interconnection services between program producers and all public radio stations, not just the member stations of NPR.

Because the Committee is a shared responsibility, the governing Committee includes members of the NPR Board plus other folks from stations, organizations, private businesses and independent producers. 

On the right is a list of the current members of the D/I Committee.

The term of one Committee member, Victoria St. John, Director of Operations at Vermont Public Radio, is expiring.   

St. John plans to run for another term on the Committee.

The D/I Committee began in the late 1970s when NPR was one of the first companies to distribute broadcast-quality audio via satellite. 

Though there are now competitors such as PRX that distribute programming via online files, 

PRSS has maintained its satellite distribution because producers and stations like it because it is reliable and offers relatively low cost. 

In recent years PRSS established Content Depot and now it also offers online distribution.

Map of PRSS downlinks

PRSS now serves more than 400 downlinks. Interconnected stations own their own downlink and uplink equipment, provided as part PRSS’ interconnection fee. 

More than 200 program producers and distributors currently use PRSS including Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

The deadline for voting by member station reps is this Thursday, August 9^, 2018, so it is probably too late to apply to be on the D/I Committee this year.  But, there will be another opening next year. Contact Twanna Clark, Manager, Board Relations, at tclark1@npr.org for more information.

TERRIFIC VIDEO OF COLLEGE RADIO IN THE 1980s & 1990s IS AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE

Screen-shot from KALX video

Folks who want to know more about college radio now, in the past and the future should check out Jennifer Waits writing on the Radio Survivor blog [link]. 

Waits has encyclopedic knowledge of college radio and is a passionate fan.

Recently Waits reported [link] on vintage clips she found on YouTube of college radio as it was in the late 1980s and very early 1990s. 

Screen-shot from WXCI video

In this era, just before the internet, college radio blossomed. 

This was around the time when Michael Stipe of REM credited college radio airplay for the success of the band.

The three videos Waits featured are definitely blasts for the past. The equipment – tape decks, cartridges and Gates boards – look ancient.  But the enthusiasm of the DJs is eternal, something you’d find today at WERS, Radio K or at a college station in your city.

Perhaps the best video of the bunch is Bottom of the Dial about KALX, Berkeley, in 1994:

 The trippy-est video shows WHRW, Binghamton, in 1991:

My favorite video is from WXCI in Western Connecticut (“WestCon” to the locals) done in 1987.  If you ever worked in college radio you will love the long opening shot recorded by walking down a dismal hall of classrooms and then enter WXCI – and everything is warm in full color:

SPRING 2018 NIELSEN AUDIO RATINGS: SYRACUSE, GRAND RAPIDS & ALBUQUERQUE

On the left is a chart you don’t often. 

In the Spring 2018 Nielsen ratings every listed station increased their estimated weekly listeners compared to Spring 2017.

WRVO is by far the top noncom station in the Syracuse metro. 

WAER also added weekly listeners but was down in AQH listeners.

Syracuse University’s student station, WJPZ, had a nice gain of estimated weekly listeners. 

They also held steady in AQH listeners. 

WJPZ is one of the nation’s best college stations. Their brand is “party, party, party.”

Triple A WITH covers Ithaca, outside of the Syracuse metro.

In Michigan’s second largest city, Grand Rapids, NPR News/Talk Michigan Radio lost ground, particularly with AQH listeners.

Hometown WGVU-FM was up in estimated weekly listeners but down in AQH listeners. 

Though WGVU-FM is local, Michigan Radio from Ann Arbor blows them away in every metric.

WCSG is one of the best Christian Contemporary stations anywhere. 

The station from Cornerstone Church invented the CCM format and no one does it better.

The biggest story of the day is the incredible growth in listeners at KANW in Albuquerque.  KANW’s large gains in estimated weekly and AQH listeners is all the more amazing when you consider the fact that news is a part-time format. KANW airs NPR news magazines on weekdays until Noon and then switches to New Mexico Music – Spanish-language pop hits – the rest of the day. Albuquerque has over a dozen other stations that play similar music, so why doesn’t KANW go all the way?

KUNM is all about Freeform Music. Here is a YouTube video we produced a few years ago that will tell you why Freeform music is forever at KUNM: