HOW MARFA PUBLIC RADIO LEARNS ABOUT LOCAL NEWS • MORE NIELSEN PPM RATINGS FOR AUGUST 2018

Reward flyer urges turning in donkey poachers

(image courtesy of KRTS)

Question: Can a person shoot a donkey at the Davis Mountains Resort in West Texas? It depends on the situation. The best way to know if you are violating donkey-poaching laws is to listen to KRTS a/k/a Marfa Public Radio.

This is the kind of listener-generated question that is answered on Marfa Public Radio [link] because of the station’s local journalism initiative called West Texas Wonders (WTW). 

WTW gives listeners the chance to suggest stories for the station to investigate. The listeners love it!

WTW operates on an online platform created by Hearken [link], a company that helps news organizations listen to the public and find unique local stories. They call it public-powered journalism. Hearken emerged in 2016 when it won the top award for "Best Bootstrap Company" at SXSW.

The process is simple: A person submits a question about West Texas that that they would like Marfa Public Radio to investigate.  The question appears on the station’s website where other folks weigh in on and even vote for the best questions. Marfa Public Radio  reporters then choose questions, produce a news story and the answer appears on online and on the air. You can see how WTW happens here.

Marfa Public Radio puts no restrictions on the questions. They can be, and often are, silly or serious, big or small, from a weird street name to where our tax dollars go. The initiative builds “sense of place” and enhances Marfa Public Radio’s image as the source of local content that matters and entertains.

Some of the questions that have been asked and answered include: 

• Do ranch brands and gate symbols in West Texas have secret meanings behind them?

• Is it legal to drink beer outside on the street in Marfa?

• Oil and gas companies generate a lot of money in the Permian Basin — how much of that wealth supports the rest of the state, and how much of it returns to the community?

Pending questions on the WTW webpage that are looking for answers are:

• How can Marfa support so many cool restaurants and venues in such a small town?

• In Midland, the railroad crossings all have signs that reflect that it’s a “no horn” zone. In the last several months, the trains blow their horns at the crossings. Why the change?

• Midland is one of the wealthiest communities in the state yet its public schools are consistently ranked in the bottom tier of Texas schools. What is the problem and what can be done?

You get the idea. Real questions from your friends and neighbors that help satisfy the quest for life-long learning.

DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN WEST TEXAS? KRTS IS LOOKING FOR A REPORTER

Marfa Public Radio is in the process of hiring a full-time reporter for a 12 month fellowship in the Permian Basin. The reporter will be an essential member of the reporting staff, covering major news developments in the region while also looking for the untold stories that define the place.

The reporter will coordinate with the Marfa-based reporters to help expand our coverage of news in West Texas.  They will produce newscast items and in-depth feature reports for radio, digital and social media platforms.

For more and information and application procedure, send an email to: work@marfapublicradio.org:

MORE NIELSEN AUDIO AUGUST 2018 PPM RATINGS 

WAMU picked up some ground in the August 2018 PPM sweeps. 

Their AQH Share perked up but they are still performing far lower than they were around the 2016 November election.

WTOP continues to be the top radio news voice in DC. They are the nation’s top station in ad revenue. Hubbard Broadcasting announced they are moving WTOP out of the District to new offices and studios in suburban Virginia.

WBEZ faces established news leader WBBM in a market where tradition means a lot. 

If WGN’s older-than-dirt audience keeps expiring, ‘BEZ will overtake them soon.

And how about Educational Media Foundation’s (EMF) K-Love repeater WCKL? 

EMF took over The Loop – a station with 1.5 million estimated listeners and the audience has declined every month since.   

Welcome to the “K-Love bubble.”

In Houston-Galveston NPR New/Talk KUHF keeps getting closer to topping KTRH, the market’s heritage commercial news station.

Christian KSBJ’s sister station KXNG keeps adding listeners and growing it’s AQH Share. KXNG is Next Gen radio playing a mixture of hard Christian rock and rap.

WCCO-AM has made a comeback in the Twin Cities, powered by the return of Twins baseball play-by-play. The Twins are currently 16 games behind Cleveland in the American League Central Division.

The Current had a nice uptick in AQH Share, meaning people are tuning in more often and listening longer. 

Listening to The Current’s online audio stream continues to rise. They likely have the largest audience to an audio stream of any public radio station.