MARKET PROFILE: RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

When folks think of Richmond, Virginia, the first word that comes to mind is often “historic.” 

From early settlements before the Revolutionary War, to being the capital of the Confederacy, to the Civil Rights movement, Richmond has been the heart of the action.

Richmond today it is fast-growing metropolitan area with ample job opportunities with the Virginia State Government, Capitol One Financial, VCU Health System, DuPont and Dominion Energy Resources.

Despite the progress, Richmond’s urban core and affluent suburbs are two different worlds. According to local sources, the number one local issue is “urban sprawl.” 

Bill Miller

Commonwealth Broadcasting [link] is the largest public media shop in Richmond. Commonwealth owns and operates PBS station WCVE-TV, three radio stations, data services and educational outreach. Bill Miller, VP and GM of WCVE Radio kindly offers his comments about Richmond and WCVE:

Miller: While I think many radio users in town would bemoan the lack of or decline in interesting or diverse commercial radio formats, Richmond has proved itself to be a hospitable environment for noncommercial radio.

As is the case elsewhere, there has been a lot of consolidation in Richmond’s commercial media. The city used to have two, independent, daily newspapers; now we now have one: The Richmond Times-Dispatch. Four commercial television stations have nightly newscasts. Commercial radio outlets are dominated by two consolidated companies:  Entercom and Radio One.

WCVE’S EXPANDING ROLE IN RICHMOND

Miller: For a couple of decades, our listeners have told us that they want more programming choices than what we have offered on WCVE. Classical and Jazz music were often mentioned by people want additional channels. Plus, there has been considerable demand for 24/7 public radio news and information.

For years we kept searching for available signals for additional programming but none were available until Fall 2017. Then we were able to purchase two commercial frequencies at 93.1 FM and 107.3 FM and convert them to noncommercial public radio. Soon these two frequencies will airing Classical music, plus Jazz for 25-hours-a-week. We are simulcasting programming now but in the Spring we will have two program streams.

MILLER: Our plan is to significantly grow our local content on both services, with more hours of locally programmed music, more hours of live interview and performance from our studios, more and better reporting on local stories for insert into the NPR newsmagazines, and new WCVE-produced interview and forum programming.

On the new 93.1 and 107.3, local classical music hosts Shawn Evans and Mike Goldberg will continue to broadcast classical music during the day. Our Jazz host, Peter Solomon, will have music during the evenings.

RICHMOND IS BECOMING AN “ESSENTIAL PUBLIC RADIO” MARKET

“Essential public radio” means, in part, all of the major public radio formats are available over-the-air to listeners. With the addition of Classical and Jazz on WCVE’s new sister station, Richmond stations will offer listeners more noncommercial choices. Here are the other players:

Recent WNRN pledge drive

• Triple A WNRN [link], is upgrading its signal to provide better coverage in Richmond. Miller is a fan of WNRN and he knows of their popularity:

MILLER: WNRN originates in Charlottesville but brings a unique AAA format to Richmond and towns throughout central and western Virginia. It has a loyal following here.

• NFCB-ish WRIR [link] has been serving Richmond for over a decade with a variety of volunteer music shows, political talk such as Democracy Now! plus weekly public radio programs not heard elsewhere in the market.

MILLER: WRIR is accomplished at celebrating local rock and new music performers, hosting community events, and providing hyper-local attention to community issues.

• WDCE [link] is one of the best college stations in the nation. Licensed to the University of Richmond, WDCE is an integral part of Richmond’s Indie community.

MILLER: WDCE opens the airwaves to the widest range of music, from Baroque to Hip Hop, and to the most diverse group of people - students, alums, and community contributors.

OTHER NOTABLE NONCOM STATIONS IN RICHMOND

• WNVU (89.7 FM) is one of the first stations outside of California to air Educational Media Foundation’s new Spanish-language Christian music format Radio Nueva Vida (“New Life”).

• WQCN-LP (105.3 FM) praises the Lord with locally=based Gospel Music.

• KAWZ’s ("Christian Satellite Network) translator at 91.7 FM demonstrates why the FCC should consider ending the policy that allows noncommercial stations to operate in distant locations and no tie to the local community. 

CSN HQ in Twin Falls, 2,518 miles from Richmond

KAWZ is located in Twin Falls, Idaho, and features paid-preaching programs that can be heard anywhere online. Though the Cavalry Chapel of Twin Falls says it is a church (and therefore, pays no taxes), it looks like an attempt to bend the FCC’s intentions for easy financial gain.

READER COMMENTS

COMMENT ONE: NEW TEAC CASSETTE DECK DISAPPOINTS BUYER

On Monday 2/26 we reported [link] on Teac’s new cassette deck, the AD-850.  Paul Conley, Managing Editor, Music and Arts at Capital Public Radio, Sacramento, bought an AD-850 and isn’t happy with it: 

Paul Conley

“Hi Ken. I bought this unit and was very disappointed to discover that the USB records at 128 kbps stereo. 

[This is] very harsh compression that degrades the audio a great deal. 

I don’t know why TEAC didn’t use at least a 256 sample rate, especially on such a pricey unit. I wrote them requesting a firmware upgrade [but] I haven’t heard back from them.”

KEN SAYS: Thank you for telling us about your experience with the Teac AD-850. Given your experience, we have deleted our verbiage about “rave reviews” for the desk. These reviews came from vendors selling the Teac deck. Also, we have added Paul Conley’s review to the original post.

COMMENT TWO: WHY PROMOTE THE COMPETITION?

Our report on Tuesday 2/20 [link] about APM’s plan to distribute a half-hour version of the New York Times podcast The Daily brought this response from an anonymous reader:

You forgot to ask “What is in it for Public Radio Stations?” The answer: nothing. 

This is giving airtime (and indirectly, revenue) to a direct competitor. It is a terrible idea. 

And it is being pushed by Kinsey Wilson, which tells you all you need to know.

KEN SAYS: This can be argued either way. The reader is correct that public radio stations are giving support and visibility to content that competes for the ears of our listeners. 

We saw this when This American Life used its weekly program to promote the release of the podcast Serial.

Consider the other point of view: If the radio version of The Daily pleases listeners, why not air it? 

The Daily is already well known, so not airing it won’t stop people from accessing the podcast. 

Plus, the brand association with the New York Times doesn’t hurt. If something good is out there, it is better to recognize it than ignore it. This is true even if Kinsey Wilson has something to do with it.

COMMENT THREE: THE IMPACT OF BILLY GRAHAM ON AMERICAN RADIO

On Friday 2/23 we published an essay [link] about the Reverend Billy Graham’s early efforts to promote evangelical Christian radio. We talked about the influence of KTIS, a radio station Graham founded in the Twin Cities in 1949. Spark News reader Don McCullen wrote that there is more to the story:

Billy Graham at KTIS in 1949

Graham also paved the way for Percy Crawford and Richard Bott to start up their namesake radio companies to broadcast Christian formatted programming. Although both Crawford and Bott were already making inroads into the radio business, the success of Graham’s station was an important validation of the format.

Please interested in this topic can learn more via these links:

Bott Broadcasting history: bottradionetwork.com/about/history/

Crawford Broadcasting history: crawfordbroadcasting.com/history/

KEN SAYS: Thank you, Don, for the additional information. I am very proud of the Graham essay. I decided to write it when I didn’t see it being covered elsewhere. A slogan I’ve used for my consulting business is We Seek Radio That Matters. Billy Graham in the 1940’s and 1950s really mattered.

Also, thank you to Radio World for featuring the Graham story in their publication.

COMMENT FOUR: EMERSON COLLEGE IS A TERRIFIC PLACE TO LEARN ABOUT RADIO & MEDIA

We received a comment earlier in February about our post from January 2015 [link] that discussed options for getting an education about the radio business. The person who asked recently wondered if we knew of places to get a radio education in Los Angeles. We asked our readers for help and we received this comment from an anonymous reader:

“Emerson College has a Los Angeles campus, and they have had an excellent radio broadcasting curriculum in the past. As I understand it, that curriculum has faded somewhat as fewer and fewer students are interested in formal education in radio.”

“I have no idea if the LA campus has any radio offerings but I know it is offered at the Boston campus and WERS. That said, I question how much anyone would really learn even in a ‘radio broadcasting school.’ If you want to work in radio just dive in and experiment on your own.”

 KEN SAYS: I agree with the reader. It depends on what someone wants out of the experience. If a person wants to work in commercial radio, learn about sales, voice-tracking and corporate management.

I recommend looking at a “radio career” in the context of digital audio for a variety of platforms. Knowing the software and equipment is important but so is the ability to construct a complete sentence. No matter how well a person knows “the gear,” creating content that connects with people is the key.

I had no formal training before I started my career as an announcer. I just showed up and learned the skills by osmosis.  If you want to work in radio, immerse yourself in it. Be a volunteer, help with station events and make friends with people who are doing what you want to do.

MIKE CRANE IS STILL AT WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO • MORE NONCOMS TOP COMMERCIAL NEWS/TALKERS • “CURRENT” HOSTS VIRTUAL JOB FAIR

Mike Crane is still in Madison

Perhaps I wasn’t the only person who did a double take when seeing an online post about an opening for a new Director of Wisconsin Public Media. Could Mike Crane be leaving?

Crane immediately replied to our question about his status with a concise No way! It turns out that new Wisconsin opening is a person to be Crane’s boss.

Wisconsin Public Media is an umbrella organization that administers state and private funding for Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR), Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) and statewide educational outreach.

If you or someone you know is interested, application information is here. Questions may be directed to Carla.anderson@vilas.uwex.edu.

FOUR MORE CITIES WHERE NPR NEWS/TALK STATIONS ARE “KING OF THE NEWS HILL”

We received several comments from readers about our post yesterday regarding markets where NPR News/Talk stations are leading commercial News/Talk stations in both weekly cumulative listeners and AQH share. This is a trend we will continue to follow because it seems to be gaining momentum.

In some cases the once dominant commercial News/Talker stations are suffering declines because budget cutting has zapped local newsrooms. In other cases, commercial stations have apparently given up.

In Portland, KOPB is not only the top station in estimated weekly listeners it beats all other stations in the market with a 9.6% AQH share. 

KOPB’s AQH is almost double their closest commercial station rival KXL-FM which had a 5.0% AQH and 278,300 estimated weekly listeners.

The station with the biggest percentage gainer of weekly listeners is KBOO [link], a Portland media voice since 1968.

KUT in Austin lost 8% of their estimated weekly listeners comparing January 2018 Nielsen PPM ratings with January 2017. Despite this drop, KUT extended its AQH lead (AQH share: 7.2%) over long-time commercial News/Talk KLBJ-AM (AQH share: 4.1%).

Also in Austin, Sun Radio, an amalgamation of five signals including KDRP, almost doubled its estimated weekly listeners in the past year.

The “Research Triangle” is one of the places where is appears commercial News/Talk operators have given up.   

Not only did WUNC increase its estimated weekly listeners between January 2017 and January 2018, WUNC’s AQH share of 9.1%, dwarfs the AQH of its closest commercial News/Talk competitors WTKK (AQH share 4.7%) and WPTF-AM (AQH share 1.1%).

WPLN in Nashville had an AQH share of 5.0%, far bigger than Cumulus Media’s right-wing talker WWTN (AQH share: 3.5%. A few years ago WLAC-AM was the “radio news of record” in Nashville. Now it barely has a pulse with an AQH share of 1.4% and a weekly cume of only 52,600.

CURRENT HOSTS PUBLIC MEDIA CAREER FAIR

Folks interested in pursuing a career in public media, or upgrading their current career, are invited to participate in a Public Media Virtual Career Fair sponsored by Current on Thursday, March 15^th from Noon to 3:00pm ET.

The three-hour career fair will be meeting online. Participants will see which employers are looking to hire, the specific opportunities available from each employer, and background information about each hiring organization. Job seekers will be able to chat with employer representatives.

Some of the participating employers include: PBS, NPR,  

WGBH, WNYC, WNET, WBUR, Arizona Public Media, South Florida PBS, Louisiana Public Broadcasting and KUED-TV & KUER-FM, Salt Lake City.

Virtual Career Fair is free for jobseekers! For more information Reserve your spot and
upload your resume today at [link]. Employers who want to be added to the roster should contact 
Julie Drizin at julie@CURRENT.ORG.

“THE PUBLIC RADIO NEWS/TALK WAVE CONTINUES”

The quote below appeared last week in the Tom Taylor NOW newsletter [link] immediately caught my interest:

"One of the emerging trends from Nielsen’s PPMs is that we’re seeing some big-market public radio news/talkers start to really flex their muscles. The public radio news/talk wave continues.”

If there has been a wave, I missed it. As we have been reporting, the number of estimated weekly cumulative listeners, according to Nielsen Audio, has been leveling off or dropping a bit at most NPR News/Talk since the big escalation during and after the 2016 election.  However, ratings-tracker Huff is watching a different metric and his observation appears to be correct.

As we reported last week [link], our key metric is "Weekly Cumulative Persons" and Huff uses "Average-Quarter-Hour Share" percentage. AQH share is derived from from the weekly cume and then presented as a percentage of the total listening in the market. Both metrics are important but we follow weekly listeners because it seems better suited to member-supported noncommercial broadcasting.

Huff’s point is that, in many markets, the AQH share for NPR News/Talk stations now leads the AQH share commercial News/Talk stations. While this sounds like an obscure factoid, it is a big deal because it was unthinkable until recently.

We examined some of the markets that Huff mentioned:

 

  

On the left are the noncom ratings for Seattle. KUOW and KNKX’s gains are obvious and very welcome. In fact, almost every noncom station gained weekly listeners compare with January 2017.

The chart on the right compares KUOW and KNKX with its two Seattle commercial News/Talk competitors: Bonneville’s KIRO-FM and Sinclair’s KOMO AM/FM. Note that in February 2016 both commercial stations led KUOW in AQH share and weekly cume. In January 2018 KUOW leads both stations in both metrics.

It is the same situation in Baltimore. WYPR had one of its highest total of estimated weekly listeners ever. DC’s WAMU held steady. Classical WBJC lost some ground.

 When comparing WYPR and commercial competitor WBAL-AM, there has also been a complete reversal since February 2016.

In Washington, DC, WTOP AM/FM has extended its lead over defacto NPR News flagship WAMU. WTOP had an estimated 1,268,900 weekly listeners and an AQH share of 10.6 in January 2018.  WAMU had a 9.3 AQH share.

In the Denver-Boulder metro (another situation mentioned by Chris Huff) KCFR now leads iHeart’s KOA AM/FM in both weekly listeners and AQH share.  KUNC from Greeley, outside of the Denver metro, had one its best books ever, up 20% from a year ago.

MPR’s News/Talk KNOW now leads Entercom/CBS heritage News/Talker WCCO AM/FM, in both estimated weekly listeners and AQH share.   

According to Nielsen, WCCO had an AQH share of 5.0 and an estimated weekly cume of 270,600. KNOW’s AQH share was 5.9.

In Boston iHeart’s WBZ-AM (606,700) is leads both WBUR (453,600) and WGBH (429,600) in estimated weekly listeners.  

 However, if listeners to WBUR’s and WGBH are hypothetically combined, NPR News/Talk would easily top WBZ. WBUR and WGBH were tied in Janaury book at a 4.9 in AQH share.  WBZ had a 5.2 AQH share.

NPR LEADS PODCAST PUBLISHER RANKINGS • PROGRAM ECONOMICS FORCES CHANGES IN HAWAII • TEAC RELEASES NEW CASSETTE DECK

According to Podtrac’s January rankings [link], NPR continues to be the leading domestic publisher of podcasts by a wide margin. NPR’s current portfolio of 42 active shows had more than 16 million Unique Monthly Listeners, down one-percent from December 2017.

Podcasts from HowStuffWorks had the biggest monthly gain, up 20% from the prior month. Commercial publisher Wondery also had double digit grows in January compared to December. This American Life and PRX led noncommercial publishers with gains of 7% and 3%.

Podtrac’s rankings continue to be the defacto chart-of-record for the podcast industry. However, Podtrac’s methodology continues to be a work in progress. Podtrac had to eat their November 2017 data when an independent blogger found major problems with the way iHeartMedia’s listeners were tabulated. iHeart returned to the chart in January after Podtrac corrected the problem.

Still iHeart’s estimated 612 active podcasts seems out of place compared to other publishers who have far-fewer shows in distribution. We wish Podtrac would make data available for individual podcasts.  Podtrac says they have that data but don’t release it for proprietary reasons.

Also according to Podtrac, total Global Downloads and Streams for the Top 10 Publishers in January 2018 increased by 112% over January of 2017.

SIGN OF THE TIMES: KEILLOR REPLACEMENT DROPPED IN HAWAII

Adapted from an article in the Honolulu Star Advertiser 2/22/18 [link].

HawaiI Public Radio is ending local syndication of Live from Here with Chris Thile” at the end of February. 

The program, had been airing Saturdays from 6pm to 8pm. 

American Routes will take over the time slot on Hawaii Public Radio’s primary network HPR-1. [Disclosure: American Routes is one of my clients. This is a promotional message.]

American Routes had been on HPR for more than 20 years before it was cancelled in 2017. José Fajardo, Hawaii Public Radio’s General Manager said in a press release:

“The decision to drop “Live from Here” was a financial decision. We could not justify purchasing what was in essence a new show for the same $25,000 we had paid (annually) for the iconic ‘Prairie Home. By bringing back proven listener-favorite, American Routes, we are saving $22,000 a year.”

THIS IS NOT A FLASHBACK: NEW TEAC CASSETTE DECK 

UPDATE 2/18/18: NOTE THESE COMMENTS FROM A READER WHO BOUGHT THIS DECK

Hi Ken. I bought this unit and was very disappointed to discover that the USB records at 128 kbps stereo. [This is] very harsh compression that degrades the audio a great deal. I don’t know why TEAC didn’t use at least a 256 sample rate, especially on such a pricey unit. I wrote them requesting a firmware upgrade [but] I haven’t heard back from them.

Like many of you, I have several boxes of analog cassettes I need to organize. I know there is some amazing audio in my cassette collection. Now TEAC’s new AD-850 Cassette Deck [link] may be just what I need, if I can afford it.

The AD-850 combines a CD player and cassette deck with MP3 recording and playback a USB Memory Stick. The integrated cassette deck also supports playback of CD-R/CD-RW discs containing MP3 files.

Price may be an issue for some potential consumers. The AD-850 costs $349 on Amazon.