COMMENT ONE: THE TWO
FACES OF MORMON MEDIA
Our
story this past Wednesday [link] about the failing performance of BYU Radio, the new Mormon-oriented
format the airs on KUMT-FM in Salt Lake City prompted this comment from a
retired Utah broadcast who requested confidentiality.
CONFIDENTIAL: “I don't believe most
Mormons have any more interest in listening to "religious radio" than
do most Catholics ... unlike those on the Protestant/Evangelical side of the
fence.
Years ago, there was a Mormon-programmed
AM station in Salt Lake which played Mormon music/artists and some talk ... it
never got any ratings.
In the 1960's, the Church bought WRUL (re-named WNYW)
Shortwave in NYC to use as a worldwide proselytizing tool. However, the day
they took ownership, they handed it to Bonneville and said, "make it pay
for itself."
KEN SAYS: There are two groups of
Mormons involved in broadcasting and other media. The first group, Bonneville
(mentioned above), is a for-profit business that is wholly owned by the LDS
Church. Bonneville is a highly regarded broadcaster that own around two-dozen
radio and television stations including KSL in Salt Lake City and KIRO is
Seattle.
The
second group, BYU Radio, is
cloistered at Brigham Young University. This group was responsible for trying
to cancel Classical music on KBYU and is responsible for the Up With Mormon format that was discussed
in our story. The second group believes they are doing God’s Work, but they actually are only talking only to themselves.
COMMENT TWO: THE BOTTOM
LINE ON WCBU
Last
Monday’s story about the fate of WCBU in Peoria [link] brought a comment from
an anonymous reader who questioned our facts and interpretation of the
situation.
Anonymous wrote: “Please clarify your statements. You said: ‘One rumor that
isn’t true is that WCBU will be leaving Peoria. Neither party has any intension
of moving WBCU (sic) away from Peoria.’”
“Since, as you stated,
the operations, programming and fundraising will be folded into WGLT, and,
since Bradley will not physically house the station, it would seem that WCBU
is, indeed, moving away from Peoria.” As to BU’s funding, please clarify that
of the $347,000 provided to WCBU, only $175,000 is an actual cash contribution.
[Your ratings] chart
indicates that WCBU exceeds WGLT’s performance in weekly listeners and metro
AQH share. [You said] WCBU has already lost significant listening in Peoria to
WGLT. Am I missing something? Your chart shows the opposite.”
KEN SAYS: We stand by our
reporting. What matters moving forward is that Bradley University has made a strategic
decision to get out of the radio business so they can focus time and money on other
priorities. Some people in Peoria don’t like this decision but it is time to
respect BU’s decision.
According
to a report in Tuesday’s (1/8) Peoria Journal Star [link] BU President
Gary Roberts said:
Bradley’s primary mission
is to educate students and we need to make decisions on how to spend those
students’ tuition dollars laser-focused on that primary mission.
Then
on Wednesday (1/9), the Journal Star
reported [link] the following comments that were made by BU and WGLT officials at a
WCBU Advisory Group meeting:
R.C. McBride |
Bradley University’s Zach
Gorman, the school’s chief information officer, and spokeswoman Renee Charles
along with R.C. McBride, general manager of Bloomington’s WGLT-FM (89.1),
answered questions from the board as well from members of the public at a
meeting held on the Bradley campus.
Although the partnership
has not been finalized, some details were furnished. “The call letters, the
tower — will all stick around. We’ve identified space on the (Bradley) campus
for a studio,” said Gorman. “Peoria public radio is not going anywhere,” he
said.
McBride, a former program
director at WJBC in Bloomington, a station he described as “one of the last
great public service stations,” was upbeat about the Peoria station’s future.
“We’re not just planning to maintain WCBU but grow it. I’d like to see a Peoria
‘Sound Ideas’ once we have the staff to sustain it,” he said, referring to a local
news program aired on WGLT.
COMMENT THREE: “What is this all about, Maxie?”
KPFK, Los Angeles Coverage Area |
Regarding
our ongoing coverage Pacifica, we received this comment from an anonymous
reader in Los Angeles:
Anonymous: "KPFK has the largest [coverage area] west of the Mississippi. It is
huge and reaches from San Diego to Santa Barbara - somewhere north of 15
million potential listeners.
On the other hand, KPFK’s engineer told me that
KPCC’s [coverage area] is “tiny” - and
its listenership is about six times as large as KPFK’s."
"The last time I looked, [KPCC’s]
budget was about eight times as large [as KPFK’s). Relative to how many people
KPFK can reach, its numbers are terrible. But at least KPFK is no longer last
[in the Nielsen PPM ratings]. It is bigger
than an AM Catholic Talk station."
Maxie Jackson |
KEN SAYS: We keep monitoring the
situation at Pacifica but there hasn’t been much new to report.
It appears that
Maxie Jackson has bought into Pacifica’s toxic governance process.
In a recent
recorded Pacifica Board meeting, we heard Jackson voice frustration about
Pacifica’s ongoing internal elections:
“At
the end of the day…”What is this about...?' What is this all about...?'
COMMENT FOUR: “THE NEW
YORK STATE OF MIND”
We
were pleased to hear from our friend Gregg McVicker about our coverage of the
Podtrac podcast publisher rankings on December 17, 2018 [link]. After looking
at the top publishers, McVicker observed:
9 of the top-10
publishers on this list are concentrated along the Amtrak line from Grand
Central Station to Boston. Please tell me I’m wrong, but it *feels* like
podcasting is taking the place of paperbacks and magazines, both very much
NYC-focused enterprises. Just wondering if this is the same old
Seaboard-centric publishing mindset with a new set of groovy clothes.
|
KEN SAYS: We are surprised that
more of the publishers aren’t in Los Angeles, the hub of the TV and movie
industries.
FYI,
Readers, Gregg McVicker is part of the group behind the PBS/Independent Lens
film "Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked
The World."
It airs Monday, January 21 at 10pm on many PBS stations.
McVicker
is writing a companion blog for the broadcast. You can read it here.
I want to remind people what this person said:
ReplyDeleteCONFIDENTIAL: “I don't believe most Mormons have any more interest in listening to "religious radio" than do most Catholics ... unlike those on the Protestant/Evangelical side of the fence.
Years ago, there was a Mormon-programmed AM station in Salt Lake which played Mormon music/artists and some talk ... it never got any ratings.
In the 1960's, the Church bought WRUL (re-named WNYW) Shortwave in NYC to use as a worldwide proselytizing tool. However, the day they took ownership, they handed it to Bonneville and said, "make it pay for itself."
Don: Like I said before BYURadio and BYUtv will be tough sells, they might have more success with BYU Sports converge. As you know their are Catholic Radio stations that have done well and apparently pay for itself. They have as one of their outlets 93KHJ which was known for its Boss Radio (Bill Drake Format) styled Top 40 from 1965-80.
However KSFI aka FM 100.3 (owned by Bonneville Media) has done well with its long running "Sunday Sounds" format on the namesake day. Sunday Sounds features music from LDS artists and some artists from the mainstream CCM fold that appeals to the audience as well. The Sunday Sounds format is heard 24/7 on KSFI HD2 and is streamed on the web.
This Sunday Sounds format would not work on their other AC formatted stations like KOSI Denver, KOIT San Francisco, or KYMX Mix 96 in Sacramento, although KOSI and KOIT (maybe KYMX but can't specify that station) for sure do make time for the company's self produced "Music & the Spoken Word" which features their famous Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. M&tSW is cleared on KSL-AM-FM-TV, KIRO-AM, KTAR-AM, KTAR-FM which are mostly News/Talk stations with the exception of KTAR-AM which does Sports Talk.
Also I forgot to mention that when Clear Channel/iHeart Media was doing Mainstream AC with KOSY at 106.5, they also did a Sunday LDS leaning music format themselves. That was discontinued with they flip the station to Classic Rock as KAAZ-FM aka Rock 106.7
Delete