AN URGENT APPEAL • READER COMMENTS

We sent the following message on Thursday (2/21) to various stakeholders and media outlets in the Rio Grande Valley.

An Open Letter To People Who Want Save NPR in the Rio Grande Valley from Ken Mills

Ken Mills

We are surprised and saddened by the lack of concern in the Rio Grande Valley about the imminent loss of NPR News on local radio.

On February 12, 2019, Immaculate Heart Media, an organization that syndicates Catholic oriented radio programming, purchased the two FM stations that comprise Rio Grande Public Radio.

Pending FCC approval of the sale (which is expected) the new owners will take over in May or June. This is a done deal. Complaining about the Diocese is a waste of time and effort. People who want NPR on local radio in the Valley need to build something new.

Spark News, a national blog that covers news, trends and issues on public radio, has been reporting on the situation [link].

We will provide pro bono advice to any person or organization that serious seeks to build a new NPR station. If you have any questions of comments you can email us at publicradio@hotmail.com.

The Rio Grande Valley metro area

What is needed now is a community campaign to Save NPR in the Valley. The purpose of the campaign is to create awareness of the situation and form a nonprofit entity that will raise money to Save NPR in the Valley and plan for new station.

Community leaders who want to Save NPR in the Valley should step forward now. We know of ways that a new NPR station can be established quickly. But, this will take leadership.

So far, there appears to be little serious interest in Saving NPR in the Valley. Does this lack of enthusiasm reflect the true spirit of the residents of the Rio Grande Valley? We hope not.

Ken Mills

Spark News

publicradio@hotmail.com

We received this comment regarding the situation in the Rio Grande Valley from an anonymous Spark News reader:

Anonymous: “Historically Texas Public Radio (KSTX) hasn’t had much spare cash to throw around. So I while I can’t comment on whether or not they’d WANT to keep NPR content in the Rio Grande valley, I would be surprised if they CAN spend the money to do it.”

“But arguably both KUT (Austin) and KERA (Dallas) have the cash to pull it off, if done wisely. KUHF in Houston might be able to do it, too. That all said, you’d think the folks at KEDT in Corpus Christi would be the logical choice to spearhead any attempt to keep NPR content on the air around McAllen/Brownsville. God only knows if KEDT has the money, though.”

KEN SAYS: We have reached out to the leaders of KUT, KERA and Texas Public Radio.  We also have been in contact with the folks at KTEP in El Paso, a city that is similar in many ways to the Valley. We will let our readers know if there are any new developments.

TOPIC TWO: “THE SQUID” IS LOOSE IN SANTA CRUZ

Rachael Goodman (left) and The Squid welcome

 visitors at the grand opening of the station

Last Tuesday we ran a story about the debut of KSQD The Squid, a new community station in Santa Cruz.  Many of the people involved with The Squid were previously associated with KUSP, a station in Santa Cruz that was forced into bankruptcy because of incompetent management. We received two reader comments and seem to know what they are talking about.

A market veteran, who asked us not to publish his/her name wrote:

Market Veteran: “Considering that many of the parties involved in KSQD have their fingerprints on KUSP’s corpse, it’s hard to see how KSQD will succeed where KUSP failed, lower overhead notwithstanding.” 

  

“The biggest problem is the program schedule.  It’s as if it was designed to reject the twin virtuous cycles that underlie non-commercial radio’s staying power, specifically that ‘programming causes audience’ and ‘listener support begets public service, public service begets listener support.”

“Unless there is an endless supply of naïve, deep-pockets donors I can’t see how KSQD doesn’t follow KUSP into the mausoleum of radio legends.”  

The second comment came from an anonymous reader with knowledge of technical matters:

Coverage map for The Squid

Anonymous:  “The old KUSP (now KLVM) 88.9 had a pretty hefty signal. It covered all of Monterey Bay and then some. KSQD 90.7 is much smaller, and almost certainly won’t reach across the bay into Monterey. Plus, there may be interference from KHDC 90.9, which is geographically much closer to Santa Cruz.”   

“Therefore, the question is: where were KUSP’s listeners located? KUSP’s coverage area was big, sure, but a lot of what it covered was mountains and scrub-brush land...not people. If KUSP’s listeners were mainly in central area of the city of Santa Cruz, 90.7 might actually cover them better than KUSP did.”

TOPIC THREE: COMPARING JAZZ & AAA STATION RATINGS

On February 14^th we posted the Nielsen PPM ratings for full-time Jazz and AAA stations. We said that according to the information we have, AAA has now surpassed Jazz to become public radio’s third largest programming format. An anonymous reader found flaws in our reporting:

Anonymous: “Not sure how it works for the AAA stations, but the jazz stations are indeed a much more mixed bag of formats & styles, even when they fall under the heading of jazz.”

“Unlike the big NPR news/talk stations which are pretty darn cookie cutter 90% of the day, even the biggest, most mainstream jazz stations like WBGO, KKJZ and WDCB do not really sound all that much alike.”

“The idea that AAA stations in 2019 have factually more listeners than jazz stations seems not too firm a notion though, regardless.”

“Important to note that even the math in the chart here is off."

"Using the stats listed here, the Jazz stations should have added up to more like 1,855,000, not 1,770,000. Plus, your chart didn’t include several of the biggest Jazz stations in the country.”

KEN SAYS: Thank you for the excellent comment – there are several things to unpack in your message.

You are correct about the diversity of styles of music and programming on the Jazz stations. You will find similar differences with the AAA stations.

Regarding the math, mistakes are always possible for someone like me who is almost blind.  We didn’t make it clear enough that we were only counting the estimated listeners when we had data from both Fall 2016 and Fall 2018.  If you just look at those numbers, you should get the same total we did.

Your comment that all of the full-time Jazz stations were not included is correct. KSDS, San Diego and KCSM, San Mateo, have large numbers of weekly listeners.  But, we can’t access their numbers because they don’t subscribe to the Nielsen ratings.

The AAA list has the same problem. We have no estimates available for KCSN & 88,5 in Los Angeles, WTMD in Baltimore or WAPS in Akron, Cleveland and Youngstown.

Perhaps we were a bit over the top when we said “AAA stations have more estimated weekly listeners than Jazz stations,” but with the information we had, that is a true statement.