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| Texas Storyteller WF Strong |
Finally,
there is some good news to report from the Rio Grande Valley (RGV).
The Valley
will loose its only local NPR voice later this spring when Rio Grande Public
Radio (RGPR) vanishes.
The two stations that comprise RGPR have been sold a
Catholic media company and the new owners have no intention of continuing NPR
programming.
Dr.
William Frederick (“WF”) Strong, a communications professor at the University
Texas – Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), told Spark
News in an email:
We are in the early
stages of getting the university powers on board [to establish a new NPR
station]. I want the NPR station to be on campus but to serve the entire
RGV, with a stronger signal.
Though
Strong has no experience in operating or programming a NPR station, he is a
well-known creative force within public radio. His Stories from Texas: Some of Them Are True audio essays appear in
NPR news magazines, on KUT’s statewide daily news program Texas Standard,
as podcasts distributed by NPR [link] and via Audible. Stories from Texas are even sold on Amazon [link] where they get
rave reviews.
Consider
Strong a “public media insider” because he is an astute observer of how the
business operates and has a natural affinity with public media decision makers.
Officials at KUT and NPR hold Strong in high regard.
Less
is known about of UTRGV’s interest about entering the public radio business. UTRGV
[link] began in 2013 when it evolved from UT – Brownsville. It is one of the
fastest growing public universities in the nation with an undergraduate enrollment
over 25,000 and graduate enrollment of almost 4,000. Ninety percent of the
students at UTRGV are Hispanic. Strong has been on the faculty since 2005.
UTRGV
has an online student radio station -- UTRGV Radio [link] – and owns no other
broadcasting properties.
If
UTRGV does pursue a new NPR station, it will likely take awhile before it is on
the air. A large university system such as the
UT has multiple layers of decision-making and many stakeholders across the
state. So, it appears that when RGPR’s licenses are transferred to
the God Squad, which is expected in May, the RGV will be without a local NPR
station for months, maybe years.
NIELSEN AUDIO DIARY
MARKET RATINGS FOR AAA, ALT ROCK, JAZZ & OTHER CONTEMPORARY MUSIC STATIONS
Triple
A stations in markets using Nielsen’s Diary methodology in Fall 2018 broke even
compared with data from Fall 2016. Looking at 13 stations with ratings
available for both years, 5 (39%) increased their estimated weekling listeners,
5 (39%) lost weekly listeners and 3 stations stayed the same.
University
of Kentucky’s alt rocker WRFL (celebrating 31 years of parties) led the pack
with a 28% gain in weekly listeners in Fall 2018 compared with Fall 2016. The
Colorado Sound in Fort Collins – Greeley was up 26%.
Two
of the best known Triple A stations, WFPK and WEXT were down by double digits,
though WEXT had a big jump in AQH share.
There
is one new station (to us, at least) on the chart that deserves recognition, WOVM a/k/a The Avenue [link] is a very impressive
independent community station. The Avenue
not only does well in Appleton, it also pulls decent listening in Green Bay and
Oshkosh by gosh. These folks are proof that you don’t need a big metro of university
licensee make Alternative Rock happen.
Check these folks out – You can feel the passion and sweat by just llstening to their streaming audio.
There
aren’t enough full-time Jazz stations to draw any conclusions about the format
in Diary markets.
LPFM station WNOZ in
NOLA had a nice gain in estimated weekly listeners.
One
of our favorite "other" stations, WDVX in Knoxville [link] is now specializing in Americana
music.
WDVX
first became nationally known in the late 1990s when it was broadcasting from a
14-foot camping trailer, parked at a campground off I-75.
Since then they moved to solid ground and now
serve counties in the Cumberland Mountains and the Great Valley of East
Tennessee.
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