One
of the older rivalries between NPR member stations in the same market has
become more heated recently.
According to the Spring 2019 Nielsen Audio ratings
WEKU has opened up a wide lead over WUKY in Lexington, Kentucky.
These
two stations have see-sawed for at least twenty years. Since Mike Savage became GM of WEKU about a
year ago the station has focused its schedule during weekday prime listening
hours to NPR News/Talk. WUKY continues its dual format of NPR News and AAA-ish
music during the same day-parts.
On
paper, these two stations have something in common: Both are heavily dependent
on their university licensees for operating revenue. Both would like to change that dynamic.
 |
| WEKU GM Mike Savage |
WEKU
is the larger of the two stations.
The station is based in Richmond, Kentucky
at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU).
WEKU had operating revenues of
approximately $2.1 million in FY 2018.
The
largest chunk of revenue -- $635,000 (30%) came from members and underwriters.
EKU provided $487,000 (23%) in cash plus $641,000 of in-kind support. CPB provided around 10%. WEKU operated with a loss in FY 2018.
 |
| WUKY GM Tom Godell |
WUKY,
is licensed to the University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington.
The station had operating
revenues of approximately $1.4 million in FY 2018.
$653,000
(47%) came from members and underwriters.
UK provided $602,000 (43%) in cash
support.
CPB provided around 9%.
Perhaps
the biggest difference between the two stations is their weekday midday programming. Spark
News did a comparative analysis of the two station’s program during prime
listening hours – the times when the most people listen to the radio.
The chart on the left shows schedules for weekdays from 6am to 7pm. During this
time period, WEKU airs a solid line-up of News/Talk shows.
Things
are different at WUKY during weekdays. From 9am – 4pm WUKY serves up a homemade
brew called Rock & Roots.
We
looked the playlist for the Noon – 1pm hour on Friday (8/2) and we found some unusual things about WUKY's choice of tunes: There are lots of cover songs by lesser known artists.
For
instance, instead of Neil Young’s early hit Everybody
Knows This is Nowhere, we hear the song performed by folk-singer Dar
Williams.
Jack
White’s Steady As She Goes was not
the hit version recorded by White. Rather WUKY listeners heard the tune
performed by Corinne Bailey-Rae.
Folsom Prison Blues…Johnny Cash, right? On
WUKY it is done by Chris Stapelton.
American Girl…Tom Petty, of course. On
WUKY listeners hear it performed by Elle King.
To
WUKY’s credit, there were a couple of tasty blues nuggets by John Hammond and
Buddy Guy. But, the bottom line is that the music selected during this hour
was poorly curated. In our opinion, the host was clearly playing music for him/herself. Free-form is a guaranteed tune-out for many listeners.
This
approach may have been popular in the 1980s. However, now WUKY’s dual-format must
compete with WEKU, a “no kidding” News/Talk station. At minimum, WUKY should play the hits.
The
two stations are more evenly matched on Saturday from 6am - 3pm.
ACCORDING TO NIELSEN, AT LEAST 26 NPR NEWS STATIONS ARE THE LEADING RADIO NEWS SOURCE IN THEIR MARKETS
As
of today, we have seen 26 markets where local NPR member stations have become
the top radio news source.
Roughly 50% of the markets have been released, so
the number NPR stations beating local commercial stations will certainly grow.
You
might recall, we started examining this trend after seeing other publications claiming that NPR News stations “rarely” have greater AQH shares than commercial
News and Talk stations.
That
was once true, but things have changed.
Hyper consolidation, budget cuts and
loss of a sense of purpose have devastated commercial radio news operations.
The
heavy investment in news content on multiple platforms by NPR member stations
is paying off.
Freeform was and still is popular with a certain amount of listeners, especially Baby Boomers, who did not have the luxury of smart phones, Shazam, Spotfy etc. Those stations that have been successful at Freeform is because of certain things.
ReplyDeleteFreeform and/or Underground-Progressive was helpful in playing and breaking the emerging Folk Rock styles of Simon & Garfunkel and Bob Dylan and later the likes of The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, and Led Zeppelin. They also got on The Beatles evolution towards Art Rock as well.
The personalities of a station and what they bring to their shift. While WNEW-FM would be beat out by ABC Radio's WPLJ with a tight and displined playlist, the fans of NEW-FM loved the personalities in its prime. Especially Alison "The Nightbird" Steele, Pete Fornatale, Scott "The Professor" Muni, Dave Herman, and Vin Scelsa. They also had their musical preferences (Steele played New Age and Space Rock and her overnight shift fit the mood, Muni featured many musical artists of the UK, Scelsa and Fornatle had their popular freeform shows...especially Scelsa whose Idiot's Delight would have a four decade run on WNEW-FM and later WFUV) but their personalities kept WNEW-FM afloat and the station made money.
Also of note is Jim Ladd, who also knows how to do Freeform radio correctly. He programmed his music for the audience and not for his own ego. Ladd appeared on the Roger Waters' second solo album Radio K.A.O.S. and Tom Petty wrote a song about Ladd called "The Last DJ." Ladd is currently heard on Sirius XM's Deep Tracks channel.
Present stations like KHUM, WFMU have been able to do Freeform in one form or another, and likely because they put their focus on the listeners and not their personal egos and tastes or if they do let their egos get to them they somehow have channeled it into making great radio.
I would agree that too much Freeform Radio equaled bad radio, and thus you had the likes of Bob Hannaberry who would mentor Lee Abrams and give Underground/Progressive Radio certain boundaries and rules in order to become competitive, build an audience and establish a place on the radio spectrum. Underground-Progressive evolved into Album Oriented Rock and AOR would fracture into several different areas of the spectrum (Classic Rock, Alternative/Modern, Active/Mainstream Rock, and Triple A/Album Adult Alt.)
It is just too many who try Freeform basically become a voice of "Me, Myself, and I" and that is just as much of a turn off as a Top 40 playlist. Public Radio Triple A stations like KXT, KJAC (The Colorado Sound), KTBG (The Bridge), and XPN did embrace a certain amount of discipline and structure and while it may not work in a commercial radio setting, it does bring in a loyal audience. Maybe in the future it could benefit a WUKY, not to mention allow WEKU to handle the NPR News/Talk side of things.