SPARK NEWS READER PROFILE

Word Cloud of what respondents said

they like about Spark News

In April we commissioned a survey of Spark News readers to learn their perception of our work. 

We are now approaching our fifth anniversary and we are evaluating what we have accomplished and deciding where the blog will go from here.

Spark News began publishing on September 29, 2014.   

Since then we published 1,236 posts. We publish every work day except during holidays. This has taken considerable time away from our consulting work. On a typical day, we spend around 50% of our time doing research, writing and publishing Spark News.

We publish Spark News as a public service for the people who work in public media. So far, we have received no compensation for our work. We also realize we will need to generate revenue to become sustainable.

Our purpose is to provide news, trends and coverage of issues that are important to the success of public media, particularly public radio. Our role is not to compete with other media sources such as Current. We try not to duplicate the coverage found in other media. We seek to go deeper on certain stories, provide additional information such as ratings and put public radio in the context of the changing media environment.

We feel that commentary and editorial opinion are a vital part of our work. This stems from our belief in future of radio as a means to communicate and that public radio is an important voice in our democracy. So, we will continue to point out “bad actors” that hurt radio as a medium and manipulate the public.

We appreciate the comments and advice we have received over the past five years and we hope to continue our service for many years. Thank you for reading Spark News because we do this work for you! Ken Mills.

MEET OUR READERS

Our reader survey was conducted between April 9, 2019 and May 7, 2019. There were 73 respondents. Steve Martin of SFM Consulting [link] conducted the survey on our behalf.

• SPARK NEWS READERS ARE PUBLIC RADIO DECISION MAKERS

Over 70% of the respondents work in public radio. 77% of those respondents working in public radio are General Managers/CEOs, Program/Content Directors, News Directors or Operations Managers. 47% of the respondents say they read Spark News daily; 49% say they read Spark News at least once a week.

• THE TYPES OF STORIES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO SPARK NEWS READERS

Over 92% of the respondents say they read Spark News for news about noncommercial/public stations. 62% read our blog s for the most recent Nielsen ratings. 62% of the respondents say they read Spark News for our coverage and analysis of trends in media consumption.

We were pleased when we learned that 51% of the respondents read our blog for commentary and opinion.

• READERS TRUST OUR REPORTING & ANALYSIS

85% of the respondents say that our work is “excellent” or “very good.” 77% say our variety of topics “excellent” or “very good.”

NEGATIVE COMMENTS & THINGS WE CAN DO BETTER

Though over 95% the respondents are positive about our work, some respondents were negative about certain aspects of Spark News. These respondents criticized us for these reasons:

• We have too many typos and mistakes in our grammar

• The email service provided by our platform, Google Blogger, is unreliable

• Sometimes Spark News appears to be “grinding an axe”

MOVING FORWARD

We appreciate the respondent’s comments, both positive and negative. We admit that we are journalism newbies – we are learning as we go. Your criticism and advice are always welcome.

We know Spark News has too many typos. We know misspellings sometimes detract from the impact our work. 

• Though we won’t try to make excuses, the typos are sometimes caused by two fact-of-life realities: We have severe problems with visual acuity, and occasionally we are rushed in our writing because of our commitment to consulting clients.

• We are concerned about problems readers are having with Blogger’s email service. We are considering switching to a newsletter format such as Mail Chimp. Your comments and advice regarding this are very welcome.

• Our intention is not to “grind an axe,” We have no agenda other than promoting the future of radio, particularly public radio. Sometimes we have gotten too personal in our criticism of individuals and we regret it. We are making every effort to “dial it back.”

The reason we are sometimes negative about certain things, people, companies and organizations involved in todays multichannel multi-platform  media, is the same as our consulting slogan: Speak Truth to Power.

Life and our work are too finite to tolerate bullshit. We seek to make a difference with Spark News and sometimes that requires being blunt.

ONE FINAL THOUGHT

Against the advice of some folks, we asked in survey Would you miss Spark News if it wasn’t available?

Of course it is a personal, self-serving question. We asked the question because like most people sometimes we wonder if people value our work or even care if we live or die.

We found it encouraging that 78.8% of survey respondents said Yes, we would miss Spark News if went away. This made our day and gave us hope for tomorrow.