SHOULD PUBLIC MEDIA FEAR AN UPSTART COMPANY LIKE “LUMINARY”?

Matt Sacks (Image by Rong Xu for The NY Times)

“We want to become synonymous with podcasting in the same way Netflix has become synonymous with streaming. I know how ambitious that sounds. We think it can be done.”

This is the way entrepreneur Matt Sacks described his new podcast company Luminary [link] to The New York Times in early March [link].

Sacks has 100 million reasons to crow about Luminary. Sacks raised $100 million in investment capital for the startup. Sacks has spent freely assembling what many people consider to be the best lineup of star talent in the pod biz.

Luminary is offering 40 exclusive shows featuring people you’ve heard of like Conan O’Brien, Malcolm Gladwell and Trevor Noah. Plus, Luminary is adding new shows (but not the current hits) from Guy Raz, Leon Neyfakh, the creator and host of “Slow Burn” and Adam Davidson, one of the producers behind “Planet Money.”

Any and all of the 40 shows can be accessed at Luminary for as low as eight dollars per month. Best of all, the shows contain no commercials. As we have written before, research shows that most people don’t like commercials (but might tolerate them in certain situations).

So far, the podcast industry has relied on revenue from commercials embedded into podcasts. This funding model includes podcasts from non-profit media entities such as NPR, WNYC and PRX. The prevailing wisdom is that people want podcasts to be free (with ads) and will balk at paying a subscription.

Sacks is betting that star power with no clutter can convert free listeners into subscribing listeners. Though Luminary’s menu is glamorous, it isn’t Netflix. So, consider this project to be a big-dollar gamble.

IS LUMINARY A THREAT TO PUBLIC MEDIA PODCASTING?

Andrew Ramsammy

Andrew Ramsammy thinks big-money companies like Luminary are a potential threat to public media’s leading position in the podcast business. Ramsammy said so in an op-ed – How public media should read the Luminary news – in Current [link], published in early March.

Ramsammy has impressive credentials. In 2016 he founded UnitedPublic Strategies [link], an organization that consults public podcast publishers, producers and creators.

Prior to UnitedPublic, Ramsammy was the Director of Content Projects & Initiatives at Public Radio International (PRI) and Executive Producer of the PBS series The Daytripper.

We feel Ramsammy’s op-ed has merit, and we urge people to read it. But, we feel Ramsammy’s analysis lacks some important factors and it assumes some things as facts that might not be facts. Consider:

• Ramsammy correctly chronicles the big money pouring into the already crowded podcast industry. But he misses the powerful one-two punch that public radio has when the two platforms work together to provide reach and depth.  For instance, The Daily, has become a hit both as a podcasts and on-the-air.  Since APM began distributing The Daily, downloads have doubled and station carriage grows each month.

• He downplays the power of the “NPR” brand.  Podcast and public radio have such similar DNA – some people call it “the public radio sensibility.”  Plus almost all of NPR’s podcasts are also heard on NPR member stations.

• In his op-ed, Ramsammy implies that Luminary’s subscription model will cause fewer people to donate to public radio stations. Actually, they are two very different things.  The motivation to contribute to an NPR station is not similar to paying a Netflix monthly fee.

• Ramsammy says in the op-ed “…how do we convert the more than 99 million people who listen to public radio into…supporters of new ventures like podcasting?”He based this number on a press release from which you can see hear [link].

The NPR press release says 99 million is the number of estimated people who hear NPR on all digital platforms. I read the "99 million" stat as incorrect because to most people (including me) would think you were referring the number of people listening to public radio on public radio stations.
Ramsammy did not say that the "99 million" included kisteners other than people listening to the radio. Ken 6pm CT 3-15-19

• Ramsammy says “We need a plan. In the public media collective, we have the lead, but we’ll get behind if we don’t strategize and act with intention.”

Who is “we”? Is it CPB, NPR or Ira Glass? It is hard to motivate a collective. Ramsammy needs to be more specific to get results.

ANNOUNCING THE FIRST ALL-PODCAST RADIO STATION • WSAM LIVES ON IN A NEW MOVIE

WSAN in the 1970s

We have often written about the powerful mix of podcasts and radio. Today we have a new twist on the concept. 

iHeartMedia has just debuted the first all-podcast radio station in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

WSAN AM 1470 is 100% podcast powered. WSAM in one of five stations IHeart owns in Allentown.   

WSAN has tried Spanish-language programming and Sports but neither caught on the listeners. 

So, you might say the all-podcast format is the programming of last resort.”

WSAN now bills itself “The iHeartPodcast Channel” because all of the podcasts are owned by iHeart. 

The station describes itself this way:

“The iHeartPodcast Channel” on AM 1470 is a carefully curated experience that brings you the most creative stories from over 25,000 podcasts available on our free iHeartRadio app,"

"From true crime to history, comedy to food, we’ll cover dozens of topics every week." 

Holy hyperbole!

You can hear the station online [link].

WSAN: THE MOVIE

Photo on the WSAN billboard contest in 1982

A film about WSAN radio will be released soon but it has nothing to do with iHeart. Back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, WSAN was a hot Top 40 station. The film – Billboard – tells the story of a famous promotion WSAN sponsored in 1982.

The station staged a contest with a new mobile home as the grand prize. The winner would be the participant who stayed the longest on a billboard on the main street in Allentown. Two final to  contestants lived on the billboard 24/7 for more than six months. The stunt was covered on the national news and thousands of people came by to see “the people on the billboard.”

Billboard is the latest film from director Zeke Zelker. It stars John Robinson, Heather Matarazzo and Eric Roberts. National distribution of Billboard begins April 5 in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. More information is available here.

Ironically, the story of the WSAN was first told nationally by Roman Mars in the podcast 99PercentInvisible [link].

PUBLIC RADIO’S GREATEST FUND RAISER MAY REAPPEAR • DUMB, DUMBER & DUMBEST IN COLUMBUS

President Donald Trump is no friend of public media but he certainly makes the pledge phones ring. The blog NiemanLab.org is reporting that Trump’s budget for 2020 will again try to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

Earlier this week the Trump administration released an overview of the federal budget for fiscal year 2020 – October 1, 2019 – September 30, 2020. When the detailed version of the budget is released later in March, NiemanLab.org says [link] it will include eliminating all funding for CPB.

If true, this will be Trump’s third attempt to end funding for CPB. In 2017 Trump and his advisors made, what was considered at the time, to be a serious threat to defund CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). That year Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, the legislative body that has the final word on government spending.

Congress ignored Trump’s wishes and voted to continue funding all three entities in 2017. Trump made another attempt to axe CPB in 2018 and that also failed.

Observers say that zapping CPB is just one of a lengthy list of targets that are “dog whistles” for his core supporters. Trump considers the budget to be a “messaging” vehicle in which he draws “lines in the sand” to demonstrate his gravitas. Like Kabuki theater or professional wrestling, the results don’t matter as long as the show is entertaining for the ditto-heads.

NPR and PBS fit inside Trump’s “fake news” narrative that calls fact-based news media to be The Enemy of the American People.

By our count, the current defunding effort is at least the eighth attempt by Republicans to end funding for CPB. Perhaps the most serious attempt was in the 1990s when Senators Bob Dole (R-Kansas) and Larry Pressler (R-South Dakota) almost succeeded in “privatizing” public broadcasting. It turned out that Pressler was defeated when he ran for re-election in 1996.  The people of South Dakota decided they wanted to keep public broadcasting and privatize Pressler. 

DUMB, DUMBER & DUMBEST IN COLUMBUS

Dan Mushalko

As new facts are discovered, the saga of former WCBE General Manager Dan Mushalko’s attempt to hide almost $900,000 in debts keeps getting stranger. 

Now, according to a report in the Columbus Dispatch [link], the plan included a “coup” of sorts to take the station away from the licensee, the Columbus City Schools.

When we first reported on the story in early February [link], we knew these facts:

• In late January 2019, Mushalko revealed to his immediate supervisor that he had been hiding hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt owed to NPR for membership dues and program carriage fees. Mulshalko was immediately suspended as GM of WCBE and placed on administrative leave, pending the results of an internal investigation.

Don McTigue

• On the same day, the board of the Columbus City Schools received a letter from Don McTigue, a Columbus area lawyer who had once been on WCBE’s community advisory group. 

In the letter, McTigue offered to pay the debt owed to NPR. 

In exchange, the Columbus City Schools would allow McTique’s non-profit organization – WCBE Ohio, Inc. – to assume operational control of the station.

• The Columbus laughed at McTique’s offer and never replied.

HATCHING THE PLAN

New reporting in The Dispatch [link] now tells of a plot to take over WCBE. The plan  unwittingly included WOSU and former Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman. Here is some what The Dispatch learned:

• In January 2018 Mulshalko told his contact at NPR that WCBE had fallen behind in making payments to NPR for programming. He told the NPR contact by email “we can get those installments [payments] rolling again ASAP.”

Apparently, WCBE did not make any payments.

• July 2018, a senior manager of business at NPR, informed Mushalko that Columbus City Schools owned NPR almost $870,000. The NPR representative told Mulshalko that the debt was “front and center” with the NPR finance department, and “from what I gather, this will be out of my hands soon without guidance on payments (actual payments) soon.”

Mulshalko agreed to a repayment schedule and told NPR “if it’s not sufficient, I am fully prepared to recommend our licensee sell the station and use a portion of the proceeds to pay (the debt).”

Mulshalko did not have the authority to make the offer (Dumb).

Michael B. Coleman

• Meanwhile, by spring 2018, other stations in the market had learned through the "grapevine” about WCBE’s lRG debt to NPR. 

WOSU wanted to fold WCBE into its operation and switch the format to full-time Triple A music. WOSU hired former Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman April 2018 to negotiate the deal.

However, Coleman did not contact the Columbus City Schools. Instead, he contacted and negotiated with McTigue who he assumbed had the authority to speak on behalf of the Columbus City Schools. (Dumber)

• Coleman and McTique crafted a complicated three-way deal that would lead to WOSU managing and operating WCBE. McTigue had no authority make such an offer. (Even Dumber)

• Then, in November 2018, WOSU decided to pull out of the fictional deal. (WOSU may or may not have known that the deal was not real.)

• Finally, eight weeks later in January 2019, Mulshalko informed the Columbus City Schools that the station owed NPR $870,000 and that the City Schools would have to pay it off. McTigue’s letter offering a “sweetheart deal” to pay the debt to NPR arrived the same day,

KEN SAYS: It is impossible to know who was the dumbest person or organization in this situation.   

Was it Dan Mulshalko who hid the debt? 

Was it former Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman who didn’t do due diligence about McTigue?  

Or was it McTigue, the attorney who tried to leverage the deal with smoke and mirrors.

No, the dumb, dumber and dumbest entity in this whole mess is the Columbus City Schools. Their lack of supervision of WCBE allowed all of this to happen.

Perhaps WOSU can give this story a happy ending. If the Columbus City Schools can arrange for WOSU to take control of WCBE and then flip the format to full-time Triple A, people of Columbus will be the winners.

ANOTHER DATA NUGGET ABOUT FACEBOOK • PUBLIC RADIO CONFERENCE CALENDAR 2019

While doing research for today’s post – the Public Radio Conference Calendar for 2019 – we came across the factoid on the left.

Jacobs Media is dribbling out information from the 2019 Commercial Radio Tech Survey slide-by-slide to promote the release of the entire study March 28^th at the Worldwide Radio Summit in Burbank.

After surveying 50,000 respondents, representing well more than 500 radio stations, the study found that more than one-forth of respondents are seriously considering deleting their Facebook accounts, mostly because of privacy concerns. Holy toxic brand image!

We intended to include the Worldwide Radio Summit in our list of recommended conferences for public radio folks.  However, when we looked at the agenda and list of speakers we did not find a single person listed who works in public radio, public media or noncommercial broadcasting. Not one. You’d think we are living in 1977.  All Access, you can do better.

Now, here are the conferences we do recommend:

2019 CONFERENCE CALENDAR

PUBLIC RADIO & OTHER NONCOMMERCIAL MEDIA

• PUBLIC RADIO ENGINEERING CONFERENCE

When: April 4-6

Where: Tuscany Suites & Casino, Las Vegas

Sponsor: The Association of Public Radio Engineers

For more information Click Here

Details: Registration is required before April 4, Payment In Advance

Sessions not to miss:

The New Public Radio Interconnection System

FM Fill-in Translator or Single Frequency Networks

Engineers as Heroes: Saving Lives and Building Audiences

• PMBA 2019 ANNUAL CONFERENCE

When: May 14–17

Where: Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, Orlando

Sponsor: Public Media Business Association

For more information Click Here

Session not to miss:

State of the System—Public Media Financial and Operational Results

• 19th ANNUAL TRIPLE A NON-COMMvention

When: May 15-18

Where: WXPN World Cafe, Philadelphia

Sponsor: WXPN

For more information Click Here

• PRNDI ANNUAL CONFERENCE

When: June 13-15

Where: Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown Washington, DC

Sponsor: Public Radio News Directors, Inc.

For more information Click Here

• NFCB COMMUNITY MEDIA CONFERENCE

When: June 18-20

Where: Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina

Sponsor: National Federation of Community Broadcasters

For more information Click Here

• PUBLIC MEDIA DEVELOPMENT & MARKETING CONFERENCE (“PMDMC”)

When: July 9-12

Where: Hyatt Regency, Dallas

Sponsors: Greater Public & PBS

For more information Click Here

• FMQB TRIPLE A CONFERENCE

When: August 7–10

Where: St. Julian Hotel, Boulder

Sponsor: FMQB magazine

For more information Click Here

• PUBLIC RADIO CONTENT CONFERENCE

When: August 26-29

Where: Marriott City Center, Minneapolis

Sponsor: Public Radio Program Directors association

For more information Click Here

• MOMENTUM 2019

When: September 4-6

Where: Loews Royal Pacific Resort, Orlando

Sponsor: Christian Music Broadcasters (CMB)

For more information Click Here

• AMERICANA FEST

When: September 10-15

Where: Various venues in Nashville

Sponsor: AmericanaMusic.org

“The coolest music scene today.” – The New York Times

For more information Click Here

• PRRO SUPER REGIONAL MEETING

When: October 15-17

Where: Jung Hotel in New Orleans

Sponsor: Public Radio Regional Organizations

For more information Click Here

• CBI NATIONAL STUDENT ELECTRONIC MEDIA CONVENTION

When: October 22-24

Where: Baltimore Hilton, Baltimore

Sponsor: College Broadcasters, Inc.

For more information Click Here

FACTS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED IN “INFINITE DIAL 2019”

Tom Webster, researcher and media guru

Infinite Dial 2019 [link] is the longest-running and most quoted survey of consumer behavior with digital media. 

Their work is baseline data regarding consumer adaptation of new media platforms and devices. 

Edison Research has been chronicling digital and analogue usage trends since 1988. 

This is fact-based news you can trust.

We want to thank Edison Research, and particularly Infinite Dial 2019 team leader Tom Webster, for making the topline results available at no cost to media decision makers. By doing so, they are providing information that increases media literacy and ability to serve the public.

There has been extensive media coverage of the study’s biggest finding:  Podcasts have reached a “tipping point” when more than half of the American adult population have listened to a podcast and nearly one out of three people listen to a podcast in a typical month.

Jaclyn Peiser reported in The New York Times last week [link] that the growth in awareness and consumption of podcast is dramatic:

Past reports from The Infinite Dial showed a creeping increase in podcasts from year to year. That has changed in 2019, when there was a dramatic jump. Compared with 2018 figures, the number of people who have listened to at least one podcast in their lives increased by 20 million, and an additional 14 million people described themselves as weekly listeners.

Another finding published in Infinite Dial 2019 that has received a lot of coverage is the quick rise of Smart Speakers. Radio people are excited about their growing use as de facto radio receivers. They seem to be bringing radio listening back into the home.

Today we are going to look at other findings in Infinite Dial 2019 that didn’t make headlines but are important to people who work in media industries. Here are a few other trends you might have missed:

1. Is this the beginning of the end for Facebook?

Maybe it is karma, or maybe it is just a blip in the night, that Facebook usage has declined, especially among younger users. Infinite Dial studies don’t often include big headlines like to one on the right from the study proclaiming that in just one year Facebook lost 15 million users in U.S.

According to Infinite Dial 2019, social media usage in general appears to have stalled. 

But many of Facebook’s competitors continue to add users. One example is Instagram, which, ironically is owned by Facebook.

The people who were most apt to dump Facebook are between the ages of 12 and 34. 

Perhaps it is Facebook’s sale of users personal data to corporations and foreign governments that turned people off. Or maybe it is the perception that Facebook is as hip as a leisure suit – a place where grandpa lives. 

It is probably the latter because people over the age of 55 are the only demographic group that is increasing users.

2. Terrestrial radio remains “the king of the car”

You’ve seen this headline before and now you are seeing it again because it is true. 

It is a fact that a lot of people still listen to old-fashioned AM/FM radio, particularly in moving vehicles.

Other more glamorous platforms continue to chip away some radio listening but it appears radio is here to stay. 

Radio’s ubiquitous free distribution, easy of access and (still) popular programming are good reasons this traditional media service continues to hang around.

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

3. YouTube is an increasingly popular place to hear music

Use of YouTube as a music source has grown every year since 2014. 

Once YouTube was known as a video channel but the easy-to-upload, easy-to-use platform is perfect for distributing music. 

The audio reproduction quality is better than some subscription-based music sites. 

We are now using YouTube ourselves for radio airchecks because the cost of securing music rights is far cheaper than it is for CDs or streaming audio.

4. Hardcore podcast listeners listen to an average of seven shows per week

According to Infinite Dial 2019, the heaviest podcast users – people who listen to podcasts every week, on say that they listen to an average of seven shows during a typical week.

Of course the definition of a “podcast” is fluid and is dependent on the mind of the beholder. 

We like to listen to reruns of Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me.  Are reruns of shows actually podcasts?

Last night we listened to a one-minute, six-second recipe with a new way to cook swordfish. Is this a podcast or not a podcast?

The truth is a podcast can be almost anything you want it to be.

Someone with a bit of time on their hands tried to come up with a better name that is more descriptive. 

But they couldn't think of anything better. So it is “podcast” forever.