“I'm waiting for the best of NPR to come out on 8 track.”

No doubt you’ve heard about the June 16^th article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) titled Public Radio’s Existential Crisis [link]. Folks in the public radio biz will immediately recognize the issues discussed in the article: retiring heritage hosts, less listening by younger listeners and out of touch management.

But don’t let the repetition of stuff we already know stop you from reading the article. WSJ Entertainment and Media reporter Ellen Gamerman does an excellent job telling the story:

With both its stars and audience aging, NPR is struggling to adapt to the digital age.

Ellen Gamerman

 However Gamerman’s analysis is incomplete.  With the exception of discussing the exit by Garrison Keillor, the article is almost entirely about NPR. She misses an important reality: The best of public radio is happening at local stations. They are the future of the biz. Stations are where the action is now. Case in point: 89.3 The Current’s globally-praised response to the death of Prince on all platforms and the overwhelming response.

Many of NPR problems are byproducts of its antiquated system of governance. NPR’s communal decision-making culture makes it hard for the organization to act quickly.  What is in NPR’s interest is not necessarily in the stations interest. As Gamerman points out, the local stations provide most of NPR’s budget. Execs at NPR are always looking over their shoulders.

Some of Gamerman’s conclusions are based on incorrect information. As examples of NPR’s decline she cites these examples: Jonathan Schwartz, Joe Frank, Lynne Rossetto Kasper and a program called Folksong Festival which she claims is the country’s longest-running radio show with the same host.

I’ve worked in public radio for about 25 years and I have never heard of Folksong Festival. The last time I heard Joe Frank on the radio was in the 1980s.  These hosts and programs are not bell-weathers of public radio.

But Gamerman’s central point is correct. The perception that NPR is “old and in the way” is hard to deny. This narrative is potentially dangerous to public radio because it provides one more reason to cut CPB funding.

LISTEN TO THE COMMENTS

I found many of WSJ reader comments to be as enlightening as Gamerman’s story.  Here are some examples:

PUBLIC RADIO IS MORE THAN NPR – THE NEW ACTION IS AT THE STATIONS

• Comment from Jay Taylor:

There is an excellent public radio station near me, WXPN, that plays mostly alternative rock from the 80's to the present.  I get to hear the older stuff I like, and also sample newer music that I would probably never seek out on my own.  It has no commercials, and none of the annoying programs spoken of in this article.  My life would be less enjoyable without it.  Google it and check it out.

• Comment from Jim McMenamin:

‘XPN is based at the University of Pennsylvania and is a great music station that not only plays interesting material from lots of time periods but also creates its own syndicated programming.

• Comment from Anonymous:

My local affiliate WFAE got $317,000 out of $4.8 million from CPB - 7%. The rest was individual listeners and corporate sponsors. That's typical.

They spent about $2 million on fundraising and the administrative staff. $2.4 million was for programming. WFAE is big enough it has locally produced programming.

PUBLIC RADIO IS MORE THAN GARRISON KEILLOR

Comment from Fred Stiening:

NPR is only one distributor of Public Radio programming. The other main one is a competitor called American Public Media, which is an entity created by Minnesota Public Broadcasting. MPR experienced a surge in revenue accidentally when Garrison Keillor offered a free wall calendar as a throwaway comic line and was flooded with bags of postcards wanting one. It turned into a huge merchandising business.

THE COMING WAVE OF CALLS TO “CUT CPB”

• Comment from Andrew Terhune:

Whatever the justification may have been for subsidizing public broadcasting decades ago, can anyone say that this justification is valid in the 21st century? Let it compete in the marketplace.

PROOF THAT A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE

• Comment from John Williams:

NPR’s Typical Listener:

-Grey haired butch cut Liberal old lady in her 60's, or 70's from Boston, Seattle , NYC or San Francisco , who doesn't like wearing make-up.

-Academic male at Ivy League University.

-Feminized Male from the 1960's

Note to John Williams from Ken: You need to get out more often – your brain is rotting because of all of your listening to Rush Limbaugh.

MURRAY HORWITZ RETURNS TO PUBLIC RADIO AS HOST OF “THE BIG BROADCAST”

Murray Horowit

I saw the good news in Current last week: Murray Horowitz is returning to public radio as host of WAMU’s Sunday night program The Big Broadcast. The move brings NPR’s former Cultural VP back into a world he created before he was unwisely deposed by NPR management in 2002.

 The Big Broadcast is a perfect fit for Horwitz who has spent most of his career in “show biz” – a term he doesn’t mind. He succeeds longtime program host Ed Walker, who died in 2015. Rob Bamberger served as interim host.  Horwitz began his hosting on June 12.

The Big Broadcast [link] has been a weekly fixture on WAMU since 1964. The program was inspired by the 1932 film The Big Broadcast.  It was highly influential in pre-code Hollywood because of its diverse cast and salty subject matter. The film was banned in many cities.   

 

WAMU’s version of The Big Broadcast includes audio from radio’s first golden age. Here is a sample of what was heard on Horwitz first program:

• Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar episode The Callicles Matter from 1956

• My Favorite Husband episode Knitting Baby Booties from 1948

• Gunsmoke episode Man and Boy from 1957

• Great Gildersleeve episode Father's Day Chair from 1942

• Dragnet episode "Red Light Bandit” from 1949

• The Adventures of Father Brown episode The Three Tools of Death from 1945

• Lux Radio Theater episode Sorell and Son from 1940

WHY MURRAY HORWITZ MATTERS TO PUBLIC RADIO TODAY

Horowitz was VP of Cultural Programming at NPR from 1989 to 2002, a time of change in public radio. Horowitz was pushed out when NPR’s management decided to de-emphasize cultural programming in favor of news. What the bean-counters failed to realize is that culture is part of news. It is in the DNA of American life. The results of NPR’s exit from most classical, jazz, blues and Americana programming hurt the network for a while.  Only in recent years has NPR gotten its cultural groove back with NPR Music.

Horwitz is a multi-platform player. He knows cultural programming doesn’t exist in a vacuum, that it is essential to a full life for life-long learners.

After NPR turfed him, Horwitz moved on without anger. One of the shows he green-lighted helped create – Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me - became a big hit. 

After he left NPR Horwitz became Director and COO of the American Film Institute’s (AFI) Silver Theatre and Cultural Center. The Silver Theatre has become a Washington, DC cultural landmark. In addition to hosting The Big Broadcast, Horwitz now divides his time between his own writing and serving as Director of Special Projects for Washington Performing Arts.

I first got to know Horwitz in the 1990s when I was Director News at American Public Radio (APR), now Public Radio International (PRI) and he was Cultural VP at NPR. At that time the competition between NPR and APR was intense. Folks from the two networks sometime wouldn’t speak to each other.  But none of that bullshit mattered to Horwitz or me.

Whenever we crossed paths at conferences he always greeted me with a smile and asked me about the music I liked and great movies I had seen. Horwitz was and is interested in the common bonds between people – the things that bring us together.

PHILLIPS AVENUE IN SIOUX FALLS

I once asked Horwitz when he knew he had "made it" in show biz.  He said that was during his first job in the early 1970s.

It happened in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Horwitz started his performance career in Sioux Falls as a clown with Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus.

One of a clown’s duties with the Circus was to lead a parade of animals and performers down the main street.   

Horwitz said he almost chicken-out because he was so scared of failing. 

As he led the procession down Phillips Avenue has saw Horwitz Jewelers, a Sioux Falls institution. Seeing it made him feel in his comfort zone. Folks are just folks anywhere.

WSGE, KUTX & WXPN MAKE NOTABLE GAINS IN ONE-YEAR TRIPLE A TRENDS

May 2016 was a pretty good month for Triple A stations in Nielsen Audio PPM markets compared to May 2015.  Of the seventeen stations we track, nine were up in one-year weekly cumulative listener trends. Eight were down from a year ago.

Obviously the biggest gainer was 89.3 The Current powered by their historic coverage of Prince’s death and fan reaction.  We told this story on June 10th  [link].

There were other Triple A stations that gained a sizeable number of estimated listeners including one you might now be familiar with: WSGE in Charlotte. Scroll down to learn more about WSGE.

The stations that gained the most weekly listeners were:

KCMP +33%

WSGE +21%

KUTX +17%

WXPN +15%

The stations with the biggest declines in weekly listeners were WSME, a college rock station in Milwaukee, KVOQ in Denver and WERS and WUMB in Boston.

Here are the results for all of the Triple A PPM market stations:

 

MEET WSGE - A STATION ON THE WAY UP

WSGE-FM [link] has a lot in common with its licensee Gaston College.  Based in the Charlotte exurb of Dallas, North Carolina, both are new kids on the block. But they have accomplished a lot in few years.

Gaston College began as community college with two buildings in 1964. WSGE began in 1980 as a teaching lab. In 1997, Gaston wisely separated the operation of the station from the academic sector and made it a for-real radio station. In 2002 Gaston upgraded the signal to compete in the Charlotte metro. 

Cathis Hall

In 2006 WSGE had its biggest upgrade: Gaston hired Cathis Hall to manage and program WSGE. Hall is a well-known jazz diva who loves all kinds of music.  She focused the format and brought a real sense of purpose to WSGE.  No other station in Charlotte was specializing in Triple A, blues, rockabilly and alt-country.

Tim Greene

Hall turned up WSGE’s volume to 11 a couple of years ago when she hired morning personality Tim Greene. Greene is a proven pro who honed his chops at 100.3 The Beat and Stevie Wonder’s KJLH in Los Angeles. Read more about Greene on WSGE’s Facebook page [link].

One of the things that amaze me the most about WSGE is that it is mainly staffed by volunteers. In many cases that is a recipe for programming chaos and dis-harmony. Hall has turned volunteers into team players the are making WSGE shine.

Here is WSGE's program schedule: