This
September Spark News will celebrate
its fifth birthday. We started publishing the blog after the PRPD conference in
2014. At first it was a do-it-yourself passion project. As time has gone by
Spark News has become an independent source of news, trends and commentary for
public media, particularly public radio.
We
are now at the point where we need evaluate what we have done and plan for the
future. Today we are launching the Spark
News Reader Survey, an on-line questionnaire; so you can tell us how you
think we are doing.
Click
on this link or copy and paste the url into your browser:
It
should take you no longer than five minutes to complete the survey. All replies
are anonymous and you are not required to provide your name or email address.
The survey will be open until May 7th.
Thank
you for participating! Ken Mills.
DOZENS OF NEWS PEOPLE
LAID OFF AT iHEART STATIONS
One
the reasons NPR News/Talk stations have become the top radio news source in
many markets is because big commercial radio owners have abandoned news
coverage. That trend continued on Monday (4/8) when iHeartRadio laid off dozens
of news employees at stations across the country.
Since
iHeart emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy recently, insiders say that news
programming has been “regionalized." For instance, in
Minneapolis most “local news” originates from Denver.
According
to All Access Media [link], this week's layoffs are notable because of the
high profile talent that has been turfed. Names mentioned include WRNO, New
Orleans news anchor Lisa Marie Luminais, WTAM, Cleveland Assistant News
Director Tom Moore and WFLA, Tampa news anchor Steve Hall.
Another well-known radio reporter who is gone
is WFLA, and Florida News Network Tallahassee Bureau Chief, Rick Flagg. He had
been reporting on Florida politics since 1978.
All
Access published Flagg’s Twitter feed [link] to provide human faces to the
layoffs. Here are a few samples:
• From Trimmel
Gomes:
“I’m saddened by this news! @WFSUNews should take advantage of this
opportunity to scoop you up now!”
• From Bruce Ritchie: “I'm
so sorry. I wish I wasn't reading this. I saw you in your office yesterday and
thought, ‘I guess they'll always need a radio guy up here covering the
Capitol.’ I guess THEY don't realize that.”
• From LAWsome in Denver: “My dad
was a local DJ for 30+ years here in Denver, then with Clear Channel. [He was] just recording bumpers [and] weather for 50 different areas. Now, he is on
the lam.”
• From Mike Deeson: “As the media coverage of the Capitol shrinks, the
elected goofballs operate in a shroud of secrecy in The Sunshine State.”
KUHF IN HOUSTON MAY
BENEFIT FROM iHEART’S LAYOFFS • WUWM HITS A RECORD HIGH IN MILWAUKEE
According
to Nielsen Audio’s February 2019 PPM ratings, the competition between NPR
News/Talk KUHF and iHeart’s News/Talk KTRH-AM continues to get closer.
We don’t know if news folks at KTRH were
included in the company’s layoffs. Even if they were not, people working
in news at KTRH are waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Also
in Houston, Pacifica’s KPFT subscribed to the Nielsen ratings after several
years of flying blind.
As we’ve seen in the PPM data for WBAI, New York and KPFT, LA, not many
people are listening. Of the 39 rated stations in the Houston-Galveston market,
KPFT is number 36.
According
to ratings historian Chris Huff, WUWM hit a record high 4.8% AQH share in the
February 2019 book. Also, WUWM seems to be pulling away from Wisconsin Public
Radio’s all-Talk station WHAD.
WUWM
probably won’t top legendary News/Talk WTMJ (sorry about the typo in the
chart), but they are headed in right direction/
AAA
music WYMS has two stations on the chart. The primary FM frequency is now the
number two noncom station in the market. WYMS’s HD2 channel, featuring homegrown
Milwaukee artists, is doing very well for an HD channel without an FM
translator.
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