MICHIGAN RADIO WINS PEOBODY FOR BELIEVED • KUOW PULLS AWAY FROM ALL CHALLENGERS IN MARCH PPM RATINGS

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Michigan Radio reporters Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells

(Photo courtesy of Jodi Westrick Michigan Radio/NPR)

Michigan Radio reporters Lindsey Smith and Kate Wells investigative podcast series Believed won a prestigious Peabody Award on Tuesday (4/23).

Using the voices of survivors, Believed tells the story of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing patients for more than 20 years.

People around the world were shocked in early 2018 when more than 150 women testified at the sentencing of Nassar. 

According to Smith and Wells, the tragic truth was that many well-meaning adults failed to believe the women – or believed they were ‘mistaken’ about their experiences of sexual assault.

Believed uses survivors' untold stories, interviews with parents and detectives, and recordings from police investigations with Nassar to paint an intimate picture of the abuse, the times when the women were not believed and how survivors ultimately won justice.

Women heard in Believed: (clockwise from the left) former assistant

Attorney General Angela Povilaitis, survivor Rachael Denhollander,

Detective Lt. Andrea Munford, survivor Kyle Stephens,

survivor Amanda Thomashow, survivor Brianne Randall-Gay

(Photo courtesy of Michigan Radio/NPR)

Spark News featured Believed, just before its debut in October 2018 [link].

The podcast was a first-of-its-kind collaboration between a member station and NPR, which distributed it and featured portions of it on NPR One. 

This is the first time that Michigan Radio has won a Peabody Award. 

In a press release, Steve Schram, Executive Director and GM of Michigan Radio said:

“To be recognized with a Peabody award for our team’s work on the Believed podcast is most gratifying and humbling. We appreciate the efforts of NPR who helped raise the profile of our work.”

Anya Grundmann, Senior VP of Programming at NPR added:

"This is such well-deserved recognition for the team at Michigan Radio. They tackled a challenging investigation with tremendous tenacity and sensitivity. Believed is a perfect example of how podcasting has extended public radio’s mission to give voice to people and ideas that help us see our world more clearly."

In addition to winning the Peabody, Believed was also recognized with a Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma from the Columbia School of Journalism.

You can hear Believed on its webpage [link], NPR One, Apple Podcasts and other podcast providers.

NIELSEN AUDIO MARCH PPM RATINGS: SEATTLE, DETROIT, PORTLAND & SACRAMENTO

In the Seattle-Tacoma March 2019 PPM ratings NPR News/Talk KUOW tops all noncommercial stations and all News & Talk stations by an increasing wide margin.

Commercial News/Talk KIRO-FM, the station we have said sounds almost like public radio, appears to fading. 

Not only did KUOW beat KIRO, commercial all-news KOMO beat them too in estimated weekly listeners.

KUOW’s achievement is important because Seattle is one of the best, and most competitive news markets in the country.

Community station KBCS continues their free-fall and AAA KEXP slipped to its smallest number of estimated weekly listeners in recent memory.

In Portland, NPR News/Talk KOPB continues its domination of radio news. 

Even Alpha Media’s “big dog” KXL-FM seems puny compared to ‘PPB.

We were curious to see how Jazz KMHD did in their first full “book” since surviving transmitter problems and efforts to turn the station into a student sand box. 

KMHD did okay in March, but should climb back to 120,000 estimated weekly listeners soon.

Like many Community stations, KBOO barely has a pulse.

There is a joke that is told in  Detroit radio circles about WWJ-AM. It seems there was an old man in the Brush Park neighborhood that passed away and his body wasn’t found for several days.

When authorities entered his house they heard WWJ in every room. Nobody could find it to turn it off. 

When the man’s body was placed on the gurney one of the helpers noticed the man had a Nielsen PPM meter that was still working. The worker said “Now we know how WWJ gets such a high average-quarter-hour share!”

Somebody should sound an “intruder alert” in Sacramento. 

Book after book we have seen KQED, and its repeater station KQEI, increasing its penetration into the Sacramento market. 

Does anyone know why this is happening?

Another thing we find unusual about radio in Sacramento is the dearth of news radio stations.   

Other than the venerable KFBK and NPR News/Talk KXJZ there is no other competitive radio news voice in the market. After all, Sacramento is the capital of the largest state in the nation.