GIOVANNONI: “A MOST TROUBLING SIGNAL IS BEING SENT BY THE CORE”

David Giovannonl

David Giovannonl, one of the most influential people in the formative years of public radio, reappeared last week with an op-ed in Current [link} about changes in listening to NPR News stations since the on-set of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Giovannoni’s message was both troubling and instructive: People who are in public radio's core and fringe cohorts are listening less to NPR News stations than they were prior to the disruption caused by the virus. Plus, listening by fringe listeners declined substantially after the pandemic hit.

(Explainer: “Core” listeners are people who listen more to one station than any other – their first choice, so to speak. “Fringe” includes all other listeners than the core.)

According to Giovannoni, the rapid change was due, in part, to people working from home instead of commuting to jobs. When people are not in vehicles they tend to listen less to traditional radio.

The changes in lifestyles after the pandemic took hold in mid March, caused 43% of fringe listeners of NPR News stations to vanish. This is important because fringe listeners are a major portion of the “reach” of NPR and the gateway for listeners to become members.

Giovannonl based his analysis on Nielsen PPM data from March, April May and June for 91 full or part-time NPR News/Talk stations in 45 markets. In his op-ed, he said there is no guarantee that the missing listeners will come back if or when the Covid-19 pandemic eases:

“Without daily opportunities to listen in cars and offices, more than half of NPR News stations’ away-from-home tune-ins disappeared, taking with them 15 million out-of-home listener-hours.”

“We might have expected listeners to pick up the slack at home. Some did, but their aggregate increase of only 2 million at-home listener-hours left NPR News stations about 13 million listener-hours short — a loss of a quarter of all listening to NPR News stations.

Giovannonl is also concerned that that the size of NPR News stations core audience is not growing like it had been for most of the past four years.

Spark News is seeing the same trends. 

We published the chart on the right earlier in July showing the decline in estimated weekly listeners (“cume”) by 15 of the most influential NPR News/Talk stations.

We compared the number of estimated weekly listeners in the February Nielsen PPM ratings with Nielsen data from June. 

All 15 stations had fewer weekly listeners in June. 

Estimated weekly listeners for the 15 stations combined dropped about almost 20% during the February to June period.

Of course, almost all radio stations – noncom or commercial – have lost weekly cume listeners because of changes caused by the pandemic. If the pandemic continues indefinitely, which is a real possibility, traditional broadcasters will need to make hard choices such as whether to stay in business.

Giovannoni summed up his Current op-ed with this cautionary remark:

“The headlines three months into the pandemic aren’t encouraging. The Core’s reliance on NPR News stations is still strong but weakening. It is unknown whether these essential listeners find NPR News stations less listenable, less compelling or less relevant.””

DAVID GIOVANNONI TODAY

It is good to see David Giovannoni back in action.  Now he is reprising his “speak truth to power” role when it is really needed.

Giovannoni retired from public radio research in 2006. He still has the title of President of AudiGraphics Inc., the research company he founded in the late 1970s.

He has followed his passion for historic audio recordings. He is a partner in First Sounds [link], a nonprofit organization with a mission to seek out the world’s oldest sound recordings – wherever they are.

Giovannoni has assembled what is said to be the world’s most significant collection of early cylinders and disc records, which he makes available to historians.

He has been nominated for several Grammy Awards for Best Historical Documentary.  As a private collector Giovannoni has curated two collections that have been inducted onto the National Recording Registry by the Librarian of Congress.

You can read more about his work here.

We found a YouTube video on the First Sounds website narrated by Giovannoni that describes his work with early sound recordings.

 

SERIAL PRODUCTIONS SOLD TO NY TIMES FOR $25 MILLION • REGISTRATION NOW OPEN FOR “LET’S GO LIVE!”

Serial Production’s team: Julie Snyder (left), Sarah Koenig (center)

and Ira Glass (right). Image courtesy of The New York Times

The New York Times announced on Wednesday (7-22) that they have reached agreement to buy Serial Productions, producers of the hit podcast Serial.

According to a report in The Times [link], the coSt was approximately $25 million.

In many ways the deal is a merger. The Times will broaden its digital footprint and Serial Productions will have access to financial backing they need to expand their portfolio.

Serial began as a spin-off from This American Life (TAL) in 2014. In 2017, Ira Glass, the founder and host of TAL, Julie Snyder, the executive editor of Serial and Sarah Koenig, the host of Serial, formed Serial Productions, a for-profit company.

When Serial was launched it was heavily promoted on weekly episodes of TAL. At the time several station managers and programmers complained that TAL was using their airtime to promote a private business.

REGISTRATION IS OPEN FOR LET’S GO LIVE! CYBER CONFERENCE

Abby Goldstein, CEO and Executive Director of PRPD and Terry Gildea, Executive Director of PMJA announced that registration is now open for Let’s Go Live!, a four-day collaborative public media conference that is scheduled for Monday, September 21 through Thursday, September 24, 2020.The event will happen online.

To virtually attend Let’s Go Live! Register here.

 PRPD and PMJA members is $150 per person. The cost for non-members is $200 per person. Group rates are Group rates are also available.

Goldstein and Gildea said the agenda for Let’s Go Live! Will be released on August 27^th.

When people register, they will be asked to set up a profile on Attendify, the platform for the virtual event. The profile can be use to interact with other attendees prior to and during the online conference.

KEN SAYS:  We encourage people to register early for Let’s Go Live!  .According to recent research by online event vendors, about one-third of people who attend virtual conferences like Let’s Go Live! register only 72-hours or less before the event begins.

The collaboration partners, PRPD and PMJA, have committed their time and money on this event. As with other ventures during our Covid Era, some new ideas work and others fail. Consider your early registration to be a sign of your support for these two organizations.

MORE COVID-19 CHANGES: DIGITAL NOW LEADS TRADITIONAL MEDIA • CLASSICAL MUSIC STATION RATINGS FOR 10 DIARY MARKETS

According to Edison Research’s Share of Ear study for the second quarter of 2020, time spent listening to audio on digital devices is now larger than time spent listening to audio on traditional devices.

Digital device listening grew from 45% in the January – March 2020 quarter to 53% in the April – June quarter.

Laura Ivey, Edison’s Director of Research, said it was first time digital surpassed non-digital sources since Share of Ear began in 2014.  

 Ivey said in a press release that lifestyle changes caused by the pandemic were the reason for the change:

“Digital surpassing non-digital was almost inevitable, according to the slow trend we saw in Share of Ear. It appears that these disruptions may have just accelerated the process. We will have to wait to see if the numbers revert more closely to what they were before the disruptions.”

Traditional, non-digital devices include AM and FM radios, SiriusXM receivers. Turntables, CD players, and TV-delivered music channels.

Attention now turns to the 2020 PRPD/Jacobs Media Public Radio Tech Survey (PRTS 2020) to see if the impact of the pandemic changed the audio consumption behavior of core public radio listeners.

Fred Jacobs teased the release of PRTS 2020 in a recent blog post:

“PRTS 2020 comes out of the field on Monday [7-20], so that is why you see those ominous question marks for the new survey.   It appears this trend will continue – if not accelerate when this year's results [are released.”

The percentage of digital listening has grown in every PRTS since 2013. In the 2019 PRTS, 31% of the respondents said that in a typical week, they listen to public radio content on digital devices and platforms such as computers, mobile devices, NPR apps, podcasts and smart speakers.

It is anticipated that the results of PRTS 2020 will be announced at the Let’s Go Live! virtual conference September 21 -24.

LISTENERS IN DIARY MARKETS ARE LISTENING TO MORE CLASSICAL MUSIC RADIO THAN BEFORE THE PANDEMIC

According to Nielsen Audio, the average-quarter-hour (AQH) shares for nine full-time Classical music stations in 10 markets were larger in June 2020 than during the most recent pre-Covid period.

The data is from markets where Nielsen uses Diary methodology. In some Diary markets, Nielsen provides monthly ratings. Listening in other Diary markets is reported twice per year in the spring and fall.

Results for Diary markets are released by Nielsen on weekdays until mid-August. The numbers in the chart on the left are from the first three batches of data released by Nielsen.

In seven of the 10 markets, Classical music stations increased their AQH share in June 2020 compared the most recent pre-Covid survey period. Two stations had a smaller AQH share in June 2020.  The AQH share for one station, KWTU in Tulsa, was the same.

The best performance was by Vermont Public Radio’s Classical channel in Burlington.