They aren't going to survive if they hold onto the "tent pole" format of NPR Newsmagazines in drive time and jazz the rest of the time. Apparently, the U of W planned to go full time jazz and that's what this new group will need to do to survive. Of course, the groupies who donated will get upset. But as already pointed out, they don't get to vote.
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KPLU Intent to sell to KUOW
- Thread starter CarAgencyGuy
- Start date
I'm not sure I agree with your analysis here.
Moving 88.5 to 24/7 Jazz and removing the news magazines is a good move - if you are KUOW and you want the news/talk audience to yourself. ATC and ME are the moneymakers at pretty much every public radio station and they usually bring in enough revenue to subsidize the musical dayparts. It is in KUOW's best interest to get those two programs which make them the most money off of 88.5. It is in 88.5's best interest to continue to carry the shows to generate revenue if they're independently owned.
If you are Friends of 88.5 and you kill off ATC and ME, you're leaving underwriting money on the table unless you can come up with something that both attracts more ears and revenue. Maybe you can do that with a local news magazine at some point. But you won't outbill ATC and ME playing jazz. It's precisely the reason that KPLU has the schedule it currently has!
And do you *really* believe that KUOW has any intention to carry on a 24/7 jazz service any longer than the 12 - 24 months it might take for things to quiet down after they might acquire the station? I've seen this game played before. If I had a dollar for every classical station that promised to keep playing Bach around the clock after it changed hands and then changes to a more profitable format after 12 months I would have more than what most classical stations bill... and jazz doesn't bill much more than classical.
There are enough case studies of public radio stations which have dropped the "tent pole" format and done better. That's on top of the experience of commercial radio over the past 60 years that consistent formats do better than block programming. Apparently, there are people who would rather hear one of the top public radio music formats (Classical, Jazz or Alternative) in morning or afternoon drive than ME or ATC. Yes, the news and information station usually gets better audience numbers (and money numbers) than music format public radio stations but the music stations do better with a consistent format than with the "tent pole" format. Public radio numbers are not so great on cume but really good on TSL. The "tent pole" format forces turn-over twice a day and, of course, splits the ME/ATC audience between multiple stations.
The people of Seattle just spent $7 million of their own money to keep NPR news on this station. The people have spoken, and this is the format they want. Not all jazz. I don't know of a single market where jazz is beating NPR news.
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Really? Please enlighten the group.
I do agree that jazz listeners would be happier if jazz were to air 24/7, but there are probably less than ten 24/7 jazz stations in the country today.
And they have an increasingly difficult time at fund raising.
This is true IF you are talking about dropping block programming for NPR News.
The music format is the afterthought, and in the case of the stations that have done this, the music format is banished to inferior signals that don't cover much of anything to provide political cover for going all news/talk on the better signals.
Again, I ask you this: do you really believe that UW has any intention to keep 88.5 all jazz longer than 12 to 24 months if Friends doesn't get the deal done? Because the stations that drop "tent pole" programming bury the low billing music programming on translators and HD2 and put news/talk on the full market signals.
You don't waste a full market signal on a format that bills less than what it replaced.
What UW might have intended is now moot. The money has been raised. The deal to sell to the university is off.
The "tent pole" format is not a sound move in this case. (1) ME and ATC are expensive. (2) They split the audience for these shows with two other stations, and the established news and information station - with the advantage of audience flow - will get the bulk of the audience.
WNYC discontinued classical music on its FM station, going with news and information on both FM and AM. They acquired WQXR and have continued to operate it as a classical station. Meanwhile, public radio stations WBGO (jazz) and WFUV (alternative) continue to operate with music formats in the market. None of the public radio music stations carry ME and ATC. Music lovers who are also interested in NPR newsmagazines should be smart enough to change stations.
Boston has two public radio news and information stations, and one of those also operates a classical format station. In addition, the market has a public radio AAA station.
Washington has a news and information station plus a classical station (which experimented briefly going head to head with news and information and went back to classical).
Philadelphia has news and information plus classical (and jazz at night) and AAA.
You can find additional examples.
Fact: KPLU is a better news station than a Jazz station. Ask any jazz person. Ask any news person.
I know a group of Jazz musicians that call KPLU the "Mose Allison Station."
Don't look for them to kill the news department or NPR for that matter.
Look for the next fund raiser to start soon.
Now that they can afford the license they now have to come up with a way to pay for all the salaries, benefits, leases, studios, transmitter site maintenance, programming, etc.
I know a group of Jazz musicians that call KPLU the "Mose Allison Station."
Don't look for them to kill the news department or NPR for that matter.
Look for the next fund raiser to start soon.
Now that they can afford the license they now have to come up with a way to pay for all the salaries, benefits, leases, studios, transmitter site maintenance, programming, etc.
Not yet.
Friends of 88.5 has raised $7 million, but it has not finished negotiating the deal. There's a non-disclosure in place so nobody knows the status, but until an application is filed with the FCC to sell to Friends that supersedes the application to sell to UW, then Friends doesn't have a deal yet. As of today, that application has not been filed.
If no deal is in place by June 30, the sale to UW will proceed.
While I would be very surprised if UW ends up with the station, UW has not withdrawn its offer and Friends has not finished its negotiations, so nothing is certain yet.
Two separate issues. As a jazz station, they can continue to do local news. They can also continue to take NPR's TOH newscasts (full time or drive time). They do not need to take the newsmagazines.
And they are not a Seattle station; they are a Tacoma station.
Not only are they a better news station than a jazz station, but they are a better news station than KUOW.
This is why Oscar Madison's suggestion that they keep top of the hour news (with a local newscast) plus a full time jazz format falls flat.
The people that pony'd up to keep KPLU independent recognize the value of the local news department and want that coverage to go along with their helping of national news from NPR. These same people, that want all news during drive time, may not value newscasts interspersed in a jazz music format.
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You and Oscar Madison are both correct, and so are scores of others. There are a countless number of reasons people donated and will continue to donate. Few of us may agree with the reasoning, yet it doesn't make them wrong or "falls flat".
The most recent PPMs have been posted. KUOWs AQH share is about 70 per cent higher than KPLU's. But cume for each station is reasonably close, although KUOW leads. This suggests either KPLU gets a lower TSL or listening is less concentrated in drive times.
You specifically said that by dropping NPR news, they would do "better." But WBGO and WFUV get fewer listeners and fewer dollars than WNYC. So dropping NPR news didn't lead to them doing better.
Both never carried either of the two news magazines. I didn't say better than WNYC or KUOW. Better without those shows than with them.
Not true. WBGO carried both All Things Considered and Morning Edition in the 80s. They ran each of those shows at times that didn't conflict with WNYC.
TTBOMK WFUV has never been an NPR affiliate.
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There is one other factor involved in the Boston and Washington examples: The demise of a commercial classical station in each of those cities. In Boston: WCRB and in Washington: WGMS. In both cases, the public stations acquired assets from the commercial stations to create the format-exclusive stations. Same with WNYC and WQXR. There is no opportunity like that in Seattle right now, unless KING decides to drop classical.
The decision isn't going to be made about ratings. It will be made around funding. If jazz can bring in enough to keep the station afloat, then that's what they'll do. However, in Buffalo, jazz was not sufficient to pay for the station, particularly when it was sold from University of Buffalo to a community group, and the group chose to expand news and move jazz to late night.
What UW was looking to do was have two format-exclusive stations, as WGBH and WNYC have done. That's easier to do when the stations are co-owned. That will not be the case now, the potential synergy has been removed, so the two stations are back to operating as self-contained operations.
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