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KERA To Manage WRR

T

TheBigA

It took a while longer (maybe a year longer) to get it all worked out, but a deal appears to be ready between KERA and WRR:

www.dallasnews.com

KERA to take over management of WRR, Dallas’ classical music radio station

After years of WRR running a deficit, the city of Dallas will hand over management to KERA.
www.dallasnews.com


It really is the best option, and fits with several similar collaborations between public radio and classical radio.
 
Mediafrog+ said:
Good news for Classical fans in DFW. However the requirement to keep the studios at Fair Park for seven years just means redundant expenses and a waste of money.
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Depends on who's money. Perhaps the city is picking up that part of the expense. We'll know soon.
 
The devil is in the details. I will be very interested to see what the actual financial terms of this deal are.
 
It will be interesting learn the details. Under KERA's management the station should do better from a funding aspect. If the City still requires real time City Council meetings, we will still have many of the issues we do today. Would KERA have the right to utilize Classical 24 or Beethoven Network during overnights or off-times where listening is low? If allowed, that might be the gateway to a mostly satellite fed format. For example a jock leaving could be replaced with Classical 24 or Beethoven Network. I suspect that would not happen for a number of years.
 
KERA could also use WRR to create a sort of synergy. They could have partnerships for fine arts events, etc. This is a good fit.
 
b-turner said:
It will be interesting learn the details. Under KERA's management the station should do better from a funding aspect. If the City still requires real time City Council meetings, we will still have many of the issues we do today. Would KERA have the right to utilize Classical 24 or Beethoven Network during overnights or off-times where listening is low? If allowed, that might be the gateway to a mostly satellite fed format. For example a jock leaving could be replaced with Classical 24 or Beethoven Network. I suspect that would not happen for a number of years.
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I have wanted WRR to go HD with sub-channels for many years now. The City Council meetings could stay on the main channel, but music programming could be on a sub-channel. Sub-channels would allow more Classical and Film and and Broadway music to be played, other than the "Greatest Hits" that commonly get played on WRR for the masses.
 
According to Big Bob Wilonsky, WRR-FM no longer airs city council meetings.

City of Dallas - File #: 22-790

Title: Update on WRR Radio Management Procurement [Liz Cedillo-Pereira, Assistant City Manager; Jennifer Scripps, Director, Office of Arts and Culture]
cityofdallas.legistar.com
 
salemjedi54 said:
According to Big Bob Wilonsky, WRR-FM no longer airs city council meetings.

City of Dallas - File #: 22-790

Title: Update on WRR Radio Management Procurement [Liz Cedillo-Pereira, Assistant City Manager; Jennifer Scripps, Director, Office of Arts and Culture]
cityofdallas.legistar.com
Click to expand...

Will_H_69_9 said:
makes sense since the city knows they can air it with video on a webstream on the city's site or the city's Youtube channel.
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Plus, the broadcast of those city council meetings really brought down the station's ratings whenever they aired them. They were very unpopular with listeners.
 
itsTheRolyPoly said:
Plus, the broadcast of those city council meetings really brought down the station's ratings whenever they aired them. They were very unpopular with listeners.
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so? It was like in WRR's charter or bylaws or something... and changing such a thing requires an act of congress, so to speak.

I work for a non comm and we have bylaws that clearly spell out what we must do for certain things and we MUST even though theyre 40 years old. .. but most are pretty reasonable
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
so? It was like in WRR's charter or bylaws or something... and changing such a thing requires an act of congress, so to speak.
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If I recall correctly, it was a requirement of WRR under the municipal ownership of the City of Dallas, to air its weekly city council meetings.

According to Inside Radio in a 2018 article, they were put into motion in a 6-5 vote in 1978 to carry the meetings on 101.1 WRR. However, ratings usually tanked during that period.

The station averaged more than 11,000 listeners during its classical music format on weekdays but when the meetings were on the air, it would drop to 1,900. This led to station management successfully convincing the city council to drop the weekly meetings on WRR-FM, which also makes sense since the meetings are still available on cable TV and online in the city. Ever since then, WRR has been 24/7 classical.
 
In one of the documents I read, they dropped the city council broadcasts a few years ago when the city switched to some streaming thing for audio that did not work well on FM radio. The city staff said they got no complaints about the lack of council meetings on WRR and plenty of people use the web to watch and listen. I suspect the only thing left is to actually remove the requirement the city council passed in 1978.

Actually, here's the exact wording from the memorandum sent to city council:

"1978 Resolution – Request to Rescind City Council Meeting Broadcast Mandate
In order to expand classical programming hours, KERA has requested that the City
Council consider rescinding the 1978 resolution mandating WRR broadcast of City
Council meetings. Historically, WRR has had the statistical equivalent of zero listeners
during 87% of the City Council broadcast times; since the transition to WebEx in 2020,
City Council meetings have not been broadcast on WRR due to sound quality insufficient
for radio broadcast, and residents have additional dial-in options to listen to the meetings
through the WebEx platform. The Office of Arts and Culture, WRR, and the
Communications, Outreach, and Marketing Department have received zero complaints
about the lack of City Council broadcasts on WRR."
 
A new article in the Morning News yesterday sounds like there are some on the City Council, who don't want to lease WRR to NTPB, but would rather sell it now. Adam Bazaldua represents the area around Fair Park and is the chair of the Arts and Culture Committee:

Selling the station would bolster the city’s Arts Endowment and allow the city to increase access to audio streams of public meetings, Bazaldua said during the committee meeting and reiterated later. He sees this as the best time to sell.

“It’s 2022, and I know how much I listen to the radio compared to what I used to, and the same for my family,” he said. “We’re not headed in a direction where more people are going to be listening to analog radio.”
Click to expand...

I'm not sure exactly how a 7 figure war chest would "increase access to audio streams of public meetings". A live stream from the city's website is not expensive to run and they can put them up on YouTube, Facebook, etc. for free.

Funny enough comparing 2022 to the last two years, there actually are more people listening to "analog radio".

Nico Leone, the CEO of KERA, doesn't seem to have much confidence that they would prevail if the station was put up for sale:

“It’s a commercial station. Anyone can bid on it,” Leone said. “There are people out there with pretty deep pockets and no way to place a restriction on [the format of the station]. My expectation is that if the city sold the station, there would be no classical radio in Dallas.”
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A lease is clearly considered more favorable with less downside to NTPB.

Also, of note: WRR has apparently racked up 5.6 million dollars of debt and is appraised at 13.5 million.

If the City were to put it up for sale, they estimate it would take 18-24 months to complete! Which seems nuts to me if it really is currently a money-losing operation.

If the City is that committed to classical music radio, and I personally don't think that they should be, then get a second appraisal and offer WRR to NTPB for the less of the two with a 10 year commitment to the format and be done with this nonsense.

If they just want to extract what the asset will bring, cut all expenses, put on Classical 24 until the new buyer closes and get that done this calendar year.

If Bazaldua is correct about "analog radio" being in decline, then it serves the City, its residents, and taxpayers, to sell this white elephant as soon as possible before its value declines further.

www.dallasnews.com

Sale of WRR could mean no more classical music radio in Dallas, says KERA president

Dallas City Council committee discussed the future of station; public meeting set for May 23.
www.dallasnews.com
 
Ryan Williams said:
Also, of note: WRR has apparently racked up 5.6 million dollars of debt and is appraised at 13.5 million.
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That number seems low, even considering it is likely stick value, along with the general collapse of station values. And to think the City of Dallas could have raked in over $100 million for WRR had they sold it 20 years ago, when that three-way station swap was being considered.
Ryan Williams said:
If the City were to put it up for sale, they estimate it would take 18-24 months to complete! Which seems nuts to me if it really is currently a money-losing operation.
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A sale involving the City of Dallas would take a bit longer than a typical "company to company" transfer as any deliberations would have to include scheduled council meetings and the usual political debate. But I think it could be closed in six to nine months if the City opened up bidding to all interested parties.
Ryan Williams said:
If they just want to extract what the asset will bring, cut all expenses, put on Classical 24 until the new buyer closes and get that done this calendar year.
Click to expand...
If the music library is on hard drive, they could simply put everything on shuffle and sprinkle in legal IDs every hour.:D No need to pay for Classical 24.
 
The reason WRR is still owned by the city is to keep the classical format on the air. Seconds after a sale of the station is approved to anyone other than North Texas Public Broadcasting (the parent of KERA), the format will be changed to Top 40, urban, or a flavor of Spanish language music.


If the city sells it, the classical format ceases to exist.
 
TheBigA said:
That's part of what the Friends off WRR say killed classical in Houston.
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Houston's KUHA was locally hosted and programmed 6am-Midnight for its first 29 months. It only used Classical 24 for overnights then. After most of the local staff was fired, Classical 24 filled most of the schedule. But we should point out that Classical 24 is a structured, curated, scheduled and hosted format, not just music on shuffle.

Lack of donations killed Classical on analogue FM in Houston, though we should point out that Classical 24 continues on KUHF HD-2.
 
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