Maybe Black-Targeting Programming Can't Work on Public Radio

[fred flintstone]

St. Petersburg Times:

Public radio struggles to find black audience

As News & Notes loses listeners, can NPR sustain quality black programming? Even now, Ed Gordon isn't sure how it all turned out so badly. When his newsmagazine show debuted on National Public Radio more than 18 months ago, he couldn't have been in a better position.

DUE TO FAIR USE POSTING RESTRICTIONS, I RECOMMEND YOU READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE REPLYING.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/14/Artsandentertainment/Public_radio_struggle.shtml

Key Points:

• Last year Ed Gordon's "News and Notes" inherited Tavis Smiley's slot with 90 stations and over one million listeners. Audience is down 17 per cent.
• Major stations have dropped the show or moved it to dead times.
• Finger pointing has started. Depending on to whom you talk, NPR is letting the show die or Gordon isn't connecting with the audience.
• NPR management has reportedly told the show's staff that if they worked in commercial radio they'd be unemployed now.

To anybody who listens to radio at all closely, Black radio is different than White radio (or mainstream radio, if you prefer). Black-targeted stations have a different style, a different feel and a different sound. Urban talk radio is not the same as mainstream news-talk or progressive talk.

Public radio in most markets has moved away from the old days of hodge-podge programming (news in AM and PM drive, classical in the middle of the day, concerts or jazz at night, maybe highbrow "conversation" in there some place; with opera, a folk show, a Brit quiz and PHC on the weekend). Public radio now has formats. So what makes them think they can stick a Black-targeted talk show in the middle a mainstream/White-targeted schedule and have it work? (Answer: It can't.)

There may not be enough non-commercial bandwidth to go around but what public radio needs are discrete stations targeting minority audiences - maybe NPR/PRI/APM "members," maybe not. One place public radio should be looking for more bandwidth: AM Radio and all those brokered stations (infomercials and religion) and stations going dark. (Actually, public radio should have started looking at AM 15 to 20 years ago when AM stations were being offered - with no takers - a fire sale prices, as a logical place for burgeoning news and information formats (with the chance to keep music formats on FM). Public radio managements were notoriously short-sighted not to have done that.)

 

[uncamark]

St. Petersburg Times:

Public radio struggles to find black audience

As News & Notes loses listeners, can NPR sustain quality black programming? Even now, Ed Gordon isn't sure how it all turned out so badly. When his newsmagazine show debuted on National Public Radio more than 18 months ago, he couldn't have been in a better position.

DUE TO FAIR USE POSTING RESTRICTIONS, I RECOMMEND YOU READ THE ARTICLE BEFORE REPLYING.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/08/14/Artsandentertainment/Public_radio_struggle.shtml

Especially noteworthy as Chicago Public Radio is planning its new formats for WBEW and WBEQ for an April launch--a format aimed at non-white and under-35 audiences that don't listen to public radio--an article from Time Out Chicago:

http://www.timeout.com/chicago/Details.do?page=1&xyurl=xyl://TOCWebArticles2/76/features/making_waves.xml

 

[tombetz]

St. Petersburg Times:

Last year Ed Gordon's "News and Notes" inherited Tavis Smiley's slot with 90 stations and over one million listeners. Audience is down 17 per cent.

Has anyone seen how Tavis Smiley's weekly PRI program is doing?

 

[The RadioFan]

I believe Black-Targeting Talk radio can not work because it doesn't reach the affluent mainstream America or most Black Americans. The Black population contains about as much diverse opinions and thoughts as the White population. Some blacks enjoy hip hop music while others dislike it. Some blacks live in a suburbs with a family while others are lazy and morally irresponsible. Some blacks are conservative while others are liberal. Black targeted radio only targets liberal blacks and a good portion of them are not affluent. Now, a black person like Walter Williams and Ward Connerly may have a better chance of succeeding in this industry because their focus is on the the issues of mainstream America and not the race card theology. Williams and Connerly both receive great replies from their writings at www.townhall.com. There is simply no audience in the current status of Black-Targeting radio and the few that are listening are not neccessarily attractive to advertisers and they would not support a radio show. Most Blacks in the middle or upper class simply do not listen to Urban radio or Black Talk.