NPR's quest for audience diversity may alienate core listeners.

[FredLeonard]

The basic principle of radio programming for more than half a century has been pick a target audience and adopt a consistent format (or sound) to reach it.

This morning the New York Times' Elizabeth Jensen quotes NPR CEO Gary Knell, the guy they hired from Sesame Street with zero background in radio, as saying having a loyal audience can "lead to complacency" and he wants to "diversify" the audience.

The Times and other outlets have already reported that NPR wants younger demos and has "dumbed down" it's programming.

Five years ago, NPR cancelled Day to Day but kept Tell Me More, a news magazine targeting Black listeners which seems off-format among other NPR news and information programs. NPR has also started including some features on Urban music (rap, hip hop) and traditional African music and using music from those genres occasionally as bridges.

Now, the Times reports, NPR has started a "race, ethnicity and culture" in "post racial America" series called "Code Switch." The program is headed by Matt Thompson, whose previous job was helping NPR member stations create "niche websites" for minorities.

These moves and some of the early pieces have drawn some unfavorable reactions in the comments section and on NPR's ombudsman page.

NPR seems to be falling into the trap a lot of businesses have: Trying to get customers they don't have by doing things that alienate the customers they do have. Most of the time these strategies don't get them the new customers they want and drive away much of their previously loyal base.

The guy from Sesame Street seems to think a public radio station can go back to the days of block programming. For a long time, most public radio stations got away with this. News in drive times. Classical in between. Jazz at night. Outside of smaller markets, most have dropped this approach and now have (generally) consistent formats. Public radio stations have pretty much learned that (1) people won't sit still for what they don't care about to wait for what they do care about and (2) it doesn't work to keep turning over your audience several times a day.

One size does not fit all in radio, not even public radio. Radio shouldn't try to be all things to all people.

But maybe NPR's "Big Bird" thinks public radio's loyal audience has nowhere else to go, so they have to take whatever he dishes out. Including seven minute features on some rap star they never heard of instead of Morning Edition and ATC features on mainstream performers they know.

NPR's core audience may be loyal, but not that loyal.

Anecdotal evidence suggest at least some NPR listeners have increased selective online listening (downloading and listening to what they want and ignoring the rest). People who do this also miss stations' enhanced underwriting announcements and pledge drives. But NPR seems to think they can still get people to sit in their drive ways rather than miss a minute.

If NPR wants to target a younger audience or a minority audience, it should start with HD sub-channels, LPFM and maybe even urban AM stations that commercial broadcasters don't know what to do with. But leave long-standing programs and long-standing stations where they are.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Here's the thing about this theory:
NPR is a program provider, who is at the mercy of its member stations. If member stations realize what you say is happening, they will fire the CEO, again. (That part seems inevitable, really, given their CEO history over the last 10 years or so)

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The goals of NPR and the goals of the local stations will always have some "tension" built in... if they are doing their jobs right.

If the audience of NPR and it's affiliated stations is a bit liberal... which seems to be the conventional wisdom expressed over and over in these forums, does NPR have any choice but to continually "plough some new ground" and see what kind of clods, rocks and roots turn up in the process. Isn't that part of the charter handed to public broadcasting in the first place?

If the listening audience is indeed a more liberal audience, aren't those listeners pre-disposed to expect their favorite broadcast outlet to irritate them now and then. Isn't a liberal audience a group of people with a certain tolerance level for some amount of deviation from "conventional wisdom".

Isn't slavish radiance and loyalty to "conventional wisdom" one of the foundational definitions of being a "conservative"?

So is the debate we are engaging in something like this: NPR MUST use Conservative wisdom to keep and build their audience which we know if made of Liberals who want to hear Liberal programming.

A good Liberal will sometimes find swallowing the latest trend on diversity like swallowing something a bit bitter from the pharmacy, but do they go ahead a do it in the faith that it will in the long run give them good (philosophical) health?

 

[FredLeonard]

The goals of NPR and the goals of the local stations will always have some "tension" built in... if they are doing their jobs right.

If the audience of NPR and it's affiliated stations is a bit liberal... which seems to be the conventional wisdom expressed over and over in these forums, does NPR have any choice but to continually "plough some new ground" and see what kind of clods, rocks and roots turn up in the process. Isn't that part of the charter handed to public broadcasting in the first place?

If the listening audience is indeed a more liberal audience, aren't those listeners pre-disposed to expect their favorite broadcast outlet to irritate them now and then. Isn't a liberal audience a group of people with a certain tolerance level for some amount of deviation from "conventional wisdom".

Isn't slavish radiance and loyalty to "conventional wisdom" one of the foundational definitions of being a "conservative"?

So is the debate we are engaging in something like this: NPR MUST use Conservative wisdom to keep and build their audience which we know if made of Liberals who want to hear Liberal programming.

A good Liberal will sometimes find swallowing the latest trend on diversity like swallowing something a bit bitter from the pharmacy, but do they go ahead a do it in the faith that it will in the long run give them good (philosophical) health?

NPR has posted and cited audience research which they say shows NPR's audience about equally divided between self-described "liberals" and "conservatives" (plus some "other" and "independent"). Your posts seem very well-informed about NPR and even seem to include "inside" information. Are you saying you have information contrary to this showing the NPR audience is in fact overwhelmingly "liberal" (as conservatives often claim)?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

NPR has posted and cited audience research which they say shows NPR's audience about equally divided between self-described "liberals" and "conservatives" (plus some "other" and "independent"). Your posts seem very well-informed about NPR and even seem to include "inside" information. Are you saying you have information contrary to this showing the NPR audience is in fact overwhelmingly "liberal" (as conservatives often claim)?

No, I was not relaying some inside information that might be in possession of NPR. I was simply observing the conventional wisdom that tends to be expressed both in threads of this forum, and in public conversation that I bump into in my community.

I was primarily poking a bit of humor at our friends in Conservative Media who regularly "educate us with the truth about NPR". Those of us who DON'T work at NPR and those of us who DON'T have the internal survey information available to NPR management.... certainly know more about running NPR than the people who DO run it know. Isn't that what we wade through day after day after day?

I enter this conversation with a bit a chagrin. The day I decided to get out of broadcasting because what I wanted to do couldn't be done... is about the same day the current crop of super-stars on NPR all hired in to build out of nothing.... something that I was smart enough to know couldn't be done!

I think I have great credentials to poke a little fun at how we react to what they have built. But! in response to your question: I am the ULTIMATE outsider... and never have access to their internal information.

 

[TheBigA]

Let's start with the fact that NPR itself doesn't own any radio stations. So the actual programming of the stations isn't done by NPR. They are a program supplier. NPR isn't forcing stations to play news in one block, classical in another. I don't know where you came up with that idea. The goal is if stations happen to program that way, they want to provide programming for those stations. If they want to be single format 24/7 news, or 24/7 jazz, that's fine too.

Here's the link to the Times article. Perhaps you can show me where it talks about block programming:

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/npr-series-on-race-aims-to-build-a-wider-audience/

Second, NPR News has a number of reporting initiatives, sich as science, religion, and economics. All they're doing is adding another "desk," as they call it, to the staff. These desks are funded with grant money. So from time to time, this group of reporters will cover stories that deal with the issue of race & culture. To be honest, I thought they'd been doing this for years. Maybe they have, and now they're putting it into a more formal place. So in addition to the other stories they cover in their daily news reporting, they will now have a group who mainly focus on race and ethnicity.

However, in a broader way, this initiative really follows a lot of similar initiatives that have come from many government agencies, including the Federal Communications Commission. Just last month, the FCC announced a Diversity Committee.

Here's the press release:

http://www.fcc.gov/document/appointments-members-re-chartered-fcc-diversity-committee

The fact is that race and ethnicity are at the core of the American Experience. Many years ago, PBS did a similar thing in their branding, and wanted their logo to better reflect the diversity of the audience.

Regardless, the fact of the matter is that there's very little the organization known as NPR can do to affect or change the NPR audience. That job is done by the local stations, who pick and choose from the national offerings of several companies as well as independent producers, to augment their local programming decisions. The NPR audience for a station like WBGO in Newark is very different from the audience of WXPN in Philadelphia and is different from the audience of WBUR Boston. These are diverse audiences, based not on the national programming, but rather on the formats carried out locally. From what I could read, this new initiative won't be creating a new show. It's just an occasional story or feature in their existing shows, like all the other desks, such as science, foreign, cultural, and religion.

As for your last sentence about targeting younger audiences, NPR has been at the forefront of HD Radio subchannels. But I have no reason to believe that does anything for attracting younger audiences, since the number of people who actually own HD Radios is so small. Same with LPFM. NPR's web site has been extremely successful in attracting younger listeners, and they have no problem placing their funding announcements in their web content to listeners hear them regardless of platform. They won't be changing the stations, and they really won't be changing their existing programs, because this kind of reporting has been done for 35 years. It's no big deal. I fail to understand your concern.

 

[Gregg]

I have to disagree that Tell Me More is not in step with other NPR or Public Radio News-Talk shows. I think it fits right in.

Michelle Martin is a good host, formerly of ABC News's Nightline. I'm white but I think I'd like to know more about some of her topics. I also enjoy her own McLaughlin Group which she calls her Barbershop on Fridays with the comments of three African-American men and one Hispanic man in various parts of the country.

There are also Afro-Pop and Jazz programs which NPR member stations can take if they want. I'm not really interested in those but they are available. However, NPR stations in mostly white areas don't usually run Tell Me More, Tavis Smiley or these music shows. If you're not in a Hispanic part of the country, you probably don't hear Latino USA either.

So each public radio station can accept and reject what they want from NPR, PRX or the other program providers to public radio stations.