PubRadio Losing Listeners - PDs Gather to Seek Solutons

[fred flintstone]

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

If the hundreds of public-radio programmers who gathered in Philadelphia this week seemed a tad edgy, it is because they are facing a new challenge: a declining audience.

This is alien territory. For at least a decade, they seemed to defy the fragmentation that kept their counterparts in newspapers, TV and commercial radio up nights.

Ratings rose. Listener loyalty was high. Funding was solid.

In 2004, though, public radio's core audience flattened. Last year, it dropped.
<snip>

Full Article: Public radio trying to improve reception

Main points:

• A study presented at the conference shows seven of 10 public radio stations declining in both listenership and listener loyalty.
• Commercial radio is picking up public radio listeners as overall audience for commercial radio declines.
• No exodus of public radio listeners to satellite radio is seen (despite Bob Edwards on XM).
• In many cities, multiple stations carry the same shows at the same time - fragmenting the current audience, rather than increasing the audience with additional programs.

 

[MikeSFNM]

An interesting article and interesting comments. As a life-time fan of public radio, I find myself listening for a stretch and then turning the darn thing off during the hour commute each way to work every day. Public radio gets tiresome quickly. Not to say depressing: my radio clock went off every morning to the latest body count in Iraq. I switched stations.

Why, I wonder, is public radio on the decline? And so do the program directors and researchers. The typical "It ain't my fault" of human beings says its new technology. Maybe. Perhaps it is the smugness of NPR types, their unwillingness to get out into the countryside and the real America, their channelized thinking. It is not unimportant that NPR, alone of all the national networks, is located inside the beltway in Washington, what a fellow worker calls "La-La land." Washington is not the United States, thank God. The other networks are in New York, the world's capital and the big apple, for the business of America is business, and not government. (Tell that to the Washington crowd. They've yet to get the news.) You would think that a network that appeals to the college-educated, over-40 crowd would be based at least in New York, if not in Boston, the nation's intellectual capital. Not so. The news of NPR is governmental news. That alone speaks volumes.

News and talk, liberal talk. NPR has just announced that the last of its classical music programs will be taken over by American Public Media in Minnesota next year, leaving its domain that of news and talk. We know what kind of talk. Even the Saturday morning quiz shows are filled with Bush-bashing jokes, as are those from the other public radio program entities. Praire Home Companion of APM doesn't run short of these jokes, either. What is lacking is balance. The humor is political, biased. One did not find that kind of political humor in the golden days of radio--Red Skelton, Bob Hope. As for the end of the fine arts on NPR, one could see that locomotive coming down the track for many years. Once a staple of public radio, fine arts programming is dropped as not pulling in the ratings. So much for the original public radio premise of serving unserved audiences. (The same is true of public tv; my city is heavily Afro-American and Hispanic, and neither has a single program of interest, national or local, on the principal PBS station.)

It is interesting that ME and ATC are showing listener declines, at least in some markets. These flagship programs were among the most popular NPR programs. The only really great public radio program is Car Talk, and that originates from Boston, not La-La Land. (NPR has a great reputation for turning down highly popular programs, such as Prairie Home Companion (they thought it was too hokey for national consumption) and This American Life. So much for Washington thinking. The Boston affiliate convinced NPR to try it out; they were amazed at its success.

One final point: The public radio consultant John Sutton (see his website) says that surveys show that most public radio listening is to about 10 national programs; local programming, for years seen to be the keystone of programming at commercial and noncommercial stations, sees great declines in listeners. The consequence of this is that the success in public radio belongs to NPR, PRI, and APM. You can be sure that they will do what it takes to survive, and they are already represented on the web, in podcasting, and in satellite radio. The local public stations will be left to struggle on their own. In the long run, it may be more to their self-interest for these national program producers to relegate local affiliates to secondary status and concentrate on webcasting, etc.

It is getting tougher for local stations. Sutton says that 50% of all public radio stations barely survive from one year to the next. No wonder so many colleges and boards of education have unloaded stations in recent years: WBEZ, WGGL, KTPB, WYCS, KSLH, WPKN, WJHU, WBGO, KBPS, WCAL, KUNC -- these come to mind; there are others, to be sure. Public radio stations are an enormous drain on a university budget. Historically, they began as small stations to train students in broadcasting. Since broadcasting has gone automated and computerized and the owners have deliberately destroyed the star system in many cases, few students elect a low-paying career in broadcasting anymore. An alternative is to turn the station over to students for their own use-- WISU, KIWR, and KUOM are for instances.

The future of public radio is going to be interesting. Perhaps what will survive will be the community-type stations: run by volunteers and strictly localized. See www.nfcb.org.

 

[fred flintstone]

Interesting observations.

Public radio is not NPR. NPR is one supplier to public radio (as are PRI/APM and others). NPR has to compete with other program providers to get on the air in any given market. NPR (more than the others) appears to bend over backwards to accommodate stations. Sirius and the NPR audio stream don't get to run ME until afternoon - ATC until morning - to protect local stations.

While I think NPR News tries to avoid over bias, the organization and its people are steeped in the culture and paradigm of political correctness. There also seems to be a somewhat incestuous relationship with the ruling class (professional and career bureaucrats and office-holders) which seems to shape the organization's world-view.

In it's early days, the news and the world looked very different on CNN, when the network had more of an Atlanta perspective.

I've long thought, if I were given control of a network news operation, the first thing I'd do is move everything out of New York or DC (except for bureaus necessary to cover what actually happens there) and set up shop in Chicago. I'd also forbid everyone on staff from reading The New York Times (make news judgements yourself - that's what you're paid for).

 

[MikeSFNM]

I am well aware that all public radio is not NPR. That is why I cited American Public Media and PRI. The point was that NPR, which sets the public radio pace. APM and PRI were ultimately founded over protests of many public broadcasters because they felt, back in Minnesota, that cultural programming was being neglected by NPR with its Inside-the-Beltway fixation. That was about 20 years ago. It has worsened since.

I agree that NPR caters to a certain crowd, that it has blinders on. If you read many of the various NPR "member station" websites (I do, frequently), you will see that the thinking on these sites, what is said and what is not said, what is assumed and emphasized, etc., conforms to that Beltway worldview. It is not surprising that this viewpoint exists even out in Mid-America, because NPR appeals to the same mentalities, to these islands of East Coast thinking. And, many stations are still found on university campuses, and the stations represent the worldview of academics, the ivory tower attitude of overweening intellectual arrogance.

In short, it is no wonder that listeners fall away and the young and the minorities by and large do not get onboard the public radio train. Public radio does not speak to them. It probably does not represent the thinking or the interests of their elders and peers, either. Public radio honchos can continue to cite the new wave technology as the reason for the decline, but that at best is only part of it. How many of those who do not listen, do not listen because they are playing with new technology?

One can take only so many hours of programming produced by those who are out to change the world. Air America is finding that out. Even Saturday Nigh Live has poked fun at NPR's solemn sense of mission.

 

[fred flintstone]

Re: PubRadio Losing Listeners - PDs Gather to Seek Solutions

I think your observations are valid. However, what the group gathered in Philly should be concerned about (if they are not already) is not that there are certain segments of the population public radio has never reached and does not reach now - it's the segments that used to be its core and most devoted listeners in which listening and loyalty are eroding. Why are AAR fans turning away? The mindset you describe hasn't changed. Bob Edwards is gone but the programming itself hasn't changed much. The only appreciable change is the growth of formats in public radio (which used to be mostly block - hodge podge - variety - something for everyone programming). Maybe the classical and jazz lovers are not happy (understandable) - but they weren't coughing up during pledge drives and public radio news-talk stations tend to get bigger audience shares any way. Public radio listeners used to regard public radio as a club to which they belonged - and that's gone.

 

[uncamark]

Why, I wonder, is public radio on the decline? And so do the program directors and researchers. The typical "It ain't my fault" of human beings says its new technology. Maybe. Perhaps it is the smugness of NPR types, their unwillingness to get out into the countryside and the real America, their channelized thinking. It is not unimportant that NPR, alone of all the national networks, is located inside the beltway in Washington, what a fellow worker calls "La-La land." Washington is not the United States, thank God. The other networks are in New York, the world's capital and the big apple, for the business of America is business, and not government. (Tell that to the Washington crowd. They've yet to get the news.) You would think that a network that appeals to the college-educated, over-40 crowd would be based at least in New York, if not in Boston, the nation's intellectual capital. Not so. The news of NPR is governmental news. That alone speaks volumes.

News and talk, liberal talk. NPR has just announced that the last of its classical music programs will be taken over by American Public Media in Minnesota next year, leaving its domain that of news and talk. We know what kind of talk. Even the Saturday morning quiz shows are filled with Bush-bashing jokes, as are those from the other public radio program entities. Praire Home Companion of APM doesn't run short of these jokes, either. What is lacking is balance. The humor is political, biased. One did not find that kind of political humor in the golden days of radio--Red Skelton, Bob Hope.

As if there isn't any conservative talk at all on the commercial stations?

And if public radio is so liberal, why are the extremist nuts on the left constantly complaining about NPR selling out to evil corporate capitalist AmeriKKKa?

And why are some of the best-supported public radio stations those that are in the heartland?

Maybe the fact that "ME" and "ATC" are the two most-listened-to national shows after Limbaugh proves that there is a big audience out there that is tired of right-wing radio and wants something different. And if the extremist nuts on both sides hate public radio so much, they have to be doing something right.

 

[fred flintstone]

As if there isn't any conservative talk at all on the commercial stations?

And if public radio is so liberal, why are the extremist nuts on the left constantly complaining about NPR selling out to evil corporate capitalist AmeriKKKa?

And why are some of the best-supported public radio stations those that are in the heartland?

Maybe the fact that "ME" and "ATC" are the two most-listened-to national shows after Limbaugh proves that there is a big audience out there that is tired of right-wing radio and wants something different. And if the extremist nuts on both sides hate public radio so much, they have to be doing something right.

Come on. That's like saying if everybody thought dinner was terrible the restaurant must be good.

I do hear bias in public radio - cultural bias, rather than political.

They do have an inside the beltway perspective. Too many of their people are Washington-insiders or close to Washington-insiders. They go to too many Georgetown parties. Their coverage of government and politicians reflects this. It's the same thing that happens when sports writers cover a team for too long - and start to think they are part of the time. Worst examples are Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts.

NPR operates in a culture of political correctness. They go out of their way to do stories about non-mainstream, minority or disadvantaged groups/communities. Often they let members of a group/community do a story on the group/community to which he/she belongs. Generally these stories range from friendly coverage to outright puff pieces, in which the subjects of these stories and their statements are not subject to usual degree of challenge or scrutiny. There is a double standard at work in much of their reporting.

That said they are the only source of intelligent and in-depth news coverage in radio. Whatever issues one may have with their coverage - and their ombudsman seems to get a lot of mail - public radio is for smart people the only game in town. But they are not a perfect mirror.

And there is some evidence coming out the some people are getting tired of political talk - all political talk - with the anger, insults and bombast which characterize both liberal and conservative talk radio.