To meet the goal gaining 50 percent in average audience in a decade, public radio would have to enlarge its AQH by 3.6 percent a year.
Broader appeal, stronger news endorsed to grow radio audience
In 2009 there was no shortage of urgings that public broadcasters recast themselves for the wild world of Web 2.0 and beyond. Public radio’s Grow the Audience project kicked off 2010 by publishing a 95-page collection of system leaders’ best bets for warding off stagnation.
It proposes goals, too: adding 50 percent to the average quarter-hour audience, doubling the weekly cume and tripling the minority audience.
“Public Radio in the New Network Age,” the final report published last week based primarily on drafts circulated last year, calls for the field to move on multiple fronts and redirect resources to expand service to minority audiences; strengthen its journalism nationally, locally and online; and adjust its broadcasting mindset, adopting a hyper-connective mix of online, mobile and other media.
In one notable change from the draft report, it calls for a “renewed vision” for public radio’s music services, which contribute major shares of the stations’ audience, including many of its ethnic minority listeners.
The report and other analyses and commentaries produced for the project are posted at srg.org/GTA/GTAReports.html.
Audience diversity and journalistic expansion are the top two among seven broad moves for public radio to achieve “deeper value and wider use” in the next decade, write co-authors Tom Thomas and Terry Clifford of the Station Resource Group.
The report comes out of the 18-month, CPB-funded research and consultation Grow the Audience project intended to both analyze and build consensus around public radio audience growth strategies.
It urges pubradio to embrace the “networked environment” by creating services and content “native” to online and mobile delivery platforms. At the same time, the field must focus more sharply on improving its broadcast services, marketing itself and addressing weaknesses in station governance and leadership.
“We propose challenging goals for public radio’s growth over the coming decade — goals that are framed within a larger vision of service,” says the report. “Our strategic direction reflects the changing nature of communities and the changing technology of communications. Wider use and deeper value for public radio, at the scale we recommend, requires transformational change — in the capacities of public radio’s organizations, in conceptions of meaningful public service, and in notions of who fits in an expanded public radio audience.”
The report also proposes audience growth targets to be achieved in the next ten years:
- Increase the average audience by 50 percent, including online, mobile and broadcast, growing from the spring 2008 weekly average quarter audience of 1.75 million to 2.6 million. It won’t be easy: The audience would have to swell by 3.6 percent a year, on average, compared to its average growth of 2.6 percent in the dozen years ending in 2008.
- Broaden the listenership as well, doubling the weekly cumulative audience on all platforms from 28.7 million listeners in spring 2008 to 57.4 million in 2020.
- Triple the combined African American and Hispanic audience from 203,700 average audience in spring 2008 to 611,100 in 2020.
As with any discussion of new radio ratings, the report acknowledges that changes in Arbitron methodologies, as well as the absence of reliable, uniform measures of digital audiences, mean the goals should be regarded as “dynamic” and subject to revision.
The list of strategies, endorsed by an advisory task force of pubradio leaders, is a long one because public radio is so diverse, says Thomas. The system would never swallow a simple prescription. Instead, SRG lays out a “broad sense of vision and direction that the collective ‘us’ that is public radio are invested in, believe in and are committed to.”
It elaborates on points for further discussion about shared challenges and tactical approaches. Exactly how should public radio seek to engage minority listeners — through existing national programs or new ones aimed at specific demographic groups? (The report’s answer is “both.”) Should NPR invest in domestic bureaus that would produce more regional reporting, or look to station-based journalists to file for its national programs? (Still to be determined.) If public broadcasting is to create an integrated online news service, as the report recommends, how should it be structured and branded? (Ditto.)
The report’s seven broad themes:
Commit to a more inclusive public service
“Public radio will deepen its value to current listeners and increase its accessibility to millions of listeners now at the edge of its audience by increasing the inclusiveness of its work and the authenticity of the voice, views, and cultures it represents.”
Four recommended complementary tactics are a major initiative to increase the accessibility of public radio’s major formats to minorities; investments in new local and national programs explicitly designed to appeal to people of color; the addition of stations and format differentiation in “as many markets as can support them,” as well as experimentation with new formats; and continued support for minority-controlled stations.
Become the most-trusted, most used
daily journalism in America
“Make public radio America’s most trusted and most-widely used source of daily journalism. Strengthen the power and scope of public radio’s most-listened-to national programs, invest in program innovation that will lead to more choice and service for listeners, support significant growth in scale, quality and impact of local journalism, and develop an integrated online news presence.”
In particular, the system should bolster NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered as well as Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, Weekend Edition, Marketplace, The Diane Rehm Show and The World, the report says. National producers should increase field reporting from across the country, and networks and top news stations should invest in investigative reporting.
Proposals to strengthen local reporting include backing for at least a dozen stations to build local journalism centers producing online and broadcast news coverage and “highly-targeted investments” in stations that have already made “substantial local reporting commitments.”
The report’s recommendations for an integrated online news presence — a proposed service that has never gotten beyond the talking stage among pubcasters — suggest both incremental steps and big ideas, from a shared backend infrastructure to creation of a “web-first entity.” This new service would be “organized and focused principally on online content . . . that draws on the values, strengths and brands of public broadcasting but works to a tone and sensibility that is ‘native’ to the networked space.”
Create a 21st-century public radio
music service
“Create a renewed vision for public radio music — on multiple platforms, in multiple genres. Capture the broadest franchise for public radio’s strongest music formats in as many markets as possible, move to new platforms with both core genres and new services, work to higher standards and greater value for listeners, and explore new approaches in content and presentation.”
“Music is a critical part of public radio’s audience service equation . . . and warrants a higher profile in public radio’s vision and goals,” the report says.
It recommends increasing the number of markets with stations airing public radio’s strongest music formats — classical, jazz and Triple A. This could be accomplished by refocusing existing stations and through mergers, acquisitions and management agreements.
Pubradio’s existing music stations must move aggressively into the “networked environment” and aspire to higher standards for presentation and listener service. They should invent new formats, including an online service for younger listeners.
Embrace the networked environment
as a primary platform
“Follow current listeners in their changing patterns of media use, which increasingly include online and mobile platforms, cultivate new users by providing more channels and platforms on which to find and use public radio content, and make public radio flexible, participatory and engaging.”
This set of recommendations, the largest in the report, suggests how pubradio stations should transform themselves into multiplatform media providers. It looks beyond distribution technologies to changes in audience expectations, relationships within the field and the very definition of who qualifies as “public media.”
Public radio must get beyond re-purposing its broadcast programming for the Web and develop core competencies in creation and distribution of content. The report recommends “aggressive experimentation and development” in this arena, including investments in social media and other forms native to the networked space; rethinking the organization of web content, and efforts to “distribute everywhere,” including new mobile platforms.
Strengthen core competencies
across the field
“Advance public radio’s ability to achieve the goals of this plan by sharpening the skills and focus of public radio professionals, strengthening the capacities of public media organizations across the country, and continually updating the field’s strategic intelligence and tactical knowledge with audience research and marketing.”
Addressing many of the proven ways in which stations can enhance their existing services, the report recommends workforce training in audience-building practices; initiatives to strengthen public radio leadership and governance; and expansion of marketing expertise in the field.
Develop market-by-market
audience strategies
“Launch a market-by-market audience growth initiative for a new generation of service — a broad-based, collective effort by stations, networks and funders — making targeted investments and crafting station-specific solutions in communities where the current level of public radio performance indicates significant opportunities for audience growth.”
The proposed initiative would provide market-specific research and analysis for stations to refocus and strengthen their services, concentrating in the top 50 markets. It would also scout opportunities for public radio signal expansion via acquisitions, mergers, operating agreements and signal upgrades.
Support follow-up and accountability
for addressing these recommendations
“Establish responsibility and accountability, nationally and locally, for these recommendations through an annual review of public radio’s performance in audience service. This assessment should include perspectives of multiple constituencies, organizations, and individuals and result in a progress report to the public radio system.”
National public radio players — producers, networks and professional associations — should consider and report to their constituents on how recommendations within the report will be integrated into their own priorities, and public radio stations should establish audience service goals and methods for evaluating their progress, SRG suggests. It also looks to CPB and other major funders to report on how the recommendations fit into their priorities and policies. In addition, results and revised goals and recommendations should be reported on an annual basis.
Web page posted Feb. 12, 2010
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