‘Brands tend to age with their customers ... Cadillac let it go too far’
A conversation with programming consultant Paul Jacobs about cars, radio and demographics
Will public radio continue striving primarily to "super-serve the core," its most loyal audience, or put new efforts into making new core audiences that are different in age, ethnicity, red/blue allegiance?
Sue Schardt, executive director of the Association of Independents in Radio, made an eloquent plea for public radio leaders to think beyond its usual program strategies in March. In April public radio veteran Mark Fuerst moderated a Deep Chat among four participants in the expansion of public radio's audience.
In April Fuerst conducted this phone interview with Paul Jacobs, a noted programming consultant with experience in both commercial and public radio.
MARK: I want to give you an open-ended question like the one that started our earlier Deep Chat last week. It begins with the 11 percent cume penetration of public radio. How do you see that number? Is that a significant accomplishment?
PAUL JACOBS: Before I answer that, I have one questions: Is that the cume of radio listening or is it the total reach of all the digital efforts and everything else?
MARK: It’s just radio.
PAUL: I think public radio should be extremely pleased — but dissatisfied. I think an 11 percent cume is astronomical for any media entity in this splintered environment. [And] they should be dissatisfied … because the public radio audience continues to be monolithic. It’s basically aging white baby boomers. There’s a ton of them. Public radio has hit the demographic sweet spot. [However] the warning bells should be going off because of public radio’s relative inability to create the next generation [of programs].
MARK: Do you know if there are other radio services that have a broader reach than the combined NPR and public radio station reach?
PAUL: It’s hard to compare because there really aren’t any other 24-hour services outside of some sports networks. I don’t think there is anything. The only phenomenon that comes close is Rush Limbaugh. And that’s three hours a day. So I don’t think there is anything you can compare to public radio.
MARK: Public radio is pretty much a boomer phenomenon. How did you react to Paul Marszalak’s characterization of public radio using the Toyota and Scion analogy?
PAUL: What was his quote?
MARK: Toyota is an older person’s car, a successful and well-respected brand, but to a young buyer entering the auto market, it’s the car “my father would drive.”
PAUL: Coming out of Detroit, I love car analogies. Paul’s right. When you look at the history of brands — and let’s talk about cars — they do tend to age with their customers. The problem comes when you let it go too far, and you go off a demographic cliff.
A case in point is Cadillac. Fifteen years ago, the median age of a Cadillac buyer was something like 68 years old. They let it go too far—and this is where the parallel with the public radio comes in. The customer base aged so far, they had to drop their sponsorship of the Masters [Golf Tournament] and put Led Zeppelin music in their commercials. That worked. It was painful. In some ways they had to alienate their core customers in order to recast themselves. Public radio either has to change itself as it currently exists for the next generation, which I think is a dubious effort…. Or create new ways of reaching out to new and different listeners.
MARK: The success of public radio, especially the news format, is partly based on a sound programming principle— super-serve the core. Do you see any reason to abandon that?
PAUL: No. Attempts have been made for slightly younger shows. Attempts have been made for more diverse programming, but they’re not comprehensive enough to move the needle. And … when you start dropping in Bryant-Park-type programming [like Bryant Park Project, NPR’s short-lived experimental morning show in 2007-08], in between Diane Rehm and Talk of the Nation, all you’re going to do is destabilize what you have.
MARK: Is it equally risky that you’d want to drive away the core by your efforts to diversify?
PAUL: Yes, it can also have the unintended consequence of alienating just as many listeners as you get.
MARK: Can you tweak major franchise programs to get them to skew younger without blowing off your baby-boom core?
PAUL: It’s a long, tricky process. It can be done. It can be done with topic, with host, with tempo. It takes a lot of care and feeding. But I have to tell you, the thought of some of NPR’s aging hosts all of a sudden talking hip hop — I just don’t see that happening comfortably.
MARK: It comes off as an old person being goofy.
PAUL: It’s like watching a 60-year-old at a singles bar. It’s just not comfortable.
MARK: I’m sure some of our readers will love that analogy because they’re in a bar now.
So there’s a box here: You’ve got the downside of fracturing the coherence of a strong format. You’ve got the continuing reliance of the industry on these franchise programs. And you’ve got a powerfully emerging need to offer programs for different audiences. If you were drawing up a plan on a white board, what would we see?
PAUL: There are many levels here. For existing programs, the long-term strategy of host succession needs to be considered. These programs have been served incredibly well by these hosts, and ultimately they’ll retire. What’s the plan? What is the next generation of public radio hosts?
It certainly can be done. The change of Morning Edition from Bob Edwards has been an extraordinary success. I have my doubts about creating young, diverse programming and just dropping it in the current [program] stream on radio. That just feels like a big disconnect to me and not the way to do it.
The other thing is: how open are local stations to young, diverse programming? You had Tavis Smiley. You’ve got Michel Martin’s Tell Me More. Good programs … but there appears to be reluctance to pick up programming like that. [It appears that] the system is saying “our programming is targeted to a specific demographic and we don’t want to disrupt that.” [At this point, making a change] requires new kinds of thinking.
If I was drawing up the plan, I would — instead of being negative, I’d be ecstatic that we live in a time when we have the Internet. We have HD Radio. We have social media. We have an entirely new pallet of choices to create programming and engagement on a second and even a third platform.
MARK: Do you have examples of success for people who have struck out in these new directions?
PAUL: Pandora?
MARK, with ironic understatement: Pandora’s pretty successful.
PAUL, with more ironic understatement: Yeah, they’ve done okay. In the same way that you can’t compare public radio’s success to anything else … you have [Pandora and other] examples of successful digital efforts that generate numbers and engagement. But public radio is unique. It’s going to have to carve out its own path.
MARK: Have you been following the success of podcasts like The Moth?
PAUL: The Moth is a great example of unique content finding its voice and finding its audience. And the success of podcasting existing public radio programs tells you that there is a hunger for new distribution.
If you look at the tech survey we did and the way public radio listeners are doing so much more than tuning in 88.7 as a way of accessing content.
The opportunity is sitting there. It’s a matter of creating the right vision and the right strategy and making the right investment.
Paul Jacobs is a radio programming and sales consultant and g.m. of Jacobs Media, a national firm that serves both commercial and public radio. As an expert in all-rock formats, Jacobs has conducted hundreds of client presentations on behalf of Jacobs Media clients and has aided the Ford Motor Co. and Procter & Gamble in improving their understanding of the youth market.
Jacobs and his firm have participated in a range of public radio research projects, including a major “environmental scan” of radio and new media for CPB and the 2003 CPB Internet Assessment. Since then he has advised CPB on research and marketing and conducted an annual Public Radio Tech Survey of listeners’ media platforms for the Public Radio Program Directors Association.
Copyright 2011 American University