"Weekends have been a kind of place
to put programs that didn't fit anywhere else," said Rue.
Now, programmers are realizing that stations
are just as important to listeners on weekends
as during the week.
With all ears on changes in weekend programming,
producers tune up new Saturday showsAdapted from an article published in Current, Sept. 16, 1996
By Jacqueline ConciatoreFor public radio's national program impresarios, weekend time slots are the next market frontier, as should be borne out with announcements at the Public Radio Program Directors (PRPD) Conference in New Orleans, Sept. 18-21 [1996].
On the last day, NPR plans to sketch its thinking about a new music and information program--working title, Anthem--and for a comedy/quiz program it's developing with Car Talk Executive Producer Doug Berman. [Later report from the conference.] The Saturday program package that NPR first promised stations at last year's PRPD conference is still a work in progress, and the company at this point is looking for feedback, says spokesperson Kathy Scott.
The package will likely bundle the two new shows in combination with programs already available, such as Best of Fresh Air and Living on Earth, sources say. The package will fill the hours between Weekend Edition Saturday and All Things Considered.
Also for Saturdays, NPR is developing Science Edition with Ira Flatow. NPR's Sandra Rattley-Lewis, recently named head of the company's Program Strategies Board, says it would have Flatow's "entertaining sort of style," and that NPR hopes to launch it in January.
PRI, too, will be pushing weekend programs in New Orleans, especially its biggest weekend successes, Whad'Ya Know? and A Prairie Home Companion. PRI program chief Melinda Ward wouldn't say whether the network will announce new offerings. The producers of Marketplace also are preparing to introduce a travel show for Saturdays.
"There is a new weekend network battle. Saturdays are a big opportunity and there is kind of a race for that," says Scott Williams, program director of KJZZ, Phoenix, and chair of a committee of p.d.'s that is helping NPR devise its Saturday package. Research suggests that Saturday audiences are prime between 9 a.m. and early afternoon. The current crop of national programs, stations say, doesn't take advantage of the latter part of that prime period. News outlets, especially, want new programming to hold audiences after their runs of Weekend Edition, Car Talk, and (for some) Whad'Ya Know?.
Though programmers talk about the weekend frontier, they're giving priority to Saturdays, when audiences are larger than on Sundays.
Public radio's weekend market share, on average, is as good as or better than on weekdays, but it can still improve, says Eric Hammer, p.d. for WGUC, Cincinnati. Hammer three years ago analyzed about 50 stations' Audigraphics data to determine how successfully they were attracting and keeping weekend audiences. (Audigraphics is a system developed by audience researcher David Giovannoni that uses Arbitron data to determine audience listening patterns of given stations and their competitors.) Hammer says the data showed weekend performance in public radio was uneven, with popular programs like Car Talk giving stations some of their best shares, and other programs sending listening levels into a dive.
"I feel the average share can brought up ... by two or three hit shows," he says. "We can be strong on weekends, particularly with entertainment stuff. We tend to think of the public radio audience as this super-serious ... humor-impaired crowd. But even our listeners let their hair down and have fun on weekends. And entertainment programs do really well."
Hodge podge
Stations have for the past few years beseeched the networks to give them a repeat of the Car Talk wild-success phenomenon. But they didn't always see much potential in weekends, says David Roden, program director for WMRA, Harrisonburg. "There was this perception there was relatively little radio usage on weekends [by] our audience--which is a myth, that we have this exclusive audience that's never served by radio anywhere else. ... There was this idea nobody ever listened anyway, so you might as well put on that kind of stuff you couldn't say no to [for 'mission' reasons]." Indeed, at last year's PRPD conference in Boston, after Hammer and others detailed sked changes that improved weekend performance, some p.d.'s enthusiastically thanked the panel for the news that weekends weren't "hopeless" after all.
Sheila Rue, p.d. at WUNC, Charlotte, says there was just a "different mindset" about Saturdays and Sundays. "Weekends have been a kind of place to put programs that didn't fit anywhere else ... that we didn't think were good enough or important enough to carry [elsewhere]. It was almost as if [programmers] thought, 'Well, listeners expect it to be different on weekends."
Now, informed by the latest research data, programmers are saying it's critical to have the same audience appeal seven days per week. "It's a matter of waking up and saying, we are just as important to listeners on weekends," says Rue.
The year after Hammer shared his Audigraphics analysis with p.d.'s at the PRPD conference, three stations--Hammer's former employer, WKSU in Kent, Ohio; WSHU in Fairfield, Conn.; and KJZZ in Phoenix--experimented jointly with an entertainment lineup. All three subsequently saw improvements in ratings and fundraising. By dropping Saturday classical music, adding Whad'Ya Know?, a repeat broadcast of the previous week's Prairie Home Companion, and an afternoon repeat of the morning's Car Talk, WSHU also saw significant increases in audience loyalty, says Suzanne Bona, who recently left the station to manage music programming at WGUC. WSHU had been serving two audiences, for classical music and for NPR news, she says. In making the changes, the station decided to serve just the news listeners, including individuals who straddled both audience groups. "I'm a classical musician, and it felt weird to say, 'We're not going to play classical music on Saturdays anymore," says Bona. "But I have to say I knew in my gut it was the right thing to do."
By splitting audiences, stations lose out on listener support, says Hammer. When a station has two or three formats, "you get wholesale shifts of the audience," none of whom will value the station enough to support it with their dollars. "They must listen enough to think the station is important," he says.
Car Talk fans stay tuned for Whad'Ya Know?
At the PRPD Conference, PRI will again this year push the affinity between Whad'Ya Know? and Car Talk. "Car Talk listeners are 68 percent loyal to Whad'Ya Know?," says Ward. "It keeps listeners listening longer and also increases fundraising." Since last year, when PRI also pushed the Car Talk/Whad'Ya Know? connection, 22 stations have added the two-hour program to their skeds, Ward says. PRI will also showcase the success stations have had repeating Prairie Home Companion's Saturday night broadcasts on Sundays. Of stations in the top 30 markets, 16 are repeating the broadcasts, and in some cases the repeat broadcast is finding a bigger audience than the first airing, she says. PRI will also be pushing its "lifestyle" weekend programs, newly released cooking and food program The Splendid Table, Zorba Paster on Your Health and Calling All Pets.
Marketplace's planned weekly travel show, Savvy Traveler, with host Rudy Maxa, will be another weekend option. Producers are stalled on negotiations with PRI and NPR, however. Both distributors like the show, says Marketplace Executive Producer Jim Russell, but haven't agreed to support the start-up with the needed $250,000. Savvy Traveler is currently partially supported by a $450,000 CPB grant, awarded in February. "It's a little disappointing that creating a new show for public radio by a proven producer is so difficult and slow and cumbersome to get to the deal," Russell says. While he would prefer to hook up with NPR or PRI, Marketplace could distribute the show itself, he says. "We have an uplink. That's all you need, [plus] a relationship with stations. We have both."
Earlier article: A visit with the Magliozzi Brothers of Car Talk.
Web page created Oct. 4, 1996
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Later news: NPR introduces programmers to two Saturday concepts: Anthem and Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me.