People

Ange-Aimée Woods, Colorado Public Radio arts reporter, dies at 41

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Ange-Aimée Woods, a Canadian journalist who played a key role in the recent expansion of Colorado Public Radio arts coverage, died July 2 in Montreal of apparent heart failure. She was 41. Woods joined CPR in October 2013 as the Denver station’s first full-time arts reporter. She’d spent the previous decade with CBC’s Radio One, working a variety of jobs including as a senior producer on the live drivetime program Homerun and a social media producer. During her seven months at CPR, she worked on launch of its weekly arts program Colorado Art Report.

System/Policy

WHYY prototypes dashboard to measure audience engagement

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An attempt by Philadelphia’s WHYY to measure the impact of its news website has its execs asking bigger questions about the best ways to gauge success in public media. In July 2013, WHYY needed an accurate and effective way to measure the progress of NewsWorks, the station’s digital news venture, launched in 2010. The station talked with CPB, a primary funder of NewsWorks, about integrating an R&D budget for site analytics into the next phase of NewsWorks’s grant. “At some point during that conversation, we got to talking about Google Analytics and how many phantoms Google Analytics make people chase,”said Chris Satullo, v.p. of news and civic dialogue at WHYY. The popular analytics service provides data that, according to Satullo,“sound really important but [are] really set up for e-commerce” rather than public service.

Programs/Content

With ‘Smartbinge,’ WNYC aims to raise national profile for digital content

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In an effort to position itself as a national brand in public radio, New York’s WNYC is launching an ad campaign likening its programs’ listeners to Netflix-style binge watchers. The Smartbinge campaign will consist of targeted digital ad buys and a landing page on WNYC.org to encourage listeners from around the country to listen to substantial amounts of WNYC programming. Other elements include Twitter hashtags, geotargeted Facebook ads, paid search results and sponsored blog posts. WNYC is spending around $200,000 on the campaign, working with creative and public-relations teams Cataldi Public Relations and Eyeballs. As WNYC increases digital offerings with streams and a mobile app, it has its sights set on an audience beyond New York.