Current (https://current.org/category/system-policy/page/79/)
Dubbed the “2032 Membership Drive,” the station’s newest citywide marketing blitz encourages young “interesting people” to “make babies” who will grow up listening to public radio. The ads appear on billboards and buses; a Facebook app created for the campaign has a matchmaking feature to help curious listeners connect.
The latest merger agreement from Denver combines three different breeds of public media — flagship pubTV station Rocky Mountain PBS, community-licensed jazz broadcaster KUVO-FM and investigative digital news outlet I-News Network — in a consolidation that aims to build strength through diversity.
When Scott Finn begins his new job as executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting Feb. 1, he faces an uphill task of re-energizing a network that has been beset over the past several years by funding declines and conflicts over its governance.
When the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts announced a settlement with Boston’s WGBH over its handling of $60 million in federal grant funds, it was the second time in two years that a major producing station had come under scrutiny by auditors for its handling of grant monies for public TV productions.
When Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal recently approached Georgia Public Broadcasting’s top exec about appointing outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers to lead the state network’s proposed initiative promoting economic development, GPB chief Teya Ryan agreed to make the hire.
Basic memberships offered during pledge drives and in direct-mail appeals are a time-tested enticement for converting pubcasting viewers and listeners into contributors, but station-based development staff are perplexed about how to set the rate for this donation level. Some pubcasters are weighing whether to stop offering basic memberships altogether. A survey conducted this fall by Plymouth, Mass.–based direct-marketing consultant DMW Direct found that most stations charge below $50 for a basic membership, and few have adjusted the rate within the last five years. The basic median rate among the 41 public TV and radio stations that participated in the survey is $40, but 16 stations reported to DMW that they charge less. These rates are far below average gift amounts for public stations.
Lloyd Wright received the 2012 William Kobin Public Television Leadership Award from public TV’s Major Market Group. Wright has served as president of WFYI Public Media in Indianapolis for more than 23 years and was recently re-elected to his fourth term on the PBS Board of Directors. For the past two years he’s also served as chair of the MMG’s Board of Directors. The award was established in 2010 in honor of Bill Kobin, among the first producers of national programs for National Educational Television (NET), the forerunner of PBS. Kobin also headed stations in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, and led the MMG for 14 years until retiring in 2011.
PBS has restructured its senior management, effective immediately, elevating programmer/producer Beth Hoppe to chief programming executive and general manager, according to a memo circulated to PBS stations today. Chief programmer John Wilson, who has worn many hats since joining PBS in 1994, will focus on fundraising programs as senior v.p., pledge strategy and special projects. Wilson will “build on the experiments undertaken this year to reshape our pledge programming and will continue to work closely with PBS colleagues, producers and stations to develop these plans,” said PBS Chief Operating Officer Michael Jones, in his memo announcing the management changes. Hoppe signed on at PBS last year as one of Wilson’s deputies. She has specialized in nonfiction programming during a TV career that includes a run as one of PBS’s hottest producers and a stint producing and developing science programming for Discovery Studios.
Two years after Antioch College reopened its campus in Yellow Springs, Ohio, it negotiated an $8 million deal to buy back WYSO, NPR News and contemporary music station broadcasting at 50,000-watts on 91.3 MHz. Antioch University, a five-campus university system, has operated WYSO since 2008, when its undergraduate school in Yellow Springs shut down. A group of Antioch College alumni bought the school and most of its assets in 2009 and accepted a new class of freshmen in fall 2011. The $8 million purchase agreement announced Dec. 10 transfers ownership of WYSO back to the small liberal arts college in Yellow Springs; it also strikes clauses in the 2009 purchase agreement that would have allowed the university to claims on Antioch College’s campus or assets.
The start-up accelerator unveiled a year ago as an experiment in bringing Silicon Valley’s culture of innovation to public media has rebranded itself in a move to attract a wider range of ideas and investors.
Public radio stations trying to diversify their audiences, staffs and programming have found an increasingly active ally in NPR, whose leaders have been travelling to stations in recent months to help broadcasters walk the difficult walk of achieving diversity.
WDDE-FM signed on in August 2012, becoming the first public radio station based in the state of Delaware. Governor Jack Markell cut the ribbon at a ceremony at WDDE’s Dover headquarters Dec. 3.
Pubcasters and their advocates in the state capital credit the change of heart to help from sympathetic lawmakers, the governor’s willingness to change his mind and agreement by pubcasters to strengthen their case for support.
Public radio is adapting too slowly to the competitive challenges it faces from Internet-based media platforms, and the pace of change must increase if local stations are to thrive in the years ahead. It’s a warning that public broadcasters have heard many times before, and research that I conducted this fall revealed that a large majority of radio station leaders have absorbed and begun acting on it. What were the most important changes you made in the last three years? Changes cited among
the 89 managers surveyed
How many cited this
Added news programming
65
Made organizational changes, including replacing a ce.o. or developing a new strategic plan
65
Invested in new media and or planned for digital convergence
39
Developed major-gift and other fundraising activities
38
Made non-news program changes
20
Took steps to “go local”
19
Developed new facilities
20
Expanded broadcast range or acquired new signals
13
Undertook promotional and community engagement activities
4
Invested in social media
3
Found and developed community partners
4
Source: Public Media Futures, November 2012 survey
In an online survey initiated in collaboration with Public Radio Regional Organizations, nearly three-quarters of 96 respondents, mostly general managers and chief executives, agreed that public radio must adapt more quickly to shifts in media consumption. Most station leaders see the expansion of local newsgathering capacity as the best strategy for bolstering their value to local listeners.
The FCC adopted new rules today regarding low-power FM stations, paving the way to accept a wave of applications for new LPFMs in October 2013. Under the rules, the FCC will allow LPFMs on second-adjacent frequencies to full-power FM stations if the low-power applicant provides evidence that the new station will not cause interference. These second-adjacency waivers will allow for more low-power stations in big cities where the FM band is more crowded. Other provisions of the Report and Order adopted today include:
A modified point system that will give an edge to Native applicants and to LPFMs with a staffed main studio and local programming;
Permission of cross-ownership of an LPFM station and up to two translator stations;
And an allowance for tribal nations to operate more than one LPFM. The Prometheus Radio Project, which advocates for low-power radio, estimates that the number of LPFMs in America could double or triple after the next filing window.
The FCC announced on Thursday that it has extended its deadline for comments on upcoming broadcast spectrum auctions. The original deadlines, Dec. 21 for comments and Feb. 19, 2013, for replies, are now set at Jan. 25 and March 26, 2013.
Boston NPR news station 90.9 WBUR-FM is wading into the Cape Cod resort market and going toe-to-toe with WGBH’s network of stations with its planned purchase of 92.7 WMVY-FM on Martha’s Vineyard. WBUR is buying the Tisbury, Mass.-based station for an undisclosed amount from Housatonic, Mass.-based Aritaur Communications Inc. The sale is expected to close in early 2013 pending FCC approval. Now broadcasting an adult alternative format, WMVY, known as mvyradio, will switch to WBUR’s news format, reaching up to 60,000 listeners with a 3,000-watt signal. The market includes Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and coastal towns including New Bedford, Fall River, Falmouth and Westport. “We believe that the islands, Cape Cod and SouthCoast are important parts of the community we cover and serve,” said WBUR General Manager Charlie Kravetz, in a statement.
The number of pubradio stations in the northeastern U.S. has grown in recent weeks with the addition of new stations with signals reaching listeners in Vermont, New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Vermont Public Radio has expanded service in southeastern Vermont and elsewhere with a new full-power station, 88.9 FM WVBA, an 8,800-watt NPR news station in Brattleboro. VPR also moved a translator station in Brattleboro from 94.5 FM to 94.3 FM, boosting its signal from 10 watts to 190 watts and bringing its VPR Classical service to the community. In New York’s lower Hudson Valley area, Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson has launched a new pubradio signal, 88.1 FM WLHV. The 910-watt station received its authorization from the FCC Nov.
Public Radio Capital and a New York–based philanthropic investment nonprofit have established a $100,000 Revolving Public Media Fund to help subsidize PRC’s work with five public broadcasting stations to spark growth and innovation. PRC has worked with FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds on several deals since 2006, said Ken Ikeda, PRC’s managing director. Stations may apply to receive $30,000 in consulting and strategic planning services. The Revolving Public Media Fund will supply $20,000; selected stations will pay $10,000. The Nov.
Now that the 2012 general election is over, the 170 Million Americans campaign is preparing to rally support for public broadcasting by going into an amped-up “on steroids” phase, an adviser to NPR said during the Public Radio Regional Organizations Super-Regional conference in New Orleans Nov. 14. Gov. Mitt Romney’s pledge to eliminate funding for public broadcasting, which he repeated during the first presidential debate, “created an opportunity for us to remind our fans that we need them,” said Liz Schrayer of Schrayer & Associates Inc., a Washington, D.C.–based firm that advises nonprofits on advocacy efforts. The campaign should seek to mobilize at least 1 percent of public broadcasting’s 170 million viewers and listeners, she said. Schrayer is a former national political director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.