Tech
Annual survey highlights ‘big deal’ of smart-speaker adoption
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The Public Radio Tech Survey also found strong growth in public radio listening among millennials.
Currently Curious
Beyond politics, public media audiences and Trump supporters have some things in common
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Public radio listeners skew toward the liberal end of the spectrum while PBS viewers are more conservative. But in demographic terms, both share characteristics with Trump voters.
Programs/Content
Atlanta jazz station hopes smoother sound catches on
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Atlanta’s WCLK-FM, a jazz station licensed to Clark University, aims to double its audience share with a new approach to programming music that went into effect Aug. 26.
People
PRPD honors a co-founder and presents a special award to a key provider of audience data
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The Public Radio Program Directors Association gave its 2012 Don Otto Award to audience researcher Peter Dominowski, who co-founded PRPD in 1987. PRPD bestowed the award Sept. 13 in Las Vegas, where it observed its 25th anniversary as an organization. Dominowski is president of Market Trends Research, a market-research company based in Matheson, Colo. In presenting the award, Jeff Hansen, p.d. at Seattle’s KUOW, cited Dominowski’s many focus groups and research studies, and his work with the Morning Edition Grad School training sessions for stations and as a member of the Strategic Programming Partners consultancy.
Programs/Content
Core value of PRPD: ‘Think audience’
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When Public Radio Program Directors Association was formed 25 years ago, the idea that programmers should do things for an audience “felt like a complete revolution,” says Marcia Alvar in a Q&A with three of the founders.
Audience research
Good news about the splintered TV audience
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What you are about to read may sound familiar—like the strategy in public radio, with its emphasis on serving a core audience—but it’s an evolution in the thinking of the LeRoys, prominent audience consultants for public TV stations and co-directors of TRAC Media Services. Public television’s cume fell below 50 percent in the 2001-02 season. The portion of the viewing public that samples it in a week — as high as 59.2 percent in 1991 — was down to 47.8 percent a decade later. Fewer and fewer homes are sampling public television’s fare and they’re viewing it less. When cumes and gross rating points decline, stations can lose membership and support.
Why public media?
‘It just feels like hearts coming out of my head’
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What do viewers and listeners have to say about public broadcasting’s purposes? You can work backward from their letters and calls to stations and producers about the field’s achievements. Relief from yappy dogsDear NPR,
Ever since I arrived in Ukraine in June, I have suffered acute NPR news withdrawals. Sure, I miss my family, my friends, and all those “things” that have come to represent my previous life in America — hot showers, clean tap water, brown sugar for my oatmeal and lighted stairwells. But I suspect that it is the lack of those familiar voices that woke me up each morning in Salem, Ore., that has made my transition in this country most difficult. Please send those tapes soon.