Quiz #5 Answers

The answers to questions 1 and 2 of Quiz #5 come from the Walrus Research report Heavy Givers and they are important facts to keep in mind as public radio seeks to increase giving from mid-level and major donors.

1. True or false. People who give larger annual gifts are more loyal to public radio than people who give smaller annual gifts.

True. On average, Heavy Givers spend 64% of their total weekly radio listening time with public radio. Light Givers spend 53% of their total weekly radio listening time with public radio.

2. People who give $100 or more annually listen to public radio:

c) An average of 15.75 hours per week. High levels of listening and loyalty are essential to converting a listener into a giver and a giver into a Heavy Giver. Without this listening, the fundraising staff is at a disadvantage.

3. True or false. The biggest difference between listeners who give and listeners who don’t give is fundraising resentment. That is – non-givers resent being asked for money while givers do not.

False. The biggest difference between givers and non-givers is their loyalty to public radio. People who contribute to public radio give the greatest percentage of their listening time to public radio.

Questions That Hit Me Recently

What kind of message does it send to young listeners sampling our programming when they hear promos urging them to remember public radio in their wills? That this is a station for their generation?

What do young listeners think when a network program host reports on their trend to wear retro clothing and then comments how glad she is that she can pull originals from her closet?

Can you report on a trend and still be a part of it? Or does observing it and analyzing it make you an outsider?

Your (sort of) Weekly Public Radio Quiz #5

We really do try to get the quiz out weekly but sometimes life gets in the way. This week’s quiz focuses on people who contribute to public radio.

1. True or false. People who give larger annual gifts are more loyal to public radio than people who give smaller annual gifts.

2. People who give $100 or more annually listen to public radio:

a) An average of 7.5 hours per week
b) An average of 11.25 hours per week
c) An average of 15.75 hours per week

3. True or false. The biggest difference between listeners who give and listeners who don’t give is fundraising resentment. That is – non-givers resent being asked for money while givers do not.

The answers on Wednesday.

Disclaimers: The answers to questions 1 and 2 are based on national averages. Your mileage may vary. Past results do not necessarily predict future performance but ignoring them can cause audience loss. This quiz is for recreational purposes only. RadioSutton does not condone wagering anything of value on the answers. Use Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz at your own risk. Ask your doctor if a career in public radio is right for you.

Time to Make Station Health Public Radio's Number One Priority

At the end of the New Realities Forum, NPR Executive VP Ken Stern delivered a short, sincere, and heartfelt speech about public radio’s challenging and uncertain future.

“I can’t do it alone,” he said, referring to NPR’s renewed commitment to work with stations and others in the public radio community. His comments were reinforced by NPR President Kevin Klose.

In particular, NPR is seeking the support of public radio stations, its primary constituency. Support is a two-way street and right now stations are in need of significant help from NPR, CPB, and public radio’s other national organizations.

The health of public radio stations is in decline. The 2004 CPB-funded Having It All report said that more than half of all public radio stations are in weak financial positions. Too few of them end each fiscal year with even a small financial surplus. Stations lost more than $4.3 million in net revenue between 1999 and 2003.

That loss of revenue happened when listening to public radio was growing. The audience has gone down slightly since. This is not a good sign for public radio’s financial future because listening drives individual giving and underwriting revenue.

Audience 2010 doesn’t paint a pretty picture either. Public radio is losing listening to its commercial competitors. Increasingly, audiences are not finding public radio to be the better listening choice.

There is good news out there. The fixes for less listening and less revenue are under our control.

The ultimate conclusion of Audience 2010 is that the audience decline can be reversed with appropriate programming decision-making and execution at local stations. The Having It All report identified concrete actions to improving station financial health. Public radio knows how to do this. Public radio has done it before.

What the industry lacks are clear, measurable goals for station audience growth and financial health. There are references to helping stations grow audience and increase revenue capacity, but those are empty phrases without a target number and a plan to reach it.

The remainder of this post will focus on audience growth. The next posting will focus on station financial health.

Let’s start with a goal: By the end of 2010, 75% of all public radio stations will have increased their AQH audiences by at least 10 percent over their calendar year 2005 average.

There are three good reasons for this goal. First, helping the majority of stations grow will grow the national audience. Second, growth in listening will lead to revenue growth, which should help improve station financial health. Finally, none of public radio’s national organizations currently has a specific, measurable commitment to helping stations increase their broadcast audiences. If goals reflect priorities, then growing station audiences is not a priority for any of public radio’s national organizations.

And yet, all of the new opportunities public radio wants explore – reaching listeners through new delivery platforms, expanding local programming, serving more minority listeners, and becoming more significant community institutions – depend on the strength of public radio’s core broadcasting service.

Several independent reports say that service is weakening. The good news, again, is that public radio knows how to fix this problem.

But, to echo NPR’s Ken Stern, stations can’t do it alone. They need help. They need CPB’s help. They need NPR’s help. They need the help of any national organization that can bring its resources and economies of scale to bear on local problems and opportunities.

Here’s the goal again: By the end of 2010, 75% of all public radio stations will have increased their AQH audiences by at least 10 percent over their calendar year 2005 average.

It’s an achievable goal. Meeting it will require a significant, system-wide effort. That effort won’t happen without a commitment. Over the next few weeks, we'll seek that commitment from public radio’s national leadership.

Stay tuned.

NEXT WEEK: A goal for station financial health
FUTURE POSTINGS: National goals for minority listening and new delivery platforms

Whatever Happened to the B-HAGs?

They weren't just goals.

They weren't just big goals.

They were Big Hairy Audacious Goals.

Like Bigfoot, they used to be spotted all over public radio land. Like Bigfoot, they are seldom spoken of anymore.

When we had our swagger in public radio, we talked of doing all sorts of great things. We committed to goals. Seemingly impossible goals.

But we believed that if we set the goal, a real and measurable goal, we'd find a way. And if we didn't quite get there, we still be better for trying.

The B-HAGs are coming back.

They will be too big to ignore.

Watch out.

Quiz #4 Answers

The answers to this week's quiz.

1. True or False? Public radio successfully met its goal in the 1980s of doubling the AQH audience in five years.

False. Public radio made great progress the first five years but didn't quite make the goal. Having the goal focused public radio's resources on growth and many of the actions taken as part of the audience building effort continue to serve public radio well. It's a lesson we should embrace today.

2. Based on On-Air Fundraising Partnership research in the 1990s, what was the number one reason listeners gave for NOT contributing to public radio?

a) Public radio is too liberal
b) Someone else will give
c) They could get better stuff from public television

The answer is "b" - someone else will give. For all the benefits public radio receives from its subsidies, they also provide many listeners and public radio professionals with a reason to not do all that they can to support public radio's growth.

3. Why is Car Talk's Doug Berman known as the Subway Fugitive?

I'd love to say this has something to do with the food chain, Jarrod, and Big Macs, but it doesn't. Mr. Berman was being written up by a Washington, DC Metro officer for illegally consuming food on the subway. When the officer paused to stop another food-carrying criminal, Berman slipped into the shadows never to be seen by that officer again.

Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz #4

My apologies for missing the quiz last week. We're back in business. This week's quiz takes us back in time a bit.

1. True or False? Public radio successfully met its goal in the 1980s of doubling the AQH audience in five years.

2. Based on On-Air Fundraising Partnership research in the 1990s, what was the number one reason listeners gave for NOT contributing to public radio?

a) Public radio is too liberal
b) Someone else will give
c) They could get better stuff from public television

3. Why is Car Talk's Doug Berman known as the Subway Fugitive?

Disclaimers: The answer to question 2 is based on national averages. Your mileage may vary. Past results do not necessarily predict future performance but ignoring them can cause audience loss. This quiz is for recreational purposes only. RadioSutton does not condone wagering anything of value on the answers. Use Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz at your own risk. Ask your doctor if a career in public radio is right for you.

Share Of Mind

We like to speak in lofty terms here in public radio about how we make America a better place to live. We do that by creating a space for civil, intelligent, and thoughtful news reporting and dialogue. We do that by making radio minus the shock value. We do that by treating listeners as citizens, not consumers.

At the heart of these statements is the idea that we love our listeners for their minds, not their age or sex or other demographic characteristic. (Though, like the stereotypical sufferer of mid-life crisis, there has been a lot of talk about trading in our listeners for a younger model.)

We believe our brand of news, public affairs, talk, music, and entertainment programming is not only worthy of our listeners attention, we also believe they should be paying attention to us the most.

We believe public radio should be their primary source of news, not CNN, not Fox, not ABC, and not even the New York Times. We believe we should be their primary choice for information, entertainment, and music programs when they are listening to the radio.

We believe that when they hear what we have to contribute to their lives, they will be better off in some way.

To use the marketing term, we want high “share of mind” from our listeners. Their attention, a most valuable commodity, is what we seek.

One of the essential findings of the most recent Audience 2010 report, Losing Our Grip, is that we are losing share of mind with our audience. Our own listeners are spending less time with public radio and more time with commercial radio. (This is measured by Loyalty in Audience 2010.)

Increasingly, listeners are ignoring the line that supposedly distinguishes public radio from commercial radio. Has commercial radio become more worthy of their attention? Does public radio have fewer meaningful things to say?

Having no commercials is one of our traditional strengths. Is that becoming less important to listeners or have we crossed some perceptual line with the audience that makes us seem more like commercial stations?

It would be easy to point at corporate underwriting as the culprit in this story. After all, the loss of national audience started at the same time public radio was debating underwriting credits about little purple pills. But Audience 2010 is showing us that the loss of listener attention runs deeper. Underwriting might be a factor, but there is no way it could explain everything.

Resolving this share of mind question is essential to public radio’s future. It should be the number one question on the audience growth agenda. How do we strengthen our distinctiveness and rebuild share of mind in our primary medium?

Share of mind should also be the number one question on the new delivery platform agenda. The infrastructure and business models of the Internet make it possible for others to emulate our content and style. The commercial/non-commercial lines that served us so well in radio are not as much in our favor in the new media environment.

We need to figure out how to be distinctive no matter where audiences find us.

How can we capture a higher share of mind on the radio and on new media platforms?

If we answer that question right, we will further our lofty mission of making America a better place to live.

Technology in Service of Public Service

This is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Public Insight Journalism (R)

Organizing Our Thoughts

The New Realities forum was a good first step in bringing public radio people together to take on the many challenges faced by our industry.

For some, it wasn't nearly large enough of a step. The Open Space meeting format, designed to encourage free-flowing conversation, revealed how bogged down public radio is in its past and its current problems. That said, several good ideas emerged from the event and many people came away inspired to invest more time and positive energy in finding solutions to problems large and small.

One of the more interesting conversations I heard centered on where public radio invests its resources. It was pointed out that only about 5% of stations' budgets are spent on new technologies. The other 95% are spent on our core radio business.

This was contrasted to where public radio's strategic resources are allocated, especially on a national level. It was suggested that 95% of our mental energy was being spent on new technologies and only 5% on our core business.

Those percentages might be off some, but I think the concept is right. Our resource allocations are not in alignment. There is an old saying, "budgets reflect priorities." Our financial budgets show one priority, our strategic thinking budget reflects another.

This hasn't happened because public radio spends too much time thinking about new technologies. It happened because we've spent too little time thinking about our core service in the face of new technology, increased competition, and a decline in audience.

One of my takeaways from the New Realities forum is that we simply haven't organized our thinking to effectively deal with the two separate but inter-related challenges of nurturing our core service while embracing new opportunities. About the time a station manager gets around to thinking about audience loss, she has to turn her attention to the latest big announcement about podcasting technology.

There is an opportunity for public radio's national leadership to develop parallel agendas to address the challenges of growing the radio service and planting a flag in the digital world. Both goals are critical. Each needs its own strategy.

Right now, the conversations get mixed. The subsequent confusion is costly, slowing our progress on both fronts.

I'm not sure exactly how those twin agendas get developed, adopted, and quickly applied on a national level. But if there is one other takeaway from the New Realities forum it is this -- there are new openings to start the conversation.

So we will.

Quiz #3 Answers

The answers to quiz #3.

1. If current audience trends continue, public radio will reach more Gen X and Gen Y listeners than Baby Boomers in 2010.

True. Audience 2010 explores this and other generational listening trends on page 9 in its report “Historic Sources of Growth.”

2. Which activity is done by more public radio listeners?

A) Golfing
B) Playing a musical instrument
C) Gambling at a casino

C. Gambling. According to NPR’s Profile 2005 (PDF), in the past year, 17.6% of public radio listeners gambled in a casino, 15.3 % went golfing, and 14% played a music instrument.

3. Which of the following statements about Carl Kasell are true?

A) He is a magician
B) He still writes his newscasts on a manual typewriter
C) He has his own jingle
D) His mentor was Andy Griffth

A, C, and D. Carl has performed his magic act a few public radio events. “The Carl Kasell Show” jingle – from his early career as a commercial radio personality – was once featured in an NPR fundraising segment. Wikipedia, and other sources, cite the Andy Griffith relationship.