The Tangled Web We Weave

There's a new and growing obstacle in the effort to shorten station pledge drives -- underwriting and major donor revenues.

An increasing number of stations are using pledge drives as leverage for closing underwriting and major donor deals. It's a win-win when those deals result in challenges, premiums, or giveaways that generate more pledges, faster.

The downside is that stations are closing more of these deals in order to boost major donor and underwriting revenues. Shortening pledge drives mean fewer deals can be made. In essence, shortening pledge drives reduces the inventory of value-added selling opportunities. That isn't sitting well with some. For example:

- A station exceeded its 14-day pledge drive goal two days early. Programming and membership wanted to end the drive after 12 days but couldn't because of promises to let station underwriters come on the air and pitch.

- A station trying to plan a 1-Day pledge drive (it usually does 5 or 6 day drives) gets internal resistance because there are no challenge grant opportunities for underwriters or major donors.

These problems aren't so great that they can't be solved over time, but they do present an interesting question.

Are stations putting future underwriting and major donor revenues at risk by linking them too closely to pledge drives?

Be the Demographic

Heard recently during a public radio pledge drive:

“You are intelligent. You are actually based on demographics.”

Coincidently, I just received the latest edition of NPR’s Profile 2007 – a 500-page book on public radio demographics, audience perceptions, and consumer behaviors. I guess we should consider it the recipe book for public radio listeners. Here are some items that jumped out as I browsed its pages.

· The public radio audience isn’t getting any younger despite a decade of industry talk about making it younger.
· Public radio has made no progress on diversifying its audience.
· Public radio’s appeal to highly educated listeners remains strong. Example: you are six times more likely to find someone with a PhD in the NPR News audience than in the general population.
· Public radio listeners are more advertising-adverse than the average American.

But you probably already knew all this. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Public radio listeners like their drink. They are more likely to consume alcohol than the average adult. That applies not only to wine, but also to beer and whisky. Their mixed drink of preference: the margarita. Rum and Coke or Gin and Tonic will do in a pinch.

Public radio listeners are 13% more likely than the average adult to use diet control, 27% more likely to use a hair loss treatment product, and 91 percent more likely to use products for sexual/erectile dysfunction.

Then there is this: women in the public radio audience were 3% more likely to have purchased new underwear in the past year. Men were 22% more likely.

Draw your own conclusions.