|
During the past year I was in the exhibition hall of a
national radio conference (in Dallas I believe)…and happened
to run into a couple of gentlemen I really like. They are
Bob Jordan and Phillip Beswick…the head guys at Media Audit.
Media Audit, a media research firm, measures all sorts of
information regarding media in about 100 markets in the
US….and they do a great job.
I took fifteen minutes to look at the research material
these two guys were handing out to the attendees of the
conference. Then, I chatted with them for a few minutes. I
think it was Bob that mentioned that national public radio
had very good ratings in quite a few markets. Really??? Yep,
I WAS THERE.
And just this week I read somewhere that KUOW in Seattle and
KQED in San Francisco…both public radio stations (so the
article stated)…scored number one and two respectively in
their markets. I opened the Arbitron file but could not find
a mention of those call letters…which I already knew…because
Arbitron lists only commercial radio stations at this time.
I don’t know who published those ratings….could have been
Media Audit I suppose….and would like to know. So if YOU
know please advise me by e-mail so I can pass the info along
to the readers of this column.
I started thinking about what Bob said, and the
aforementioned Seattle and San Francisco ratings. Twenty
years ago I would not have given public radio a chance to
compete with their commercial brothers/sisters. However, a
lot of things have changed in twenty years which might
benefit public radio listenership.
1. As listeners become older they are inclined to be more
interested in current events and historical items….such as
public radio broadcasts.
2. As listeners grow older they seem to not like as many on
air contests or promotional hype.
3. As listeners grow older they like a reduced announcers
pace and pitch….instead they like a more informative
personality.
The three points above play into public radio’s future.
For example, I attended a cocktail function a few years ago,
and I was surprised to hear in the background the first Nora
Jones CD which had just been released (she was to win a
Grammy for her performance in the future). The music fit
perfectly with the martini group in attendance. I quietly
asked the hostess where she became aware of Nora Jones…whose
CD was just weeks old. She said, “I heard it on NPR” along
with an interview of Ms. Jones (I believe she said.) The
hostess thought it would be “perfect” for her cocktail
session, and ordered it on-line. Note: The hostess is
definitely not the type to listen to terrestrial music
stations.
All of the above triggered me to listen to NPR (for the
first time in years), and have done so frequently. They
really are doing a really nice job particularly with the
back ground sounds creating the REAL environment of an
interview/subject….something that terrestrial radio doesn’t
have time to do because of our brevity of news reports.
Terrestrial radio CAN match the back ground sounds/mood
during our longer public affairs programming, of course.
I’ll write more about this in future columns with specific
examples.
We live and learn.
e-mail Kent
kent@kentburkhart.com
|
