A Modest Proposal for Making Public Radio More Entertaining

[Doug Gordon]

"A Modest Proposal for Making Public Radio More Entertaining (Without Eating
Children)"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUxZxr9lg8

[PJ Swift]

Children don't have enough meat on their bones. Go for the fat cats in congress or the FCC.

Children as listeners, though, what a concept. Public radio is ignoring 20% of the American public. Talk about a younger demographic!

Now, if we could only teach them to write checks.....

And yes, I am related.

[NJRadio Maven]

It is true - the sameness of public radio is a real turn off to younger listeners. Among my students, fewer and fewer are public radio listeners as each year passes. Yet, they do hunger for something more engaging that commercial radio. For those who can afford it, many find satellite radio more to their liking that public or commercial radio.

Doug's idea of using arts and entertainment as the avenue for experimentation and reaching younger listeners is spot on. How many times have we heard Morning Edition, ATC or The World just take the life out of the creative arts because they cover the story in the same manner they cover politics, economics, health care or environmental stories?!

High school and college students are busy searching the web for interviews with their favorites bands, video they find interesting, blogs that spark discussion and far away radio stations that stream what they like. If public radio was brave enough to do a pop culture show that was a bit irreverent, made fun of itself, took risks, was accurate, had strong social networking from the start and utilized user-supplied content on the web and on the air, the system would have a chance to capture a lot of new, younger listeners, either on air on at least as a podcast.

Right now, the system is too conservative and too formulaic to take chances. Recent attempts to reach younger/different listeners (think shows like The Next Big Thing, The Byrant Park Project, Fair Game or the ever-struggling Weekend America) don't succeed - in my opinion - because they are stilling playing it safe, keep that generic public radio sound, and just don't know how to connect to the non-public radio listener.

If we want to cultivate the next generation of public radio listeners, we need to actually go and talk to some kids and young adults, understand their media habits, supply a product of interest and then give it time to succeed.

Thanks for raising this issue Doug.

[John Proffitt]

Thanks for mentioning young folks using satellite radio more -- I hadn't thought of that. SatRadio is definitely different in some key ways. Ways public radio could emulate.

But not if we can't take chances.

Michael Rosenblum calls it "freedom to fail."

[Greg Fitzgerald]

I've been hearing the complaint about public radio not serving younger listeners for quite a few years now --- almost back to the days when I was a younger listener. But the media changes of the past few years have created what might be an insurmountable hurdle. Trying to create edgy programming appealing to someone between 19 and 25 on a public radio station once a day or once a week is kind of like trying to get someone that age to take a test drive in a Mercury Marquis by promoting the fact that the new Marquis has surround sound. Younger listeners (for the most part) don't listen to public radio because fewer and fewer of them listen to any radio. The last time my 19 year old daughter turned the radio on was to tune to a station that could receiver her iPod transmitter. The '98 Camry we passed on to her this year had the volume knob broken off a few weeks ago, and she still hasn't asked us to fix it. On the other hand, if our Internet connection seems even a little slow, she's the first to complaint to me to fix it.

So expending hundreds of thousands of dollars to come up with new programming and formats destined for FM transmitters seems like an awful waste to me, especially if that programming is going to send older listeners running for the aisles.

A better way is for traditional broadcasters to continue to experiment with new media --- create programming destined for iPods, websites, and other social networking media such as YouTube. It's frustrating for programmers because it's hard to gauge the audience for new media, and the financial payback is currently not enough to sustain the cost of creating new media. But as formats, ideas, and some of the new voices of new media begin to emerge, that may change.

In the meantime, don't spend too much time or money trying to get a 19 year old to tune in at X:00 for that once a week or daily "edgy" magazine show - the one that sends your traditional users reaching for the off button.

[Karen Everhart]

Doesn't NPR.org/music have the potential to bring people in via web searches and interactivity around bands and musical performances? I realize we are talking about a web service, not on-air presentation, but it is already focused on entertainment.

Also, what about Jesse Thorn's The Sound of Young America from PRI? They're promoting the show as being effective in reaching younger listeners without explicitly targeting them. It's the cultural reference points that make a difference, according to Jesse.

Check out his blog posting on the demise of Bryant Park: http://www.maximumfun.org/blog/2008/07/bryant-park-project-fair-gam...

[NJRadio Maven]

As with all things, there are exceptions to the norm. I am not saying there is nothing out there for younger listeners!

The Sound of Young America, to my ears, still sounds like a typical public radio show. Yes, TSOYA is looser and more in touch with cultural and countercultural trends than most public radio shows, but Jesse comes across to me as being 36 or 46, not the mid-20s guy that he is. In radio, your audience needs a host it can identify with. You need to feel that they live your lifestyle. This is not a dig at Jesse, but when I listen to him, I do not imagine someone how lives a CHR, indie rock or hip-hop life style. But, your post sparks me to have my students sample TSOYA. I’ll be curious to see what they think.

The reason this topic energies me is that I deal with 17 to 23 year-olds and it pains me to see fewer of them use radio and even fewer are interested in public radio. I worry that NPR, PRI and AMP will go the way of the big three automakers, unable to adapt to a changing market. The decline of Detroit started decades ago. Think how different it would be if GM, Ford and Chrysler (and remember AMC?) had not fought against national health care or CAFE standards? What if they had responded when Hertz warned the Big Three of product quality problems way back in the 1970s? On the station level, you can find examples of intelligent responses to a changing media landscape. But what is happening at the network level? Is there a sense of urgency inside public radio’s big three? Do they that understand the coming crisis and know how to respond?

What attracted me to public radio in 1977 was the creativity the system had. Yes, the system produced some dreck in the 1970s and into the 80s, but folks were willing to try different things. The excellent Small Things Considered, which morphed into the national show Kids America, would not have a chance in the system today. The Sunday Show was at times a train wreck and at others brilliant; but it was tried. Even when Heat was breaking ground, the system was already risk adverse.

Mostly, the system just doesn’t have much fun anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I already feel ME and ATC have been dumb-downed some and I don’t want any more of that. But radio is about entertainment. Let’s entertain again!

[Randy Kinkel]

what we need is a place to play, to experiment, to have fun, in programming. right now, for the most part, the stations, networks are not those places. they possibly never will be. I'm thinking the web might be the place to do that, in the form of podcasts, or whatever. Stations are risk-averse. I would be, too. As it is set up right now, it makes tons of sense to NOT take chances.

[Randy Kinkel]

a quick anecdote: My wife, who's not a regular NPR fan/listener and hasn't been for many years (she got Sirius several years ago and never looked back), borrowed my truck and since I was last listening to NPR when I left the cab, she heard it when she started up the engine, and decided to listen to it. This was Saturday AM. later that day, after I got home I was talking to her about stuff on this very discussion group and she said, "I was listening to NPR today, and it sounded like the same stuff I heard 20 years ago!" Consistency is good. but maybe a little freshening is in order. On the other hand, she's definitely not a core listener.

[Mark Laskowski]

Yeah, everyone claims they want new stuff, but few programmers have the guts to jump when it is available or offered. Case in point: TSOYA (which has been mentioned by others in this thread). I think it is as much a pubradio breath of fresh air (no pun intended) as it is a diamond in the rough (and what's rough about the show is not the program's production values, but the content decisions that clearly reflect the preferences of an auteur more than the output of a team).

A wider range of higher marquis value guests, some more money and perhaps some other creative visions added to the mix and it could easily be a stronger up and coming thing for pubradio (beyond the extent to which it already is). And it 's far from shabby now. With more carriage, it would grow. But not nearly enough stations carry it. No one is willing to give it a chance the way a one time fledgling Car Talk or TLA was given a chance.

What about Word Jazz with Ken Nordine? Joe Frank? When people do push the envelope, too many decision makers at stations say, "no thanks, please pass the plate of safe and predictable." Where is the equivalent in news & info/talk of what Triple A has been to pubradio music formats?

But to broaden the scope a bit, I think that too often conversations like this gravitate toward attracting a MUCH younger (i.e. entirely new) audience.

More creativity, more risk-taking and more variety doesn't just have to be about pubradio becoming recognized and used by listeners who currently have very little awareness of its programs and services. More creativity, etc. will also lead to pubradio becoming more satisfactory to constituents who are already on board to some degree. I think what made the tried and true (and now a little stale) pubradio programs so good and exciting both in their formative years and from time to time now when they shake off the dust--is that they were NOT deliberately aiming at a specific demographic. They weren't focusing specifically on the pepsi generation or the hip hop nation or whatever the hell we are currently being hypnotized into thinking is hip by the lifestyle merchants who are drinking Martinis and Fiji Water whilst perched atop the gutless slag heaps of corporate conformity of their own making. They were just trying to do something good, interesting and fun. They were earnest. They weren't chasing down a lifestyle, an audience or a buck. Take THAT approach and maybe, just maybe, the younger, uninitiated listeners will find pubradio and become the core listeners of tomorrow. But if the deliberate (and all too transparent) attempt is to connect to a younger demographic, the result will likely come off like a square high school teacher who tries to prove to the kids that he or she is "with it" by using all that "jive lingo, daddy-o."

OK . . . maybe I should switch to decaf . . . but if you look hard enough in this rant, I think you'll find at least a point or two (hopefully). Thanks for your time and attention.

[Karen Everhart]

So, have any of you checked out Vocalo, the web/broadcast hybrid created by Chicago Public Radio? There's a bold experiment aimed at younger and ethnically diverse audiences. Its sensibility is so different that the words "public radio" are never uttered.

At this very moment, my Vocalo Facebook feed is asking for comments on the question, "Is sexual orientation 'fluid' or constant?" [Hmmmm--a new topic for DirectCurrent perhaps?]

Rob Paterson, the consultant who helped lead NPR's New Realities project, suggests that public media could "get the young involved" through training programs:

"One of the things that the young want is to learn how to use digital media well - it is the key to their future as citizens and to earn a living. Who will teach your young in your city? Certainly not the schools who hate and fear digital media. There is a vacuum."

This is one of three "paths" toward a new pubmedia business model that Patterson recommends on his blog today.

Check it out here: http://smartpei.typepad.com/robert_patersons_weblog/2008/08/what-wo...