Marty Ronish Here’s a tease for Monday’s post:
Today some very strong words from Bruce Theriault, Senior VP for Radio of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who said we need to “throw open the doors” to diversity, to new people with new ideas, to young people who understand converging media formats, and to look around us and realize that the public radio audience is 82% white, while the American population is nearly 50% non-white.
There are lots of sessions going on at the Public Radio Program Director’s meeting, but of course on this blog I’m just reporting on the classical music ones. This morning was a session on fundraising, and I’m pretty sure the stations don’t want me to give away the secrets of how they’re planning to persuade you to donate. Let’s just say they sincerely want classical radio to be a partnership with their listeners, and the advice they gave us is to focus on how valuable classical music is to our lives, and that radio stations are the ones providing that value — basically for free. I think we sometimes forget that fundamental truth and we get caught up in the minutiae.
Hi all. I’m wrapping up a long day of travel (hmmm, let’s see, it’s been 19 hours so far) but wanted to report from the Classical Music session at the Public Radio Program Director’s Meeting which is going on this week at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel.
In the last couple of weeks American Public Media has tightened its belt and laid off people from several departments and shows, including three from the classical music unit. Senior Producer/on-air host Melissa Ousley, Producer Karl Gehrke, and Managing Producer Silvester Vicic have all been let go from their classical music jobs.