Mike Janssen

Mike Janssen Served as Scanning The Dial's original co-authors from Mar, 2008 to Jan, 2010 and is a freelance writer, editor and media educator based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He has written extensively about radio, mostly for Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, where his articles have appeared since 1999. He has also worked in public radio as a reporter at WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he began his career in journalism and filed pieces for NPR. Mike's work in radio expanded to include outreach and advocacy in 2007, when he worked with the Future of Music Coalition to recruit applicants for noncommercial radio stations. He has since embarked on writing a series of articles about radio hopefuls for FMC's blog. Mike also writes regularly for Retail Traffic magazine and teaches workshops about writing, podcasting and radio journalism. In his spare time he enjoys vegetarian food, the outdoors, reading, movies and traveling. You can learn more about Mike and find links to more of his writing and reporting at mikejanssen.net.

Oklahoma station cuts back on classical; Canadian MP sticks up for CBC Orchestra

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Authormike72x72_3 KOSU in Stillwater, Okla., joins the ranks of stations cutting back on classical in favor of more news and talk programming. My guess is that they dumped the dual format, but I’m not sure (the most recent incarnation of their previous schedule that I could dig up dates to almost a year ago). Their website calls the station “the New KOSU.”

This article in the local Journal Record includes background from the station’s new general manager, who mentions a survey the station conducted that helped inform the decision. (Use Bugmenot.com to skirt the registration prompt.) The survey involved input from 500 listeners. Compare that to the station’s weekly audience of 24,400 listeners as of Fall 2007, according to the Radio Research Consortium. That’s about 2 percent. KOSU also cites other factors such as public forums and an advisory board’s input.

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Radio’s future, and where classical fits in

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Authormike72x72_3 In a provocative blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson envisions the future of listening to music online—which, in his view, is with time going to amount to listening via mobile devices as well. The whole post is worth reading, but this excerpt gives a taste of the disruption to traditional listening habits that Fred sees coming:

I think of these web services as the new radio stations. Everyone of my generation has had their favorite radio stations. Everyone of my kid’s generation will have their favorite web music services. There will be hundreds of them. All supported by advertising, just like traditional radio stations, and all of them licensed by rights holders (eventually), and all of them paying the rights holders a little coin every time their song is played. And because these services will be free to anyone who wants to listen, they will be very popular. Never before have you been able to decide you want to listen to something you don’t currently own and then just play it. No searching on Limewire or bittorrent, no waiting for the download, you type in the name of the song you want to play and you hit play.

What he says makes sense to me, and it echoes a lot of what I hear from others in radio. People who want to hear music are increasingly turning to devices and locations besides their radios, a trend that’s expected to continue. They’re going to iPods, satellite radio and Web streams. This is part of why public stations are airing more local and NPR news—they see news as a franchise that is less threatened by new technologies.

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News roundup: stations enriching their musical communities

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Authormike72x72_3 In a post last week about the CBC controversy, I asked how classical stations in the U.S. might work to enrich the classical scenes in their communities. And lo, the heavens responded (well, really, Google did).

One article in the Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin points out that an area station set aside airtime for the Rochester Symphony Orchestra and Chorale to raise money for the orchestra’s general budget. The orchestra even got some help from a local partner, the Rochester Honkers—a baseball team. (I wonder how the brass section feels about that arrangement.) “Sports don’t have to be divorced from classical music,” said the orchestra’s music director. “People just have to get over the hump. Once you’ve experience classical music live, you’re hooked.” And the radio station is actually an easy listening station. A novel three-way partnership that makes me wonder why Minnesota Public Radio’s local classical station, which actually carries the format, isn’t involved.

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The MSO: an orchestra with a radio station?

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The CBC’s decision to shed its radio orchestra has generated plenty of controversy. But across the border in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a story is playing out that is precisely the opposite of the CBC hubbub: an orchestra that wants to start its own radio station.

Last fall, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra took a step toward making history when it applied to the Federal Communications Commission for an FM radio license. If it succeeds, the orchestra will, to my knowledge, be the first in the United States to run a radio station. The orchestra hopes to use the station to air selections from its archive of recorded performances and promote its concerts to the Milwaukee community.

I worked with the MSO on the application process as part of a temporary job with the Future of Music Coalition, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that advocates on behalf of musicians in the realms of technology and public policy. We scoured the country looking for arts and cultural groups that might want to apply for radio stations, taking advantage of a rare opportunity presented by the FCC. It had been more than seven years since the commission accepted applications for noncommercial FM stations, and the demand for new licenses was high. We wanted to make sure that deserving would-be broadcasters didn’t miss out.

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