Programming

More From Jack Allen and KBPS in Portland

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Yesterday I promised you more about Jack Allen who is moving from KMFA in Austin to KBPS in Portland, OR. I asked him a bunch of questions about his plans for KBPS, and I’ll just quote his answers verbatim.

What is your overall vision for KBPS?

Vitality, service, reach, value, preeminence, prosperity, flexibility, and whimsy.

Do you think the station should be all local, or should it have a mix of the best from the rest of the country and local?

Local is important, critical in fact, but a mix is desirable. If folks come to rely on KBPS as their link and gateway to all things classical, the mix must include carefully selected programs and insights into events and ideas from around the region, US and globe.

How do you feel about airing live local concerts?

I believe in order to truly be local and relevant, we must seek out strategic partnerships and find those special events that put our regional and global audience in the front row of live & local performances. KBPS will be a unique ticket to all things, great things, local and regional, and sometimes global. The gal tuning in online from Berlin doesn’t want to hear musical selections (necessarily) from the Berlin Philharmonic. What’s the point? She may stay tuned if Robert McBride says, “…sit back and relax, sink your ears into this…performed here in the shadow of Mt. Hood, steps away from the Willamette River, at the juncture of the Oregon Trail…a new recording of the Portland Symphony Orchestra bringing to life the very American, the very adventurous and noble Symphony No. 9 by Antonin Dvorak, known as the ‘New World’ …enjoy.”

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New Management in Oregon

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Station KBPS in Portland, Oregon announced last week that they have hired a new CEO, reports The Oregonian. Jack Allen comes from the programming side of classical music radio, but with a lot of management experience. He was director of news and music for seven years at Minnesota Public Radio, including being an on-air host at Classical 24. For the past five years Allen has been in Austin, TX managing the much smaller, listener-supported classical station KMFA. This article in the Austin Chronicle makes it pretty clear that Austin is going to … Continue Reading

WGBH stages virtual concert in Second Life

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Here’s a great example of a classical broadcaster trying something different in the new-media space. On Tuesday, May 27, acclaimed pianist Jeremy Denk will visit Boston’s WGBH to perform live in their studios and on the air. Nothing new there. What’s different, though, is that at the same time a digital version of Denk will perform in WGBH’s virtual performance studio in its world in Second Life. After his performance, Denk will answer questions from his Second Life audience.

WGBH's Second Life environment
WGBH's Second Life environment

In case you’re not familiar with Second Life, it’s a vast online cosmos where visitors create computerized alter egos, known as avatars, to interact with each other and explore the user-created world. According to Wikipedia, about 38,000 users are logged on to Second Life at any given moment. (The image to the left depicts an avatar playing the grand piano in WGBH’s realm.)

“WGBH Radio broadcasts well over 100 live performances every year, on 89.7 and on the web, and now it’s time to tap a new audience in an environment that’s beyond those platforms,” says WGBH’s Gary Mott, who is managing the Second Life project. “It’s thrilling to be a part of something we’ve not done before, in virtual space. The media landscape is constantly evolving, and it’s exciting to be changing with it.”

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A quest to understand the classical radio listener

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Authormike72x72_3 How should music directors and program directors at classical radio stations decide what to play? What do listeners most appreciate about their services?

These sound like pretty important questions, right? But put yourself in the place of one of these programmers (assuming you aren’t one) and think about how you’d answer those questions. You’d have piles of Arbitron ratings at your disposal, but those only show you when listeners tune in and out. Ratings don’t tell you why they listen or what makes your station valuable to them — at most, you can only infer answers to those questions from ratings.

But since 2002, a group of public radio programmers has been commissioning research to address these concerns. In a series of studies, the Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD) has surveyed listeners to various public radio formats, including classical, to deepen the field’s understanding of the value their services deliver. Their results have given programmers a new vocabulary to apply to their work and, in some cases, fed debates about the role of research in programming and public radio’s overall approach to classical music.

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