Public radio

How midday classical research is changing station playlists

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On Monday I wrote about the midday music research conducted by the Public Radio Program Directors Association — a survey of hundreds of classical-music listeners that gauged their responses to dozens of snippets of music. The goal was to determine which sounds appealed to those listeners and which didn’t, thus helping programmers at classical public radio stations build audience by focusing on more user-friendly selections.

So how is this research being used? Following the release of the study’s results, 12 stations around the country began applying its lessons to their midday music mixes. I checked in with a few programmers to find out what changes they’re making.

“I’ve found that it’s taken me back to really trying to think and listen like my audience,” says Karen Walker, operations and music director at KBIA in Columbia, Mo. Walker has been combing through her station’s music library and classifying selections according to their appeal to the listeners surveyed in the study.

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Getting to the nitty-gritty of listeners’ musical tastes

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A while back I wrote about the influential “core values” research conducted by the Public Radio Program Directors Association, which aimed to understand what listeners to classical music radio appreciate most about their stations of choice. Those studies were useful because they helped classical programmers put themselves in their listeners’ shoes and get a handle on why exactly people listen at all.

But the studies were limited in scope — they assessed the value of classical radio only in general terms and stopped short of gauging reactions to specific musical works. Last year, however, PRPD unveiled the results of the Midday Classical Music Testing Project, a study that aimed to do just that. The study asked groups of listeners to rate a wide range of musical snippets as appealing or unappealing, and programmers at classical stations are now revising their music mixes to line up with the findings in an effort to improve midday listening.

The 309 listeners in four cities who participated already listened to classical during middays on the stations in their markets. With handheld units, they registered their reactions to 150 30-second musical samples, noting positive or negative appeal.

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From the Top’s new season, and a juggling act in Colorado

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Authormike72x72_3

Hi everyone — I’m just back from the massive Bonnaroo music festival, held every year in Tennessee, where I must admit I didn’t see any classical music performed. Not that there was any, unless you count Iceland’s wonderful Sigur Rós, whose music has “classical elements” according to their Wikipedia entry. Classical or no, the group performed a spectacular late-night set, accompanied by a string section, a quintet of costumed, drum-pounding women and a white-clad brass section that paraded around the stage. What a show.

On to other, squarely classical matters. As I was on my way home, the television version of From the Top, a show that spotlights young performers of classical music, began its second season on PBS. A release about the show says that this season From the Top at Carnegie Hall will have a different focus. “Last
year we produced a show about classical music played by kids,” says Executive Producer Don
Mischer. “This year we are making a show about kids, all of whom play
classical music.” So the show will feature documentary-style bits about the kids who perform, visiting them in their hometowns. Note that From the Top at Carnegie Hall offers video podcasts via its website.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe profiles Jerry Slavet, creator of From the Top (which began as a radio show nine years ago and continues in that format as well). I’ve met Jerry and can second the impression conveyed by this article — he is quite the dynamo.

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Podcasts, KCSN and American Public Media

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Authormike72x72_3 Commenters brought to my attention a few classical podcasts originating from stations. In case you didn’t see their additions to the original thread, here they are:

Boston’s WGBH offers Classical to Go!, a podcast featuring live performances from its studios. It doesn’t have a dedicated Web page, so here’s the direct XML link. Thanks to commenter lassus for that one.

WSHU in Fairfield, Conn., previews local symphony concerts (XML link). Thanks to Mike Crane for that heads-up. A great use of podcasts, in my opinion — strengthens community ties, puts voices of people in the arts community on the air, and helps to establish the station as a go-to place for information about local arts. That latter point, I think, will be especially important as people have more and more options for acquiring and listening to music. Even when they’re listening to streams from Saudi Arabia, they’ll still want to know where to see a live performance in their own backyards.

Know of more classical podcasts that stations are producing? Let us know.

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