Denver’s KVOD shifts gears

KVOD, Denver’s all-classical public radio station, used to air the around-the-clock Classical Public Radio Network. But then Colorado Public Radio, which operates KVOD, and KUSC in Los Angeles decided to stop producing the syndicated feed. That left KVOD in a position to change its game, and as the Denver Post’s Kyle MacMillan details in a well-written article, the station is indeed seizing the opportunity.

Because of CPRN’s national scope, none of the hosts based in Denver could make local references, because such mentions wouldn’t make sense to listeners elsewhere.

“We couldn’t talk about what was happening in Colorado, because it would be relevant here and totally irrelevant and confusing in Tulsa, in Los Angeles, in any other part of the country. So we had to be everywhere and nowhere in terms of what we said,” said promotions manager and on-air host Steve Blatt.

The result were broadcasts that could seem a little antiseptic and distant to the station’s 208,500 weekly listeners in Colorado. But with the end of CPRN, KVOD is once again responsible for its programming, and that gives the station the opportunity to reconnect with Denver and the rest of the state.

Read the full article.

It’s rare a station has such a chance to reinvent itself. Maybe managers elsewhere ought to imagine themselves in this same situation and then brainstorm responses. Take it as a license to think big.

KVOD’s transformation encapsulates a change that public radio is going to have to embrace, and one that shows the field coming full circle, going back to its decades-old roots in local community service. It hinges on confronting this question: As listeners are able to access more and more nationally syndicated public radio content via the Internet and satellite radio, what is going to make local public radio stations of lasting value to listeners?

Only local stations can provide local services tailored to their communities. No one else can do this. Which is why offering listeners a musical jukebox with little local flavor and not much else is a weak bet for long-term viability. An around-the-clock broadcast stream of music will be valuable for many listeners for many years to come, no doubt, and will be an important component of a radio station’s purpose for a very long time. But over time more and more listeners will stray to other platforms. At the same time, they’ll need more reasons to keep tuning in locally, and engaging with the station on a wide range of platforms, as their options expand.

Another thought: The Denver Post article raised the question of how KVOD might use social networking but didn’t answer it. Is the station considering doing that? What a service that would provide — giving lovers of classical music a place to connect, arrange outings to concerts, discuss new recordings, interact with hosts.

For more background, read this post from March about Classical Public Radio Network’s demise.