Jack Allen on the future of classical public radio: part 2

This is the second part of an essay by Jack Allen, who just became president of KBPS-FM in Portland, Ore., in which he considers the future of classical public radio. Part one ran on Wednesday. Let us know what you think, and enjoy.

The Future of Classical Public Radio

Copyright 2008 — Jack Allen

Challenges

Will Rogers said it a long time ago: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

We have a sense that just because Mozart’s music is coming out of speakers every day, like it has for 40 years, we must be doing it right.

The business organization consultant Michael Hummer once remarked, “One thing that tells me a company is in trouble is when they tell me how good they were in the past. When memories exceed dreams, the end is near. The hallmark of a truly successful organization is the willingness to abandon what made it successful and start fresh.”

Our history in public radio pretty much included a guarantee of financial support from our government and license holders (as opposed to listener-sensitive revenue such as underwriting and donations), which in turn created a sense of entitlement and bred a kind of complacency. Our history also includes legacy ideas about programming. There’s usually a legacy sound as well. This is quite a bit to overcome. If we sound stuck, we probably are. Over the past 40 years, if a classical music station did rely primarily on listener support, without true regard for the listener, life at these stations was usually a half-step up from bare subsistence.

When I visit stations around the country, one of the first things I hear is, “We have this problem with overall audience size, this issue with revenue (in decline). We have a fuzzy brand and identity, and this sticky wicket with our community arts partners, but be assured, the programming is just fine.”

Maps are appearing at stations with little flag pins dotting the global landscape. With high-speed Internet becoming ubiquitous, folks 10,000 miles away can just as easily tune into our stations as can those listeners in our own time zones. Some are actually becoming supporting members of our stations.

These fleeting bon mots are merely turnips off the back of the wagon. Although tens of millions of people listen to Web streams, we become giddy and perhaps over-confident if we land several dozen international memberships. Will these new members sustain our stations? What are they coming to us for? Certainly they must get Mozart through speakers in their countries? How is it that their imaginations and curiosity has led them to our stations in places such as Oregon, North Carolina and Texas? Are they just seeking Mozart or something else?

I believe they are visiting or traveling to our communities through the lens of classical music. If that is the case, do we reflect our communities, or are we reflecting a generic classical-music-on-the-radio model? Sustaining this new listenership and growing them into members will require leading them in compelling, locally branded, intellectual adventures — not simply saying “this is” and “that was” around Mozart.

Solutions

In my opinion, the future of “classical public radio” and indeed of all terrestrial radio is contingent on and directly linked to our ability to create avenues of interaction with our audience, not just a tiny fraction of our audience but with all of our audience, and, in our universe of public radio, whether they are members. If we worry about membership before we address what causes membership, then we are Sisyphus in a classic uphill struggle.

As Eric Shinseki said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

As we prepare our minds for what lies ahead and wrestle with concepts such as community service and even basic relevancy; if we’re successful at engaging our audience in meaningful conversations, not just on topics of our choosing, but on topics near and dear to them (and this includes classical music); we then approach the true spirit of our mission, which in most cases is to strengthen and improve the communities we serve.

Radio needs the community. Radio by nature builds community, if you will, by casting a net that draws people to common themes, without regards to race, creed, color, gender, or economic status.

Radio stations are not all the same.

In terms of public service or community relevance, the dwindling number of classical music stations in the public radio universe would suggest a lack of value, or of perceived value, in the format. The larger potential audience of, say, an all-talk or public-affairs oriented station appeals to many stations.

Public radio, with its financially and emotionally charged set of stakeholders, taps into the philanthropic consciousness of the listener as opposed to a more basic set of consumer values. Whether the format is public affairs or classical music, this audience is smart and engaged, primed for (and willing to pay for) more — not just more content but greater flexibility and creativity with their choices.

In his best-selling book on global economics, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman said, “The companies you want to bet on are those that, like Google or Yahoo! or TiVo, learn to collaborate with their users and offer them shows and advertisements tailored just for them” (emphasis mine).

Once we create synergy with our audience, we will need to continue to allow our audiences not just to suggest innovations, but to create them for themselves. Our content, in order to remain timely and relevant, must be organic and interactive, customizable and scalable. We must not be complacent or content with pushing Mozart through speakers into cars, homes and offices.

Public radio has a head start and a built-in advantage in that we began with audience interaction as a way of life. We call it membership. However, we must shift our thinking from merely money gathering to idea harvesting. This includes reshaping our approach to classical music on the radio as well.

A rich and admirable part of our DNA is that we endeavor to serve the community first and foremost and not the bottom line. You can bet that commercial broadcasters are noticing the passion and loyalty of the audiences our programming produces. Our audiences exhibit thoughtfulness, discernment, passion and intellectual curiosity. Any producer of a quality product would kill for this constituency. Unfortunately, once we hit on a formula that we think works, we rarely vary from that system or approach. This is especially true of classical music stations. The solution lies not in ridding ourselves of an arcane format but yielding to the gravitational forces of new, interactive media that will allow an even larger audience to grow around this art form.

So, is classical music on the radio dead or dying?

As Allan Kozinn said in his now-famous essay, “Check the Numbers: Rumors of Classical Music’s Demise Are Dead Wrong”:

Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” observation about relationships and sharks — that both must either move forward or die — also works for culture. In classical music, lots of people really just want the dead shark. They pine for [the old days]. Most of all they want their repertory dials set between 1785 and 1920.

You can send those people your condolences.

For the rest of us, the shark is still moving. You just have to grab onto the dorsal fin.

We who “make” classical music radio must keep moving ahead, not just looking ahead. Or, to quote an African proverb, start running.