No Drama

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The Democratic primary has been a terrific display of Performance Art — improv theater at its best. Journalists reveling in their juicy onstage parts have created their own political fringe festival, at the expense of more important stories, like wars and natural disasters. Everybody loves the drama of two powerful onstage protagonists, with their rival gangs. It’s a real life West Side Story. In the biz, we’ve always said that controversy is great for radio. It’s what makes talk radio more popular than music radio. And the lack of conflict – “drama,” … Continue Reading

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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Some Mother’s Day Thoughts

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Authormarty72x72 Mother’s Day is not just a Hallmark holiday. As a mother, I can tell you it’s about wanting your kids to be safe — not fighting in Iraq, for instance. You want them to be educated, and happy, and kind to others. Honest and fair in their dealings. You want to protect them from liars and charlatans. You want them to have discernment and not fall for the crap that passes as popular culture.

And you want them to appreciate the the transformative nature of great music, something that is easy for our generation but a lot harder for young people in today’s cultural climate.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was quoted as saying

The decline of arts education in the U.S. and the paucity of international cultural exchanges will take decades to repair.

You can see a copy of the article here.

I confess to a little bit of hero worship of Dana Gioia. Here is a man who grew up as an immigrant in L.A., the first one in his family to go to college. He didn’t fit the usual demographic of a cultural consumer, but he defied the stereotypes and developed a mad passion for the arts.

In his speech at the Stanford University commencement last June, Gioia pointed out that we’ve become passive consumers of culture instead of active participants. And he blames it partly on a decline in arts education:

At 56, I am just old enough to remember a time when every public high school in this country had a music program with choir and band, usually a jazz band, too, sometimes even orchestra. And every high school offered a drama program, sometimes with dance instruction. And there were writing opportunities in the school paper and literary magazine, as well as studio art training. I am sorry to say that these programs are no longer widely available to the new generation of Americans….The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.

The whole speech is worth reading. Click here for a copy.

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Station profile: Classical WETA 90.9 FM, Washington, D.C. (continued)

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Authormike72x72_3 Second of two posts

After WETA-FM became the sole classical radio outlet serving Washington, D.C. — you can catch up on the back story here — the benefits of claiming the city’s classical franchise were immediate. In the first Arbitron ratings book after the switch, WETA’s market share jumped to a 4.9 — more than double its 2.1 prior to the change. That took WETA from 17th among the market’s radio stations to fifth.

The station went on to average a 4.5 share last year and had a successful fundraising drive in February. “Public service is being transacted here,” says General Manager Dan DeVany, “because people are listening.”

WETA aims to present a mix of classical music that appeals to a broad audience — “anywhere from those who would be considered aficionados of classical music to those who enjoy it but don’t necessarily know much about it,” says DeVany. “Being broad-based in our appeal has certainly been an effort on our part, and it’s paid off.” The station couldn’t sound like the old commercial WGMS-FM “even if we wanted to,” DeVany says, because the lack of 20 minutes of ads an hour offers more programming freedom.

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