Candow Profiled by Wash. Post

David Candow, also known as the "Host Whisperer", was the subject of a feature in Sunday's Washington Post entitled "When This Guy Talks, NPR Listens". It begins:

David Candow, the man who makes National Public Radio sound like National Public Radio, has a simple piece of advice for anyone who wants to get in front of a microphone: Try to sound like . . . you.

In addition to his work with NPR, Candow has worked with public radio stations. He was a featured speaker at the 2005 PRPD conference and presnted a very highly rated workshop. A pdf file based on his presentation "Coaching Talent - The Ten Yellow Flags" is part of the PRPD Knowledge Base available to PRPD members on our website.

Stations Continue Talk Conversations Online

Two Seattle commercial radio stations joined forces to use social networking technology to allow listeners to continue the conversations started on the air. KJR AM 950 Sports Radio and AM 570 KVI used WikiTalk.com to allow listeners to comment and respond to issues raised on the air.

A news release on the project said:

"Both stations found that the cross promotion between the stations and WikiTalk led to higher traffic on their sites. AM 570 KVI producer Matt Haver says, 'It is the future of talk radio -- all talk radio stations should incorporate a social site like WikiTalk into their programming -- our listeners loved it.'

"Both stations saw significant increase in click-through versus other ads that were displayed in the past -- providing more proof that talk radio listeners are interested in continuing the discussions after a particular show ends."

Social Radio?

Blogger (and PRPD Conference speaker) Mark Ramsey today discussed "Social Radio"on his Hear 2.0 blog. In this case, its an application that can be downloaded for the iPhone that:

... adds another dimension radio stations have yet to provide: Playlists created by the listeners themselves. You and I can create our own radio stations from our own content and share them with friends who are mobile.

Last week, Ramsey blogged about "Engagement Not Impressions". While more about approaches to advertising, those words resonate with what we in public radio have been discussing when considering our place in our communities.

Mark will speak about "The Future of Listening" on Saturday morning September 23rd (9-10am) at the upcoming PRPD Public Radio Programming Conference in Hollywood.

Conference Hotel Rate Deadline Today

If you are planning to attend this year's Public Radio Programming Conference in Hollywood, today (Monday, August 25, 5:00 pm PT) is the last day to get the special $169 a night room rate at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel. After the deadline, rooms will revert to the standard room rate, now $329 a night.

The conference pre-registration deadline is 12 days away - Friday, September 5th. After that date, you will need to register on-site, also at full rate.

Conference registration is very strong and the pre-conference PD Workshop and Exhibitor Spaces are completely sold-out.

We're looking forward to seeing everyone in Hollywood!

HD Going Portable?

Santa Clara, CA.-based SiPort is introducing an HD chip to be used in portable devices. iBiquity showed prototypes of an MP3 and cellular phone with HD Radio capability earlier this year.

CBC Plans Makeover of Radio Two

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is revamping its Radio Two signal in a reported attempt to attract more younger listeners, and reaping the unhappiness of many of its classical music listeners in the process.

Ottawacitizen.com reports that Ian Morrison, the head of Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, says the programming change means the CBC is abandoning part of its core mission. The website quotes Morrison as saying:

"... this is a radical change. It (the CBC) is moving away from something only the public broadcaster can do to something many private broadcasters already do. And they are shoving classical music into the 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. low audience ghetto.

"The Canadian public broadcaster has a responsibility to transmit world classical culture to new generations of Canadians. They are substantially moving away from that responsibility. They falsely assume that world classical culture is not something that can be marketed to appeal to younger audiences."

WXEL On The Block Again

Barry University is once again seeking buyers for WXEL, the public radio station located in Boynton Beach, FL and its companion PBS station WXEL Channel 42.

The university is said to have purchased WXEL for some $4 million in 1997 and invested twice that much in the station. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports the private Catholic university has tried for the last four years to sell WXEL. One of the prime suitors has been Educational Broadcasting, which owns WNET Channel 13 in New York City.

Purchase proposals are being accepted by the university until Sept. 12.

NPR Blogger/Commentator of My Cancer Dies

Leroy Sievers (shown covering the war in Iraq at right), the former ABC journalist who blogged and spoke about his life with cancer, died Friday at the age of 53. He wrote about his life and health in My Cancer on NPR.org.

According to a story on NPR.org, "Sievers was first treated for colon cancer in 2001. Four years later, the cancer returned, this time in his brain and lung. Doctors told him he probably had less than six months to live.

"Instead, for 2 1/2 years, he was able to treat the cancer with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation."

NYC Council Wants PPM Investigation

The New York City Council is considering a motion asking the Federal Communications Commission to investigate Arbitron's Portable People Meters (PPM), saying the technology includes racial and ethnic biases. Radio Ink quotes Council Speaker Christine Quinn (right) saying:

"Local and minority-owned radio has been a crucial tool in keeping communities informed and active. We must take every precaution before implementing a rating system that could shut these stations down forever. We are calling on Arbitron to delay its implementation of this system in order for the FCC to finish their investigation into the potential bias in the methodology."

Thom Mocarsky of Arbitron said the company plans to continue its voluntary discussions with the FCC, the New York City Council and Black-owned and Spanish language radio to explain the PPM ratings system.

Doc and Sutton Blog on Pubradio

Two recent blog posts about public radio that we thought might be of interest to readers:

Doc Searls wrote about his use of public radio (WBUR) and iPods in a post called "Radio Now".

John Sutton poses some insightful observations about growing the audience and psychographics in"If Public Radio Really Wants to Grow the Audience".

Have a good midsummer weekend!

WNKU to Offer PM News & Music Magazine

Cincinnati station, WNKU, will be changing some of their programming and starting a new "innovative inhouse produced news and music magazine called Consider This" from 4-5:30 pm weekdays. A press release said it:

...will include national and international news from NPR and the BBC,plus more local news from our great team headed by Craig Kopp. Condensed business, real estate,
and antiquing features will be provided by some of the folks you recognize... We’ll add some new features- like tips on green living, and other regional, cultural, and social concerns. There will also be interviews with musical artists we play and best of all – splashes of GREAT MUSIC woven between the news and information pieces.

They will also be rearranging some of the shows in their current lineup. All of the changes will take effect on September 1.

RadioMilwaukee Promotes Two

Sam Van Hallgren is the new director of programming and content and Scott Mullins is the new music director at RadioMilwaukee, a.k.a. WYMS-FM. The announcement was made by J. Mikel Ellcessor, executive director of Radio For Milwaukee, which operates the station.

Van Hallgren has been assistant program director since March. He joined RadioMilwaukee in September of 2006 as producer and production manager.

Mullins has been the station’s afternoon drive-time host since RadioMilwaukee launched its new
format in February 2007. Mullins has also hosted “414 Music,” a live in-studio performance and interview program with local musicians.

First Arbitron PPM Measurement of Digital Radio

Blogging from the auditorium of Arbitron HQ in Columbia, MD, where a consultant's PPM Fly-In is underway. We just got an initial summary of the first PPM results about measurement of internet radio streams and HD radio. These data report on encoded internet and HD streams from markets now being measured. They do not include internet-only stations (i.e. Yahoo radio) or podcasts. A few quick highlights:

1) 7% of the measured audience used digital radio in July. Among 25-54 respondents the number was 9%.

2) They have picked up small amounts of HD listening, but the numbers are not significant.

3) Online radio is a workplace phenomenon. The overwhelming proportion of online listening is done in middays on weekdays. 78% of online radio listening is way from home.

4) Online listening skews heavily toward 25-54 listeners.

5) Four seperately encoded digital radio stations met minimum reporting requirements in July. None were public stations. Note: they are seeing listening to many more digital stations but the amount of listening is below reporting standards.

"Why We Hate Us"

Dick Meyer, NPR's editorial director of digital media has a new book out: Why We Hate Us. (Random House; ISBN 978-0-307-40662-0 (0-307-40662-8))

According to a blurb on the Random House website, Meyer claims these are just a few of the things causing "disenchantment with our own culture":

• Cell-phone talkers broadcasting the intimate details of their lives in public spaces
• Worship of self-awareness, self-realization, and self-fulfillment
• T-shirts that read, “Eat Me”
• Facebook, MySpace, and kids being taught to market themselves
• High-level cheating in business and sports
• Reality television and the cosmetic surgery boom
• Multinational corporations that claim, “We care about you.”
• The decline of organic communities
• A line of cosmetics called “S.L.U.T.”
• The phony red state–blue state divide
• The penetration of OmniMarketing into OmniMedia and the insinuation of both into every facet of our lives.
  

And, here is a review from Amazon.com about Meyer's book:

"Dick Meyer has done the impossible -- he diagnoses the self-loathing, moral confusion and ennui that infect supersized America without hectoring us and badgering us, and without tiresome self-righteousness or smugness. Why We Hate Us takes us on a rollicking, laugh-out-loud ride across the brittle American landscape, and by 'us' I mean all of us -- liberal and conservative, black and white, city-dwellers, suburbanites and farmers. Dick Meyer understands that our national culture is on life-support, and he has thought long and hard about how to resuscitate it. Read this book, if not for you, than for your children, and for the America they will inherit."
—Jeffrey Goldberg, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent and author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror

Group Seeks Input on Open Source

You may have noticed a request on the PUBRADIO listserve last week from a group called PubForge - "a non-commercial group of volunteers working to develop a set of collaborative open-source tools to serve the needs of the public broadcasting community." They are looking for feedback on "what the current state of the art is in public media, what tools and resources are most needed, and what collective capabilities are available to draw upon to meet these needs through collaborative effort."

We inquired about the group and found that it includes individuals from North Country Public Radio, IMA Public Media Metrics project, KJZZ, WILL, KUSP, Wisconsin Public Radio, WUSF and Quiddites.

If you'd like to participate in their survey, it can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=YuqPiksUlPgtrQa7MHlNfA_3d_3d.

Klose Comments on Disappearing Voices & Journalism of 'Outcry and Distortion'

Speaking in Bar Harbor, ME, NPR CEO Kevin Klose warned about continuing media consolidation and the decline of "local voices". From the podium of the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Klose also decried the rise of competition-driven journalism that relies more on opinion and sensationalism than fact.

The Bangor Daily News reports on Klose's comments:

"The increased competition has led to increased media consolidation, he said, which despite the greater number of television channels and Internet outlets has led to fewer local, independent media voices. This has been the case especially with radio... Pretty soon, the local voices disappear entirely."

Klose also said much of the national media has has changed its news coverage in response to the instant access provided by the Internet and accessed by cell phones and other portable devices. Changing access has increased competition. said Klose, which has given rise to journalism built on "opinion, denouncement, outcry and distortion".

New Host at Weekend America

In his Monkey Disaster blog, John Moe yesterday announced that he will be the new host of Weekend America beginning August 16. According to the post:

The show has been based in L.A. and St Paul but it was decided that we would consolidate operations in St Paul. From a hosting perspective, that means that Bill Radke who has been hosting the show from there will no longer be with the program. Meanwhile, Des Cooper who has been hosting the show from St Paul along with Bill will become a Sr. Correspondent based in Detroit where she lives (she's been commuting between Detroit and St Paul for the last year). So we'll have one host and it will be me.

Moe co-hosted Weekend America on July 26 (audio here) with Bill Radke. He is the author of "Conservatize Me: How I Tried to Become a Righty with the Help of Richard Nixon, Sean Hannity, Toby Keith and Beef Jerky".

Update: American Public Media has notified stations of this change and will be posting the information on their site soon.

10 More Stations Receive CPB Funding

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has announced the addition of 10 stations that qualify for funding in fiscal 2009 through the Community Service Grant program. The 10 new stations are:

• KALA-FM, Davenport, IA, licensee: St. Ambrose University;
• KCUW-FM, Pendleton, OR, licensee: Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation
• KDLL-FM, Kenai, AK, licensee: Pickle Hill Public Broadcasting, Inc.;
• KISU-FM, Pocatello, ID, licensee: Idaho State University;
• KRTS-FM, Marfa, TX, licensee: Marfa Public Radio Corporation;
• KSRQ-FM, Thief River Falls, MN, licensee: Northland Community and Technical College;
• KVSC-FM, St. Cloud, MN, licensee: St. Cloud State University;
• WFHB-FM, Bloomington, IN, licensee: Bloomington Community Radio, Inc.;
• WKCP-FM, Miami, FL, licensee: American Public Media Group;
• WRFA-FM, Jamestown, NY, licensee: Arts Council for Chautauqua County, Inc.

Haas Makes 'Jazz Connections'

SFGate, the online presence of The San Francisco Chronicle, carries an Associated Press story about Jazz Connections, a new program developed by Interlochen Public Radio in northern Michigan.

The show is hosted by jazz musician and civil rights activist Jeff Haas, son of the late Karl Haas who hosted Adventures in Good Music for over 40 years.

The article says:

"The show is a twist on the standard jazz format. It's not often jazz radio shows intersperse Jimi Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" or Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A'Changing" with the trumpeting of Miles Davis and John Coltrane's sensual saxophoning. Can Thelonious Monk peacefully coexist with The Police?"

Haas says that Jazz Connections focuses on the "common threads (that) run through many musical genres". He says exploring those common themes will help listeners more deeply appreciate the music, composers and performers.