It is a quest as old as radio itself – how do we reach out to a new audience without alienating the one we have? And the more established the brand, the more there is to lose.
One of the reasons I got into the research end of the business was an intrinsic belief that research could answer many questions that would lead to larger audiences, better service, and greater profitability. By asking the audience about their tastes, desires, and preferences, smart programmers would come up with just the right combination of art and science to deliver.
Well, most of the time. Great research is no guarantee of high ratings, or in the case of non-commercial radio, larger donations. But in the hands of the right team, it often works that way, especially when you’re dealing with fundamental programming questions – do they like this benchmark bit over that one, are they more familiar with this song than they were two weeks ago, and which billboard do they remember seeing in the past year.
In fact, those are the easy ones, the ones that are of the “Q&A” variety.
But the question posed at the top of this post is considerably more complex. It requires nuance – the ways in which questions are written, asked, ordered, analyzed, and correlated. It is why so often you hear consultants advise, “Stay in your lane.” It’s the easiest piece of advice you can give a client. “Keep your eye on the prize.” “Don’t lose your focus.” “Don’t forget what got you to the dance.”
Most will tell you branching out to new and different audiences can be a dangerous game for a brand, especially one that is established, successful, and fulfilling its mission. Yet, public radio is the only broadcasting platform that’s been obsessed with this goal, at least since Jacobs Media has worked in the space.
Our first encounter was a fortuitous one. Thanks to public radio guru Mark Fuerst and Larry Rosin, we were recommended to receive a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting way back in 1997. “The
Territories Project” as it was dubbed, was designed to be a thorough “environmental scan” of the medium just a handful of years after the Internet’s breakthrough. CPB was interested in learning how new media and technology would impact local public radio stations across America.
It was a heady project that consumed much of our time that year, compiling, tracking, and keeping up with the first dotcom revolution, the coming launch of satellite radio, the impact of streaming radio, and the many advancements that were just around the corner. We ended up writing the equivalent of a PhD dissertation because the landscape was already changing at a hyper-fast rate. Soon after, we were hired by NPR to conduct large swaths of their audience research, a quick introduction to the day to day operation of public radio at its zenith, thanks in no small part to the presence and patience of executives that included Jay Kernis, Jackie Nixon, Margaret Low Smith, Dana Davis Rehm, Joyce MacDonald, Doug Berman, and others.
And from those beginnings, we heard the questions about expanding the audience to include younger and more ethnically diverse listeners. We conducted several projects designed to uncover those truths and the degrees of difficulty expanding public radio’s horizons. While some of the studies provided insights, they also illustrated just how tenuous these goals were.
In the years since, we have been honored to participate in and lead several studies that gnawed at the edges of these questions. Back in 2016, it was “The Millennial Project,” an ethnographic study of young public
radio listeners, designed to identify the many ways they consume media that differed from their parents and grandparents. We have also been fortunate to do work for dozens of public radio stations and organizations from Washington to Maine and everywhere in between, in addition to work for American Public Media and the BBC. While all this work had unique goals and designs, the central question revolving around audience expansion and diversification hovered over them all like a nagging cloud.
In 2022, we had something of a breakthrough – a project happened along from Maine Public (radio and TV), recipient of a Google News Initiative (GNI) Innovation Grant. Their digital director, Rob Holt, described the work this way:
“One of the key pillars of Maine Public’s current strategic plan is The Audience of Tomorrow. We want to serve the underserved and increase our 18-
24 audience size & engagement. I’ve known Jacobs Media and their work for over 20 years, and they were my first call. Their work with the public radio Techsurvey is invaluable to us. But that study covers our existing audiences, and to meet our strategic goals, we also need to know who is NOT a part of our current audiences. How can we find these new audiences and meet them where they are? And once we find them, how can we measure success?”
It was a heavy lift, a complex project, and we frankly needed more firepower. Enter Mark Ramsey who we’ve partnered with on various research and strategic projects for decades. Mark is an incisive, creative, and innovative researcher, exactly who we needed to tackle the GNI challenge. Together, we looked at the entire state of Maine, as well as Maine Public’s core audience of listeners, viewers, and of course, members. We created persons from that work, the data that will help them and other public media organizations identify opportunities congruent with their existing missions in their markets. At the end of this post you can download a white paper we have written with our vision of the next adjacent opportunity for public radio.
These initiatives will likely run the content gamut, created for a potpourri of media distribution outlets. They might be streams, podcasts, video channels, or something else. In other words, not limited to over the air radio broadcasts. But they could, in fact, end up on the radio, depending on the persona mix clients identify and pursue.
As Rob notes:
“We can now clearly see our entire audience picture — who is in the audience, and who is not. We’re using this data when evaluating new and existing content creation — deliberately targeting one or more segments. Then we measure the success of those efforts, and we have the data to help us better reach our new and existing audiences. This is incredibly useful and actionable data.”
This month marks Jacobs Media’s 40th anniversary, a milestone I never expected to celebrate
back in 1983 when I walked away from radio programming to form this company. All these years later, we’ve been in the middle of many exciting and challenging projects. They’ve all made us better at analyzing radio’s position in the marketplace today and down the road.
At this juncture in the company’s history, I welcome these major lift, eat-the-elephant challenges. We have a strong desire to help the radio broadcasting industry get through its existential challenges, and to live up to its potential and tradition of being a medium that matters to our society.
Moving forward, credit also needs to go to the respective heads of SRG, PRPD, and Greater Public for taking on the leadership role and responsibility – having the vision to drive the next adjacent audience expansion process. Also kudos to the public radio stations who had the collaborative vision to provide market-level, proprietary research projects that were included in an analysis from City Square Associates. Bill Davis (SRG), Abby Goldstein (PRPD), and Joyce MacDonald had the greater good of the public radio community in mind when they put this plan together. Knowing the generosity of public radio people, I’m sure they didn’t have to twist too many arms to okay the use of these studies. That’s how public radio rolls.
They hired researchers City Square Associates to aggregate and analyze more than two dozen studies conducted by public radio stations. The goal? Identify common threads in the research that could inform the system on key trends facing the platform. A “Meta-Analysis” did just that, followed by “The Playbook,” a list of actions stations might want to consider.
Kudos to Inside Radio for covering this important public radio story last week, also including links to both documents. You can access their story here.
On Tuesday to kick off the PRPD Content Conference, City Square founder and president, Chris Schiavone will break down the findings of his company’s analysis. This presentation will set the tone for sessions, panels, and keynotes that follow over the next several days. I’m honored to once again present the top-line findings of PRTS 2023 to wrap up the first day. My slot is the very last item of the where I hope to “bookend” Chris’s morning opener. I’ll be showing findings from PRTS that directly had insight and specific data points to Chris’ prescription of how public radio can optimize its position in the media community.
This year’s PRTS study is our 15th, comprised of 64 public radio “stakeholder” stations. We
generated more than 27,000 responses, and key topics this year include a deep dive on “local,” fundraising, and of course, AI. I’m excited to show it off tomorrow at PRPD. (We will schedule a free webinar for any and all interested parties next month, so stay tuned for that.)
The next weeks and months will be revealing for public radio, especially heading into what promises to be a tumultuous election in 2024. Give these stations and their organizations credit. They aren’t just asking the gnarly, existential questions – they are actively trying to understand and solve them, rather than kicking the can down the road.
All of radio should be hoping the are successful with this endeavor.
It starts this week at PRPD.
Download our white paper here. Hope to see you at PRPD.
Jacobs Media has consistently walked the walk in the digital space, providing insights and guidance through its well-read national Techsurveys.
In 2008, jacapps was launched - a mobile apps company that has designed and built more than 1,300 apps for both the Apple and Android platforms. In 2013, the DASH Conference was created - a mashup of radio and automotive, designed to foster better understanding of the "connected car" and its impact.
Along with providing the creative and intellectual direction for the company, Fred consults many of Jacobs Media's commercial and public radio clients, in addition to media brands looking to thrive in the rapidly changing tech environment.
Fred was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2018.
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Public Radio has huge additional potential. Pages from both the Public and Commercial Radio Books combine to add more success to all forms of radio – news, information and music in all markets. Don’t let isolation and snob appeal limit possibilities. Great Radio Remains Great Radio.
Indeed, Clark. Thanks for commenting.
Why doesn’t commercial radio hire some of the standouts from Public Radio you mentioned? They seem to be much more up to the task of reaching younger people than the current people at the top. It’ll also be interesting to see how radio reacts if this project is successful – will they adopt some of it, or continue down their current path?
It’s a good question, Bob. I’m not sure many in public radio desire to make the move. But there are some smart, innovative minds on the public side. As you note, let’s see if this project succeeds. Fingers crossed.