Friday, September 5, 2014

The Problem(s) of Community Radio

A station I used to work at is in a financial crisis. I don't use that phrase capriciously. Membership has plummeted, the personal people meter rankings indicate that statistically, no one is listening and the volunteer nature of the programmers is caught up in petty discourse defending the value of their shows and lamenting the lack of a marketing budget to promote the programming.

From a staff perspective, most volunteers are a pain in the ass. They navel gaze, they're self absorbed and they have no understanding of audience behavior when it comes to radio tune in. In short, they cannibalize a station's mission by putting their show first.

I talk to a lot of people about why most community radio stations can't get their acts together, but what is really at the root of the problems facing hemorraghing audience, declining membership and shaky financial situations? A few ideas:

Programming Matters

The identifying characteristic of a community radio station is its eclectic program schedule. A volunteer comes in to do his or her show playing bluegrass music, then another volunteer comes in to host a half hour public affairs show about Central America, and then another, and another. Each program is its own universe, but unlike the real universe there is no unifying stardust to make sense of the program schedule as a whole. And that's what the listener needs to stay tuned in: they need to expect something consistent, competently produced and compelling to listen to.

Community radio stations that have let their volunteer programmers languish or not held them accountable are ultimately setting up their stations to become unlistenable...which takes us to Reason #2:

Membership STILL Matters

It's amazing, isn't it? But those fuddy duddy pledge drives still pull in the dollars. Whether you're large NPR station or a little, rural community station, it's a significant part of the station's revenue.

When the programming is uneven, what are you asking people to invest in? Media access? Let's face it: that's a non starter. There was a very dear board member at a community radio station who passionately believed people would give to the station is a media access institution. It's a lovely vision, but it has a lot of problems to it, the chief one being that community radio stations provide access unevenly and without equity. It's not entirely their fault - there isn't much a community radio station do about the fact that more people tune in at 5pm then at 5am.

Most community radio stations, especially those in large urban markets, have fallen into the trap of high cost premiums as a method to lure members, or keep them with the station. The cost per dollar to keep a member has increased. It's a one off, and in the long term, a losing strategy. It's not addressing the fundamental issue of the station, which is that the programming and the scheduling of the programming is failing to attract an audience.


Community Radio Doesn't Get Digital, or Mobile

And the fundamental reason why community radio stations can't get their acts together: the volunteers and the station staff don't have the skills or the vision to piece together a multi-platform community media organization. They're stuck in the community radio mindset of the 1970's and 80's. The volunteers saw the internet in the 1990's and envisioned listening skyrocketing thanks to online streaming. That never happened.

A few stations have positioned themselves as digital first community media outlets: they've  made significant investments in their website, hired personnel to manage volunteer blogs to create a steady stream of web content that by default creates awareness about the station and these stations have also gone through laborious, and at times painful processes to evolve the mindset of the volunteers. And it took time - there is no silver bullet and there is no short term path.

In the early 2000's, foundations - in particular the Knight Foundation - was very interested in participatory journalism, media access and eventually, community engagement. Community radio was poised to evolve and work with a funder to shift their work into more outward facing organizations. It is probably the single greatest failure of community radio as a sector that they did not take advantage of the funding that was available nor had the leadership or the vision to see the writing on the wall. And they are paying for it dearly today.

8 comments:

jd said...

I would add that leadership needs to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate. Entrenched leadership especially needs to question itself, pay attention to and seek out qualitative and quantitative data and be willing to respond. What worked last year (let alone five or ten years ago) may not work today.

Matthew Lasar said...

hey RadioAnnGal. You feel like writing a few posts for Radio Survivor? contact me at matthew@radiosurvivor.com if so . . .

Tony Bryant said...

Very worthwhile analysis of the situation from a top-down point of view, but your criticisms of volunteers is undeserved by the majority of people who seek to be able to contribute to the diversity that Community Radio allows.
The precise reason for the existence of Community Radio (and for that matter Community TV) is to serve those cultural, special-interest or other minority communities-of-interest that main-stream media outlets do not.
If a CR station were to steam-roller it’s volunteers into a homogenous mediochre `team’, then that purpose would be lost.
True, CR stations need to attract sponsorships and other funds, but I think that goal is obscured within the way that boards manage their volunteers, and how boards seem to take a hands-off-the-steering-wheel approach to external station promotion and nurturing of local community support.
Individual boards will undoubtedly have differing views on how that could be achieved in their target community, but their goal should be to be seen as `our local station’ by their target community, rather than allow the widepsread establishment of a general public perception that the only time people hear the name of the CR station is once a year for the annual fund-raising drive.
I’ve sat on a number of committees and boards both in Australia and in the UK, of CR organisations and other voluntary groups, and sadly the general tendency in my experience was for members to promise the earth to get themselves elected and then do little or nothing for the remaining 11 months of the year.
I strived to do the job for which I was elected for every organisation that gave me honour of sitting on their board, but in general, I tended to fall out with my less enthusisatic, lazier colleagues.
My experiences have left me confirmed in the view that sitting on CR boards was a waste of my time and (considerable) skills, and I now find better things to do with my spare time.

Otis Maclay said...

YES!
I should mention that much of what you aaid about the volunteers is a function of the culture at the station.
And, as a nod to our former president who may end up a first husband, 'it's the programming, stupid.'
Thsnk for your coherence.

Ken Mills Agency, LLC said...

This is an excellent post. To me one of the biggest problems is that many stations still use the *toxic* Pacifica governance model. If you follow this model you may be doomed to Pacifica's fate. One solution: FIRE YOUR PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE. Empower a programmer who focuses on listeners, not internal turf wars. Check out my blog: American Community Radio at http://acrnewsfeed.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

To lead a community station today, you need to be part Steve Jobs and part Bill Clinton. First you have see/innovate the future, and then sell it to a reluctant staff who really wants to cling to the past. I think it will get a lot worse before it gets better as their just isn't that sorta programming or leadership talent in radio anymore.

JohnHerald said...

Boards and staff, to use the phrase, all need someone they can bleed on. Rather than take responsibility for their own deficiencies, they invariably pick on the lowest on the totem pole, volunteers. So to complain about "navel gazers" - the shortsightedness and ego centrism of others - is to condone the very same behavior of those who instead should be providing leadership to their stations. Furthermore, denigrating volunteers as "pains in the ass" is anathema to community radio and the idea behind it. If you don't like the involvement of everyday citizens in community stations, I suggest there's a much happier future for you in public broadcasting and other mainstream media.

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