Programming Defines Community

A Plenary Session at the
Public Radio Program Directors Conference:
St. Petersburg, FL – September 18, 1998

Delivered by David Giovannoni

Written with the assistance of the AUDIENCE 98 Core Team:
Leslie Peters and Jay Youngclaus

We all know that our programming causes our audience. We also know that our programming serves our community. But have you ever stopped to consider how our programming defines our community?

By "community," I don’t mean the place where our listeners live. The community I’m talking about is defined by what listeners believe and think and value. It’s a community of interests.

It used to be the only way to define community was by geographic proximity. That was well before the Internet, before television or radio, before telephones or the telegraph – before these inventions annihilated distance and made it possible to talk with like-minded people, wherever they lived.

Today community is best understood as an association of shared beliefs and interests. And in this way, radio audiences are communities. Listeners choose their stations based on sympathies rather than proximities. They connect with their neighbors in psychological space rather than geographical space.

The space in which our community of public radio listeners lives is defined by the values, beliefs, and attitudes that we as programmers so ardently infuse into our programming.

The people next-door may live in Limbaugh land. But our listeners live in Public Radio land. And in a very real way that sets them apart from most of their neighbors.

In fact, our listeners have more in common with each other than they have with many of their next-door neighbors.

Programmers, producers, and talent – we all would do well to understand what AUDIENCE 98^®  has learned about this community. It has certain needs that we can serve better. It has certain desires that can guide our creative and financial investments. It has certain standards that we ignore at our own peril.

A Community of Global Citizens

One thing we know for sure about our listeners – they embrace a world that’s larger than city streets, county lines, even state and national borders.

They see themselves as global citizens. They dwell in virtual communities that extend beyond their homes, families, neighborhoods, and jobs. They have the resources and the psychological orientation to augment these associations – to connect with people who believe and value what they do, no matter where they live.

We know this through VALSä2  – a system that categorizes people by their resources and self-orientations. Our audience is dominated by what VALS calls Actualizers and Fulfilleds – well-educated, culturally aware, active participants in life.

Our listeners are interested in issues, committed to principles, and involved in causes. They share social and cultural values that are shunned by other Americans. They seek public radio when they travel or move. They have a "sense of community" that transcends geography.

In fact, this sense of community is so closely held by listeners, that it forces us to reexamine the entire concept of what is local.

Localism in psychic space is far different than localism in geographic space. Listeners tell us we need to rethink our definition of a local community – because most of them don’t live there.

What is "local" to our community of Global Citizens?

AUDIENCE 98 offers this paradoxical guidance: Our network programming serves our local listeners better than our local programming does.

Not only are listeners more loyal to national programming,

They value it more highly; they consider it more important in their lives.

They are much more willing to support it financially;

And in network programming, listeners find a sense of community that resonates with their values, beliefs, and attitudes – a sense of community they don’t find in local programming.

This is a strong message from our listeners. They’re telling us that they define community differently than we do. And when we define "local" by the place our programming originates, we’re pretty much missing the point.

Think Global, Program Local

Accepting our listeners’ definition of localism doesn’t mean that we all run home, close our studios, and hardwire the network into the transmitter. It does mean, though, that we need to bring the quality and sensibilities of the best network programming to every minute of our broadcast day.

Listeners are telling us to think globally when we produce locally.

What national trends are reflected in our local politics?

How do issues close to home inform a broader debate?

Who among our neighbors is helping to solve problems common to all people?

Answer these questions, produce with a quality that matches the best network services, and we augment the listener’s global perspective with stories happening in their back yards.

We can only do this locally, and it’s a terrific service when we address these broader questions.

But ignore them – ignore what interests this global community – and we stop talking to these Global Citizens. I know many of you sense this to be true. I also know many of us forget this from time to time.

Like when we do our pledge drives.

Pledge Drive Damage

Programming defines community, so when on-air drives disrupt this programming, they also disrupt this community – with predictable results.

We asked listeners what they think about on-air pledge drives, and the findings shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Half say they listen less or tune out completely;

Six-in-10 say that drives are not getting easier to listen to;

And three-fourths perceive that drives are getting more prevalent.

Again, this is no surprise. Programming attracts Global Citizens to the public radio community. When we change its sound or its sensibilities, we take that programming away. In fact, we induce a serious case of programmatus interruptus.

But hey, that’s not our fault. We do programming, not pledge drives. That’s the Development Director’s doing.

Well, listeners don’t make this distinction. To them,

pledge drives are programming.

And their opinion of that programming today isn’t real high.

We all hear what Development Directors are doing during those gawdawful drives. But they’re fundraising professionals – we’re the programming professionals – and what are we doing?

We’re eating the volunteers’ doughnuts. That’s a given. But some of us abandon our posts. We turn our air over to programming amateurs. We forget everything we know about public service and good programming. We totally abrogate our responsibilities.

Listeners despise pledge drives not because of what Development folks are doing – but because of what we’re not doing! Think about it. On-air pledge drives work. But they do cause damage. Imagine how much better they’d work when we turn them into good programming – programming worth listening to in its own right – programming that squarely addresses the values, beliefs, and attitudes of our community – programming that doesn’t cause damage.

Pledge drives are ours to fix. What AUDIENCE 98 contributes to this task is its refined understanding of our Global Citizenry.

Sense of Community Campaign

We’ve assumed for years that public radio listeners share a sense of community. AUDIENCE 98 confirms sense of community as a statistically verified construct – a part of the personal importance that contributes to listener support.

Building on this idea and the work of others, AUDIENCE 98 has created positive messages designed to mitigate pledge drive damage, designed to resonate with the values that bring people to our programming.

We call it the Sense of Community Campaign, and it rejects the merchandising approach to fundraising that so many of our colleagues seem to like so much. That’s the approach that makes public TV indistinguishable from the Home Shopping Network during its drives.

Recently, we posted more than two dozen Sense of Community scripts on our web site. Let me read a portion of one. Listen to how it speaks to the values of our listeners – how it addresses their higher natures – how it confirms the reality of public radio as their community, worthy of support.

There’s a community we all know.

You won’t find it on any map.

It’s situated in a state of mind that stretches from Congress to the Kremlin…from Car Talk Plaza to Carnegie Hall.

It’s anywhere ideas come together and events unfold…where fascinating people visit everyday and share information, insights and a few laughs.

It’s the Public Radio Community.

Anywhere you live or listen, it’s home.

Think Locally, Produce Nationallly

We can use these Sense of Community messages locally or nationally. And who better to deliver them than program hosts – in their own programs – in the context of what listeners have tuned in to hear?

Ira does it in This American Life. Tom and Ray do it in Car Talk. Yet while they cut hundreds of spots a year for stations, we never hear Bob Edwards do it in Morning Edition, or Robert Siegel do it in ATC, or Scott Simon do it in Weekend Edition.

In fact, we’re told not to air pre-recorded pitches that feature these community leaders in the programs they host. It’s "NPR policy." This is goofy!  Wouldn’t it be a lot more powerful to hear Scott Simon ask for support during his show than someone else’s?

I’m told the issue is one of "journalistic integrity" – as though asking listeners to support our community is like asking them to buy a certain brand of cigarette, as Edward R. Murrow was forced to do.

Now don’t get me wrong – among our Global Citizens, integrity is critical – compromise it and we undermine what makes us so valuable to them. But our listeners are exceptionally smart and sophisticated about these things. They realize our enterprise is a public service, and that it depends on their support.

Ira Glass gets it. Doug Berman gets it. So do Alex Chadwick and Neal Conan, who break ranks to host NPR’s pitch break channels.

It’s good policy to be motivated and guided by our listeners. We should be as proud to ask for community support … as our listeners are to give it. That’s especially true for our best talent in the context of our best programs.

All Fundraising is Programming

Our programming defines and creates virtual communities for our listeners. Take it away and they’re virtually homeless. That’s why they keep coming back after our gawdawful drives – there’s no where else to go.

At least, not yet.

Today the economy is strong, politicians are preoccupied, and no amalgamated radio owner has yet to move into the community that we currently have to ourselves. What better time to address pledge drive damage – to approach all on-air fundraising as programming – to put it under the control of programming professionals who can speak directly to the cause of giving?

Because times will change – and when they do we’ll be the homeless ones if we can’t treat our citizens better than this.

Rather than interrupt or take away programming that listeners value, we can enhance it with messages that remind and demonstrate to listeners why they should support it.

Rather than turn our efforts over to fundraisers with whom the audience has no connection, we can work with our best talent to do out best work.

Okay – enough of that. We know that all fundraising is programming. Now let’s turn that around, and talk about how all programming is fundraising.

All Programming is Fundraising

AUDIENCE 98 confirms that our decisions as programmers have a larger impact on public support than our development activities do. It shows us that people support public radio for some very explicit reasons – and most of them are under our direct control as programmers!

1. They listen. Our programming serves them. They tune in. It’s a part of their lives. Now that’s pretty obvious to everyone today but 20 years ago it was an open question whether non-listeners – people outside of our community – would give. Today we’re certain – they don’t. That’s because

2. People who give to public radio rely on our service. I mean rely on it – they listen so often that we’re essentially programming the soundtrack of their lives. If you’ve been to an AudiGraphics seminar you know why we focus on occasions, or tune-ins. Givers tune in an average of 11 times a week – often every day each week – and most hear more than five or six different programs or formats in a week. That’s a pretty good operational definition of reliance, and it’s a key step towards support. And not only that….

3. Givers consider our programming personally important in their lives. Not only is it a presence, it is a valued presence that would be missed deeply were it to go away. If I didn’t say it before, I’ll say it now: a listener’s sense of community is a component of the station’s importance in their lives. Personal importance is a rich, deep, and emotional connection to our programming.

4. Givers believe that listener support is vital – and that government and institutional support is minimal. This confirms what we saw a few years ago – that listeners will give more freely when government and institutional support is threatened.

These components of giving – listening, reliance, and personal importance – each are founded squarely on our program service. Each is under our direct control.

Again, all programming is fundraising.

We’ve just looked at the things that influence giving. Let’s turn next to the things that influence the size of the gift.

As any Development person can tell you, people who have more money can give more money. In fact, for every $10 that the AUDIENCE 98 Giving model can explain,

FOUR dollars are influenced by listeners’ household incomes.

However,

THREE dollars are influenced by their reliance on the service;

TWO dollars are influenced by the importance of the service in their lives;

and, if they’re Actualizers, they’ll give us an extra buck.

Personal importance of our programming in the listeners’ life, and his or her reliance on our programming service – together are more important than his or her ability to ability to afford the gift.

In fact – putting it all together – we see that programming (in green) dominates readiness to give and makes up half of the motivation determining gift size.

Again, all programming is fundraising.

The inescapable conclusion is this:

PDs, producers, and talent have more control over development efforts than our development colleagues do.

Don’t get me wrong – development is critical. But fundraising activities can only trigger a gift – programming causes the gift.

Your station’s ability to raise listener support rests more heavily on your shoulders than you may have ever imagined.

As WAMU's Steve Martin wrote for AUDIENCE 98, "it’s our job – our responsibility – to focus our efforts, apply our resources and channel our creativity into this challenge."

And you’re eating the volunteers’ doughnuts.

Only by making our service more compelling, more reliable, more important in the lives of more people – only then will we have earned their support.

Appeal and Affinity

How do we do that? How do we make our services more compelling to more listeners?

One important way is to ensure that everything in our program schedules appeals to listeners of this community.

Are you providing the best service you can at all times? Have you filled all of your Core Cavities? That’s a major theme of this conference. It ain’t rocket science. When the core loyalty line goes down, fix it. These are people who like you best, and you're sending them away!

The problem may not be easy to fix, but it’s certainly easy to see.

It’s one thing to take programming off, but what do we replace it with? What programming meets a listener’s expectations of quality and community every time he or she tunes in?

Whether our programming comes from a satellite or is produced in our studios... Whether it’s news, entertainment, or pledge drives… It’s got to speak to your community.

Some programming will do this and some programming won’t. This is the concept of appeal and affinity introduced ten years ago by AUDIENCE 88. Programming serves listeners, and certain types of programming serves certain types of listeners and not others.

Let me be clear about this. We’ve talked about this Global Community. And like I said, this community is truly set apart from those who don’t listen. But there’s some diversity within this community. Programming that appeals to people on our west side may not appeal to people on our east side.

Once we choose the neighborhood we want to serve within our community, these are the things we have to do.

• Consistently choose programming that meets these neighbors’ general interests and immediate needs – that resonates with their values, beliefs and self-concepts. Don’t make exceptions to this rule, anytime. A daypart is a terrible thing to waste.
  
• Select programming that fits together – that has the same appeal.  Appeal is not based on format. It’s about our listeners’ likes and dislikes. They have a variety of interests but only one psychological profile – particular to the neighborhood in our community that you choose to serve.

Most of your intuitive ideas about affinity will be correct, but not always.

Robert Siegel earnestly reads the news; Garrison Keilor makes it up – but ATC and A Prairie Home Companion have very high affinity because they appeal to the exact same kind of listener.

What about music and money? Specifically Marketplace and AAA or classical music? In both cases, affinity is low, indicating that Marketplace and listeners to these kinds of music are not very much alike – that they live in different neighborhoods of our community.

How about Karl Haas and Performance Today? Do Karl and Martin Goldsmith make a happy couple? They do! There’s high affinity between these two programs, which means they serve listeners who share common characteristics.

Karl Haas and the blues? Karl may appeal to blue-haired old ladies but.... no affinity here. Their respective listeners live on far opposite sides of town.

 
Conclusion

Our programming doesn’t just serve a community – it defines that community – the nature of which was established years ago by the visionaries of our educational institutions, idealists of the Carnegie Commission, the pragmatists of the first Public Broadcasting Act.

Our citizens seek from public radio "our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky’s and our Camelot" – as author E.B. White wrote decades ago. They seek sanctuary from the "vast wasteland" once surveyed by Newton Minow. They continue to come back – more than 22 million a week – to an oasis designed by Bill Siemering to make them more intelligent beings, more responsible citizens. Citizens of the world. Citizens of public radio.

AUDIENCE 98 brings us new knowledge about listeners and their values, their desires, their likes and dislikes. It validates with statistical precision what many of us have believed and assumed for years. And it adds new knowledge and a deeper understanding. It’s up to each one of us to apply this information wisely, surely, and swiftly. As cherished as our community is today, we can make it an even better place to live tomorrow.

Listen to 17 minutes of questions and answers

 

For More Information

• Cause and Catalyst reminds us that fundraising efforts offer the catalyst, but a listener's longer-term relationship with all programming on the station is the cause of his or her support.  That's why It Don't Mean a Thing When Those Pledge Phones Don't Ring.

• A Sense of Community suggests that the "personal importance" of a station in a listener’s life embodies a sense of citizenship in a virtual community of public radio listeners.  Caveat Venditor (Seller Beware) melds our listeners’ sense of community with their deeply held values and casts serious ramifications for on-air pledge drives.

On-Air Drives.  AUDIENCE 98 examines The Effects of On-Air Pledge Drives On Listeners.

• The inherent strengths and weaknesses of on-air drives are addressed in "point-counterpoint" fashion: on air drives work because they hit the Bull's Eye; but notable Collateral Damage is the result.

• The problem lies in a single pitch’s inability to distinguish between givers and non-givers.  How Many Listeners Are Givers? makes the dilemma explicit.

• Driving Home The Numbers, stations are in pledge mode one out of every 29 hours they are on the air.   How much do these drives really disrupt listening?  Triangulating On The Effects Of On-Air Drives offers several answers.

• News/Talk listeners are no more willing than music listeners to stay tuned.  Formats And Fund Drives begs the question, Where Do We Go From Here?

 

Audience Research Analysis
Copyright © ARA and CPB.  All rights reserved.
Revised: September 01, 2000 12:38 PM.