Community Needs Assessment: KPFA Radio 94.1 FM October 2017 Presented to: The KPFA Local Station Board and Quincy McCoy, KPFA General Manager Produced by the KPFA Community Advisory Board: Craig Dunkerley Robin House Collin Karen Nyhus Rich Stone MaryAnn Thomas Page 1 Figure 1. CAB Members, left to right: Craig Dunkerley, Rich Stone, Karen Nyhus, Robin House Collin, MaryAnn Thomas Acknowledgements The CAB would like to thank those many members of the KPFA staff, governing board, and especially the listening community who took time to give us input, guidance, and help this year in producing this report. A special thanks to the following: Carol Wolfley, LSB Member and former CAB member, for attending CAB meetings to inform us of LSB activities and informed us about the streaming statistics; Quincy McCoy, KPFA General Manager, for helping promote the survey; Laura Prives, KPFA Program Director, for helping promote the survey; Mike Biggs, KPFA Traffic; for recording our membership, survey and meeting announcement “carts;” Sabrina Jacobs, KPFA programmer and staff LSB member, for getting our survey cart played regularly; Maria Negret, KPFA Business Manager, for paying our bills; Grassroots House in Berkeley, for providing us affordable, accessible public meeting space; Miguel Guerrero, KPFA webmaster, for helping us manage and update our CAB web page. Page 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary .............................................................................................................................................................. 4 Why This Report .................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Data Collection ...................................................................................................................................................................... 4 Additional CAB Observations & Recommendations .................................................................................................. 6 Question 1: How do you listen to KPFA? ................................................................................................................... 7 Question 2: What Programs do you listen to on KPFA? .................................................................................... 8 Question 3. What topics or resources do you want to hear about on KPFA? ...................................... 11 Question 4: How can KPFA better support the social movements, culture and activism you care about? ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 11 Question 5: What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s public affairs and news programs? 12 Question 6: What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s cultural and music programs? .......... 13 Question 7: Please list contact information for individuals and organizations you would like the KPFA Community Advisory Board (CAB) and staff to connect with: ......................................................... 15 Question 8: Please indicate your city and state (or country if outside the U.S.) ................................. 15 Other CAB activities this year .............................................................................................................................................. 15 Appendix 1: Survey Questions ......................................................................................................................................... 17 Appendix 2: Raw Data for Survey Responses ............................................................................................................ 20 Question 1. How do you listen? Other (please specify) ............................................................................ 20 Question 2: What programs do you listen to? ................................................................................................ 22 Question 3: What topics or resources do you want to hear about on KPFA? ................................ 22 Question 4: How can KPFA better support the social movements, culture and activism you care about? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 35 Question 5: What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s public affairs and news programs? .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 50 Question 6: What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s cultural and music programs? ..... 61 Question 7: Please list contact information for individuals and organizations you would like the KPFA Community Advisory Board (CAB) and staff to connect with. ............................................ 73 Question 8: Please indicate your city and state (or country if outside the U.S.). ........................... 84 Appendix 3: About the CAB ............................................................................................................................................ 91 Page 3 Executive Summary Why This Report - The Community Advisory Board (CAB) produces this annual Community Needs Assessment (CNA) to help station management and the Local Station Board better understand the cultural and educational needs of our listening audience. By producing this report, we are also doing our part to maintain KPFA’s eligibility for funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Data Collection – This year, the CAB transitioned back to electronic data collection. Compared to last year, the CAB was able to generate approximately 5 times the listener response (308) by using an online survey through SurveyMonkey.com. This approach proved much more efficient than holding town hall meetings and accrued responses from a much broader geographic area, yielding more representative results. Each response had a public IP address; there were only 3 duplicates (possibly 3 people using a common internet connection) and those 3 sets of responses were all different. This report is based primarily on these online survey responses but also includes 9 which were filled out on paper. Survey questions from last year were updated and now include additional modes of listening such as podcasts and streaming. From July – September, listeners were directed to the online survey by broadcast CARTs (very helpful; see chart on Acknowledgements page), a link on the CAB page of the KPFA website, a link on the KPFA home page (for a brief period), and flyers distributed by CAB members at various public events. (Complete answers and other raw data can be found in the Appendix to this report.) About the Timing Survey response rates skyrocketed after KPFA started promoting the survey on-air, and after the CAB flyered the peace rally in San Francisco’s Civic Center Park on August 26th: Figure 2: Number of electronic responses received by week. Page 4 Summary of Findings Question 1 – How do listeners listen? Even in our digital age, the survey revealed that the most common way of listening to KPFA is still on car or home radio. Live stream from the website and from the archive were the next two most common ways of listening. Question 2 – What programs to respondents listen to most? News and public affairs programs are still the most listened to. For example, 32 of the top 35 most listened to shows fell into this category. Democracy Now and Letters & Politics topped the list. Next in line were Pacifica Evening News, Against the Grain, and Flashpoints. The high listenership during the week for these shows correlates with peak listening times. The top two music programs were Across the Great Divide and Blues by the Bay, both of which air on weekends. Question 3 – What topics or resources do you want to hear about? Listeners expressed a desire for more local, community-based programming of all sorts. They would also like to hear more about alternative political party activities and not just those of the two major parties. On foreign affairs many listeners asked for more coverage of Palestine. Domestically they’d like to hear more coverage on the issue of health. And musically they’d like to hear more “world music.” Question 4 – How can KPFA better support movements and activism you care about? Listeners expressed desires for more of various kinds of coverage, especially on weekends and on local and real-time events. Question 5 – What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s news and public affairs programs? Among other things listeners asked for more local coverage, less use of wire services and better attribution when they are used, more news on weekends, more voices of the young, and more news/less music. They also asked for less strident tone/ranting and fewer conspiracy theories, with priority focused on truth and objectivity. There were conflicting opinions of various show hosts, foreign language programs and call-in shows. And many just encouraged KPFA to “keep up the good work.” Question 6 – What suggestions do you have about KPFA’s cultural and music programs? Most listeners commented on the music portion of the question. World music was frequently praised and there were a number of requests for more classical music. Some suggested tapping the local “Jam, Punk and Metal scenes.” Some stressed