Utah Public Radio Local Content and Services Annual Report FY16 July 1, 2015 – June 30, 2016

Overall Goals

The mission of Utah Public Radio is to enrich the lives of listeners throughout the state of Utah with quality programming designed to inspire the mind, engage the imagination, and perpetuate the habit of lifelong learning.

Our vision is to provide exceptional statewide programming, national news, public affairs, and cultural entertainment programs. Through our outreach, our programs, and our use of emerging technologies, we build and bring communities of our state together by becoming a leading radio programming resource, empowering our listeners to become active participants in shaping the future.

UPR’s flagship community engagement program, Access Utah, unites listeners with opportunities to discuss ideas of great import with people they might not otherwise encounter. Listener suggestions and participation help mold this daily hour-long program via call-in segments, email, and social media in real-time interaction. Topics ranking high in listener participation include public lands, the 2016 election, refugee voices, air quality, water quality, climate, equal rights, and religion.

Local news reports, features, and newscasts further augment coverage of community issues. Utah Public Radio is a network of six full power stations and 30 translators. To address statewide topics, UPR utilizes independent correspondents who file timely news stories from central, southeast and southwest Utah.

Key Initiatives and Partnerships

Listener Survey

In February 2015, UPR initiated an extensive member and listener survey to assess community issues, needs, and interests. The results were quite informative and helped guide programming considerations. UPR implemented significant program changes effective August 10, 2016 in alignment with listener preferences and recommendations.

For news lovers UPR added Here & Now, a NPR co-production with WBUR in Boston. A diverse selection of BBC programs have been added, namely Assignment, The Inquiry, The Conversation, Trending, Business Daily, Witness, The Forum, and The Arts Hour. UPR has also developed a partnership with the Salt Lake Tribune to air Behind the Headlines, a weekly roundtable discussion about top stories in Utah news.

Many new programs focus on the arts, such as q from the CBC and Live Wire! from PRI. Performance and storytelling arts are showcased in The Moth from PRX and NPR’s Bullseye. Humor and trivia are the focus of Ask Me Another.

Science takes center stage with Radiolab, BBC Discovery, and Marketplace Tech Report. A new collaboration with USU’s College of Science called Science by the Slice airs in feature format throughout the broadcast day.

To ensure listeners have immediate access to emerging innovative content, UPR Presents is a dedicated timeslot for national series like Invisibilia, which provide compelling content but are not produced weekly. UPR Presents also highlights locally produced specialty programming.

The new schedule also represents UPR’s continued commitment to fine arts programming with Performance Today moving to weekday evenings, opera to Sunday evenings, and Beethoven Satellite Network gracing the late night hours.

UPR listeners highly value news, information, and entertainment programs. They also expressed a high appreciation for locally produced content. That capacity has been increased with the creation of an Assistant News Director position and with additional intern reporters in a variety of specialty fields.

The survey results presented UPR with an opportunity to reimagine; to analyze not only the selection but the best placement of all programming within the schedule. This new schedule preserves highly valued public radio essentials, like Morning Edition and All Things Considered. At the same time, it invites listeners to hear the latest generation of creatives who are advancing public radio news and cultural programming in inventive ways.

Utah StoryCorps

In July, UPR welcomed StoryCorps to Vernal for a month-long oral history recording project. StoryCorps is an award-winning and independent not-for-profit with a mission of providing Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs the opportunity to record, share, and preserve the stories of their lives. Founded by MacArthur “Genius,” David Isay, the initiative has collected and archived more than 60,000 interviews nationwide.

StoryCorps’ traveling mobile recording booth visits 10 select communities annually to collect and preserve interviews in individual communities. UPR was delighted that StoryCorps selected UPR’s proposal for Vernal, Utah. This key FY16 UPR initiative brought myriad benefits of partnership into keen focus. In bringing StoryCorps to Utah, UPR was able to:

 Incorporate Utah residents into a national oral history project.  Include Utah voices in the archives of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.  Build community relationships and collaborations with listeners, businesses, not-for- profit and government entities throughout Uintah Basin.  Reach out to Duchesne and Roosevelt communities welcoming Native American stories and voices. 2

 Gather the source material for UPR to produce a full year of weekly Utah StoryCorps features which aired to a statewide audience.  Create the opportunity for Utah residents to share their personal and relevant experiences with others throughout the state.

This project developed programming, regional, and public event partnerships reaching across numerous communities, interests, and backgrounds. Additional initiatives with these objectives are described in following sections of this report.

Programming Partnerships

An important programming partnership UPR formed in FY16 is with the Salt Lake Tribune and KCPW to bring Behind the Headlines to UPR airwaves. This live weekly news roundtable discussion features a rotating panel of journalists including columnist Paul Rolly, investigative reporter Matt Canham, senior government reporter Robert Gehrke, and reporter Kathy Stephenson among others. Utah is fertile ground for news – public lands, politics, and religion to name a few. Behind the Headlines keeps listeners up to date on key topics in the state.

In partnership with Dr. Jason Gilmore and USU students in Global Communication, UPR created the original series 54 Strong. This student reporting project was based on a historic civil rights pilgrimage from Utah to Alabama. Airing in March of 2016, 54 Strong examined the role of women in the civil rights movement. Additional support for this series came from USU Access & Diversity Center.

UPR features daily segments highlighting educational information. All are partnership with USU Departments, state agencies, and/or not-for-profits, including:

 Be Well – USU Human Resources  Beehive Archive – Utah Humanities  Bringing More to Life – Sunshine Terrace Foundation  Creating Tomorrow – USU College of Engineering  Did You Know That? – USU Education  Remarkable Women – UCU Center for Women and Gender  Science by the Slice – USU Science  Utah Climate Center Forecast – Utah Climate Center  Wild About Utah – USU College of Natural Resources, Bridgerland Audubon Society, USU Department of English, Montana Historical Society, Stokes Nature Center, and Moab Area Travel Council.

Community Partnerships

UPR benefits greatly from hundreds of businesses and not-for-profits who choose to support the station through our corporate underwriting program. Their on-air presence is a reminder of robust community involvement on a consistent basis.

UPR sponsored a team of staff and volunteers for Bridgerland Literacy’s annual Scrabble Scramble in March. The event raises $2,000 for the organization. UPR staff also emceed the festivities with 150 people in attendance.

Logan Regional Hospital Foundation’s Gran Fondo Bike Tour is a 50 and 100-mile race that attracts 800 riders. UPR serves as a media sponsor for this event that raises $80,000 to provide mammograms for uninsured women. UPR also organized a team of 11 participants.

The Latoja Classic, a 200+ mile bicycle race sanctioned by USA Cycling, runs through Cache Valley in early September. UPR staff members volunteer in support of healthy lifestyles and the continuance of high profile community events in Logan.

The Randy Wirth Half Century Bike Ride showcases Randy Wirth's favorite rides in Cache Valley. In keeping with Caffé Ibis’ moto “It’s not just business - it’s our people and our planet,” donations supported tree plantings and increasing bird habitat in Logan. UPR sponsored a team in which staff participated.

Angie’s Restaurant Dinner is an annual membership fundraising event in which the generous proprietor, Saboor Sahely, donates a portion of his proceeds for the evening to UPR. It is an opportunity for members and listeners to engage with UPR staff for an evening of conversation and suggestions, not to mention, share a good meal together.

To support the great work of Utah’s not-for-profit organizations, UPR offers 12 underwriting scholarships annually to promote their special community activities. Recipients this year included:

 Oyster Ridge Music Festival – Kemmerer WY  Logan Film Festival  SHIFT – Outdoor recreation meets conservation – Jackson, WY  Common Ground Outdoor Adventures  Friends of North Logan Library  Escalante Canyons Art Festival  Fry Street Quartet  Zion Canyon Music Festival  Dean F. & Bessie C. Peterson Foundation for Cache Arts – Art on the Lawn  Caffe Ibis o Randy Wirth Half Century Bike Ride – for increasing bird habitat o Four Paws – animal rescue organization’s street dance  Logan Iris Society  Headspin Events – for breast cancer screening

Partnerships for Public Events

In community engagements and special programming endeavors, UPR has sought to partner with as many businesses, agencies, USU departments and community not-for-profits as possible. Working together we can always accomplish more. 4

UPR welcomed the Kitchen Sisters to Utah State University in April of 2016. Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, aka the Kitchen Sisters, have mastered the art of storytelling. These Peabody Award- winning radio producers frequently explore the ideas of culture, identity, and belonging. Through rich, complex soundscapes, they share their observations broadly with public radio listeners nationwide on NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

This was a collaboration with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Departments of English; Sociology, Social Work & Anthropology; History; Journalism & Communication; and Languages, Philosophy & Communication Studies supported this project because storytelling is at the center of our human experience. It crafts our history, facilitates our ideas, and expresses our emotions. In grand terms, stories both elevate our aspirations and chronicle our wars. Across disciplines, a good story relates our work, research, and creativity to others, with the impetus of powerful human connection. Stories stick with us, are easily shared. They live beyond us.

In this spirit of universality, events featuring the Kitchen Sisters included presentations on Access Utah, an honors luncheon with English, a public performance at the Caine Performance Hall and reception at Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, a student lecture, staff seminar, and a two-day workshop.

The audio workshop constituted a one-credit course through USU, serving participants from USU student body, faculty, staff, and community members. The Kitchen Sisters tailored the course to participants’ individual projects. The group generated an array of audio projects – radio, online storytelling, oral histories, news, and podcasts – while advancing their skills in radio design and production.

UPR’s New Year’s Eve party is a place where listeners, sponsors, and community members join the UPR staff in celebrating all things good – most importantly, strong community connections. Many generous businesses came together to make it exciting including Anderson Seed and Garden, Angie’s Restaurant, Café Sabor, Caffe Ibis, Cinefour Theaters, Crumb Brothers Artisan Bread, Every Bloomin’ Thing, Freckle Farm, Health in Motion, Import Auto, Island Market, Jim’s Grill, Jitters, Kitchen Kneads, Love to Cook!, Lynn’s Audio and Video, Morty’s Café, Plant Peddler Floral, The Palmer Collection, Rockhill Creamery, Smithfield Shoppes, Square One Printing, The Flower Shoppe, The Sportsman, and Village Inn.

In March, UPR News Director, Kerry Bringhurst, emceed and moderated a discussion luncheon hosted by Utah Foundation regarding their 2016 Utah Priorities Project: Survey of Voters’ Issues and Concerns. UPR was honored to be asked to be part of the formal presentation of survey results to 350 attendees in-person and innumerable others online. The survey revealed the top ten issues in Utah to be health care, air quality K-12 education, state taxes and government spending, jobs and the economy, water supply and quality, crime, partisan politics, homelessness and poverty, and the environment. All of these topics are of significant importance to the public radio audience.

Known Measurable Impact

Recent survey results affirm that subjects of greatest interest to a majority of UPR’s audience include education, science & technology, arts & culture, and the environment. Among the highest-ranking programs are those locally produced and exclusive to UPR, specifically, Access Utah, hourly newscasts, Utah Climate Center Forecasts, and Wild About Utah.

UPR continues to benefit from above average email engagement. We greatly appreciate member loyalty and interest in following our daily program Access Utah, as well as statewide news reporting and special programming. Weekly programming emails have an average open rate of 23.4% and peak level of 27.8%, compared to industry average of 19.2%. Once opened, UPR members demonstrate an amazing average click through rate of 80%. This communication method enhances opportunities for listeners to engage and participate in meaningful and timely ways.

Engagement in web usage and by social media continues to expand. In fact, this year we had astounding results due to a story going viral. Evan Hall’s “Genetically Pure Bison Found in Utah” garnered more the 500,000 page views, winning note from NPR Digital Services as the most read story on NPR station sites in December.

Aside from the viral accomplishment, UPR’s live streaming page had 24,492 views, compared to 19,113 last year. Facebook likes have grown by nearly 400, and individual sessions, users, and page views are all on the rise.

While the increasing numbers are encouraging, best reflections of UPR’s impact come directly from members, partners, and listeners.

 Regarding a profound response to Access Utah: If you will indulge, Tom, an observation on how an unexpected change profoundly affects a listener’s experience of the very same radio broadcast.

Listening this morning to Access Utah, it was an ordinary day. The show was poignant and topical — of import and interest which I listened to intently — and that was a satisfying package of “deliverables” from a radio program.

But the second listening was different. This evening, I got a phone call from a lifelong friend calling to say he is entering hospice care. I got [the] phone call shortly before the evening Access Utah rebroadcast, and when I listened again to the same program it was imbued with a profoundly deeper emotional resonance.

Exact same show, heard twice separated by only ten hours. Duh! I suppose. No real revelation. But emotionally it does feel revelatory how the very same show could be magnified by the personal prospect of death interjected in those few hours.

I did not expect to be hit between the eyes. Great stuff you guys are doing.

 In support of public broadcasting: Thank you for being a beacon of rational thought in the midst of a firestorm of absurdity.

 In appreciation of local news: Deeply grateful for the terrific statewide news coverage that UPR delivers.

 On the value of real news: I listen to UPR because it holds itself to the highest level of journalistic integrity in a society mired in propaganda distributed under the thin guise of the title ‘news.’

Serving Minority and Diverse Audiences

UPR’s daily public affairs program, Access Utah, has a primary connection to diverse audiences. Examples of hour-long programs on race, religion, and other forms of diversity include:

 http://upr.org/post/making-white-mans-west-tuesdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/institutional-sexual-assault-awareness-wednesdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/utahs-refugees-see-increased-community-support-tuesdays-access- utah  http://upr.org/post/unspoken-americas-native-american-boarding-schools-tuesdays- access-utah  http://upr.org/post/could-america-elect-mentally-ill-president-mondays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/should-utah-accept-syrian-refugees-thursdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/red-zone-campus-sexual-assault-thursdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/lds-policy-children-same-sex-couples-thursdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/sherman-alexie-thursdays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/cultural-appropriation-mondays-access-utah  http://upr.org/post/1860-english-hopi-vocabulary-written-deseret-alphabet-thursdays- access-utah  http://upr.org/post/charleston-racism-black-lives-wednesdays-access-utah

A special series, 54 Strong, chronicles the Civil Rights pilgrimage of USU and Washington University faculty and students gives examples of diversity in news coverage:

 http://upr.org/post/group-54-strong-explore-us-south  http://upr.org/post/54-strong-equal-justice-initiative-montgomery-alabama  http://upr.org/post/54-strong-impact-young-women-during-civil-rights-movement  http://upr.org/post/54-strong-protecting-and-marching-martin-luther-king-jr  http://upr.org/post/54-strong-women-music-and-civil-rights

In addition to creating and airing diverse radio programs to a statewide audience, UPR utilizes social media, email, web, and events to publicize content and make it available on demand in perpetuity.

UPR’s internship program is another area where UPR is able to serve minority and diverse audience. This program provides equal opportunity to interested students to learn journalism and public broadcasting, irrespective of age, disability, ethnicity, national origin, color, race, religion, sex, or gender preferences. UPR has benefited greatly from the contributions of many diverse members of the student population. Their reporting and producing perspectives enhance our programming making it inclusive and representative of diversity. Examples include topics important to the LGBT community, Americans with disabilities, as well as religion, race, and justice.

UPR expanded internship and work-study opportunities in FY16 to attract students across majors, including College of Humanities and Social Sciences, College of Science, and Caine College of the Arts. Additional efforts in health, economics, and applied sciences are in process. Interns engage in content creation in the forms of program production, news, features, graphic design, community engagement, and social media. Persons with disabilities and members from the Japanese-American and LGBT communities held FY16 internships.

Impact of CPB Funding on UPR’s Ability to Serve Community

Funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is essential to expanding local content, so highly valued by the audience. It enables us to respond to our listeners’ unique program needs. The Community Service Grant allows us strengthen our signature weekday program Access Utah. With CPB funding we can dedicate more resources to the production of original content, high in relevance, quality, and impact.

Our financial award from CPB also allows us to serve rural communities throughout the state of Utah and in southern Idaho. The funding supports UPR’s satellite uplink that transmits our radio service to underserved rural audiences. UPR is an essential source of news and information in some of the locales along our translator network that spans from southern Idaho, throughout Utah, to northern Arizona.

Future goals are contingent on continued funding. The Community Service Grant allows UPR to plan significant projects that fulfill our mission to a statewide community. In these projects we are able to form new partnerships, build new audience, and create innovative programming.

Major projects slated for FY17 include a long-form series, Objectified: More than a Body, which aims to enact positive change in Utah by empowering women and girls through the discussion of issues of health, education, equity, and safety. Another series, Roots of Brazil will explore Salvador da Bahia and Brazil’s multicultural and political origins. Thanks to CPB funding, more plans will continue to develop in the coming year.