Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData WGLT Program Guides Arts and Sciences Spring 1-1-2008 WGLT Program Guide, January-February, 2008 Illinois State University Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/wgltpg Recommended Citation Illinois State University, "WGLT Program Guide, January-February, 2008" (2008). WGLT Program Guides. 216. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/wgltpg/216 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Arts and Sciences at ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in WGLT Program Guides by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GUIDE [ 2007 Annual Report ] GLT: ideas, entertainment, engagement. More than radio- a place vital to connected community. The GLT strategic planning process tried to imagine how these shifts would GLT Annual Report 2007 continue in the decade ahead, and what the entity we call "GLT" will have to by GLT General Manager Bruce Bergethon become in order to survive and thrive. To answer these questions, the staff did a lot of navel-gazing, landscape-watching, and paradigm-shifting. It wasn't just us In the year 2006, GLT looked back, with a hearty celebration of our 40-year doing all the thinking, though. We had a lot of help from The Hile Group, a local and extraordinarily capable management consulting firm. We met with literally heritage. By contrast, in 2007, we looked ahead, trying to lay the groundwork for an even healthier 50th birthday in 2016. The word that summarizes the station's dozens of local community and business leaders, including all the members of our dedicated Friends Council. Key ISU administrators, like Vice Presidents Steve last year is "planning." Bragg and Dianne Ashby and College of Arts and Sciences Dean Gary Olson, also contributed substantially to the planning process. The result of our planning is a vision of the station as "more than radio." Planning and vision We believe that we must become an even more effective catalyst for "ideas, In the fall of 2007, when people asked me, "What's been going on at the station?" entertainment, and engagement" - a place, in both the literal and metaphorical my answer was, "We've been doing strategic planning - and it's been great!" sense, "vital to connected community." This means more platforms for delivering Most of them looked at me as if I had just told them I enjoyed root canals. But distinctive programming, more opportunities for the community to interact with this process, for us, was the highlight of our activity this year. and through GLT, and (we hope) a new physical location for all that to happen. It's an exciting and daunting blueprint, which we also translated into a new mission Literally at the center of 2007, from May to August, we undertook an intense statement, and a five-year action plan - believing that we must be accountable strategic planning process that involved the entire GLT staff In a series of not only to our "owners" at ISU, but to the entire community we serve. meetings and work sessions, we tried to envision where our enterprise is headed in a dynamic and challenging environment. That environment includes changes Illinois State University in funding, and rapid shifts in media usage and expectations. Federal/State Income [ Federal/State Grants On the latter score, we wrestled with the question, "What will radio mean?" -GLT Listeners a decade hence, with personal media like the iPod and the cell phone on Sources of Income Local Income -Local Businesses the ascendant, the Internet a major distribution channel for information and Special Events entertainment, and the assumption that everything we need to hear (and know) - should be available "on demand." $2,000,000 - With regard to funding, we recognized that not only is public radio different from -- ____ 8% --- - our commercial counterparts, but we're changing our own business model as we $1,500,000 27% go along. As you can see from the accompanying chart, GLT had a very different funding mix twenty years ago than it does today. In 1987 (the year before I began working at GLT), the station was largely subsidized by lllinois State University and $1,000,000 3% external grants. This fiscal year (2007), while we literally could not exist without 15% the significant support of the University, the majority (53%) of our operating $500,000 revenues come from local businesses and listeners like you. 1997 2007 Programming (broadcast and otherwise) While the staff of GLT spent a good part of the year imagining our future, we In addition, we brought you First Person also put a lot of energy into the here and now. For us, of course, that means great Normal (a celebration of ISU legacy radio - news, blues, jazz, and more. during the University's Sesquicentennial), plus GLT News of the Week, and ISU­ The GLT news service is comprised of a mix of local and NPR offerings, and both based programming like GLT's Dean of continued their legacy of quality in 2007. GLT's local news staff was again honored Green, Uncommon Knowledge, and for its excellence. In March, the Illinois Associated Press awarded GLT three first­ WGLT, 1n partnership with Illinois Poetry Radio. In late 2007, we introduced place awards - more than any other downstate public radio station. It was the State University,offers diverse GLT Ticket (a podcast about GLT sixth straight year that the three-person GLT news team had won multiple awards. programming on multiple plat­ events), and in early 2008, we'll be making GLT was awarded Best Newswriter (Charlie Schlenker), Best Sports (Charlie forms for a growing audience. available a Dean Schlenker), Best Hard News Feature (Willis Kem). In early April, Schlenker of Green also won his third consecutive regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the WGLT builds relationships by Radio-Television News Directors Association. •:r Gardening providing valuable services to Almanac show. all of its customers: listeners, Among the outstanding new programming initiated by NPR in 2007 was "Climate GLT Program sponsors,and the community. Connections," a year-long series on the relationships between humans and their Director Mike environment, aired during Morning Edition®, All Things Considered®, and WGLT provides the community McCurdy Weekend Edition®. Continuing during the network's signature news magazines \ has shown with world-class programming were the independently produced This I Believe and StoryCorps, the latter of special initiative and events.The community which was honored with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Murrow Award in creating many of our provides WGLT with financial in September. podcasts, and is personally responsible support to keep the station free GLT Blues expanded in 2007 to include an ever-wider for First Person Normal, Uncommon from commercial constraints. circle of listeners to GLT's online Blues 24/7, from Knowledge, Mouth of the South™, and Japan to Brazil to Alabama. (We particularly enjoyed GLT Ticket. Kudos also go out to GLT As a business, WGLT maintains corresponding with a French listener, as he improved producers (and regular on-air hosts) Laura the highest standards of his English by listening to blues lyrics.) GLT Jazz also Kennedy, Willis Kem, and Jon Norton. integrity,ftscal stability,and went international with the "Year of the Bossa," social responsibility: 2007 was a particularly significant year offering both on-air programming and the live for Poetry Radio. We welcomed a new performances of Eliane Elias, Brazilian Voyager and Guided by the University-wide co-host, Kirstin Hotelling Zona, who the Craig Russo Latin Jazz Project at GLT events. strategic plan, Educating Illinois, brought a fresh voice and a raft of new WGLT is a unit of Illinois State readers to the show. In October, the Podcasting - free on-demand subscriptions that University's College of Arts allow listeners to hear GLT programming at their program celebrated its 15th anniversary and Sciences School of convenience - is an area where the station was with a retrospective of readers from Jim Communication. WGLT is proud particularly active in 2007. Blues and jazz listeners McGowan to Utah Phillips, and in April, of this partnership and its role everywhere benefited from new podcasts JazzNext GLT staff read their favorite verse for and BluesNext which bring exclusive tracks and National Poetry Month. Poetry Radio as one of the University's most information to subscribers. also retooled its format, and ranked 4th important points of contact on the iTunes poetry podcast hit list. with the community. -4- -5- Our Wednesday night spotlight on the music of Hollywood and Broadway, another Though technically not part of the GLT staff, State Farm Art Director Christine longstanding GLT program, got a name change - to Center Stage - and a new Schuring is a significant new contributor to the quality of your GLT experience, host, Sandi James. While continuing to bring you the best of the musical theatre assuming that your experience includes reading this publication. Christine is the genre, Center Stage turned up the spotlight on local productions this year, and designer of the GLT Guide, which is edited in-house by Linda Healy, but is largely brought you special programming focused on nationally significant performers produced by our good friends at State Farm Creative Services. We've benefited and composers. from a lot of wonderful designers at State Farm over the last fourteen years, but it's been a particular joy to work with Christine, who's unfailingly flexible, The last programming note I need to sound is a sour one. As many of you noticed professional, and (obviously) creative.