blank page AUDIENCE 98 Public Service, Public Support A project of Audience Research Analysis Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Leslie Peters, Editor AUDIENCE 98 Core Team David Giovannoni Leslie Peters Jay Youngclaus AudiGraphics® is a registered trademark of Audience Research Analysis. VALS™ is a registered trademark of SRI International. AUDIENCE 98® is a registered trademark of David Giovannoni, Audience Research Analysis, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Copyright © 1999 Corporation for Public Broadcasting 901 E Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 ii “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein iii blank page Table of Contents Foreword viii Acknowledgments ix 1. The Essential Findings of AUDIENCE 98 1 Public Service, Public Support 3 Fundamentals in Brief 4 2. Programming Causes Audience 7 A Community of Characters 9 3. Rounding Up the Usual Suspects 27 Public Radio’s Minority Audiences 29 Public Radio’s Generation X Audience 38 Public Radio’s Older Audience 48 Getting to More with the Concept of Core 52 4. The More Things Change... 57 A Question of Place 59 It Ain’t Net-cessarily So 64 Listening, More or Less 72 5. ...The More They Stay the Same 77 The Importance of Community Radio 79 6. Following the Money 89 Public Service Begets Public Support 91 The Value of Programming 95 7. Audience Volunteers Support 111 Givers 113 Giving 126 The Effect of On-Air Pledge Drives 130 Low Anxiety 145 Yield Not to Temptation 150 8. The Buck Stops Here 155 Public Service Economics 157 v Appendix 163 About AUDIENCE 98 165 How AUDIENCE 98 Links Listener Income to Listening 167 How AUDIENCE 98 Links Underwriting Income to Listening 169 What We Learned by Gathering Underwriting Information from Stations 170 Understanding the Giving Model 172 vi Foreword Sometimes research changes what we think. Other times it changes how we think. AUDIENCE 98 will change both, but not right away, and not unless we recommit ourselves to the highest standards of public service. As with AUDIENCE 88, we’ll need five-to-10 years to realize its full impact and value. It takes time to incorporate new thinking into our daily decisions. And it takes time to see the results. Today, AUDIENCE 98’s findings may seem more conceptual than pragmatic. But so did “core,” “fringe,” “affinity” and “appeal” 10 years ago. Their utility will become obvious as we harness their power. If past is prologue, we’ll internalize them so fully that they’ll seem to have always existed. They’ll feel so natural that we’ll forget where we first read about: n Public Service, Public Support n The Value of Programming n The Stairway to Given n Personal Importance n Reliance n A Sense of Community n A Community of Interests n Underwriting Anxiety n Pledge Drive Resentment n The Strategy to Transcend These ideas aren’t new. AUDIENCE 98 has merely renamed old phenomena and relationships as it has clarified our thinking about them. These ideas aren’t old hat either. They explain the reactions caused by our ac- tions. They show how we can become more effective at what we do. Most important, these ideas focus our thinking on the public – and on the public service mission of public radio. vii Our public service mission can be easily forgotten as we increase our reliance on public support. Getting more listeners is easy if that’s all we want to do. Getting more money from listeners and underwriters is easy too – if we don’t care what we’re really selling. If we forget our history of public service, we depreciate the value of what we now do. And if we ignore the ethics of public service, we undermine the foundation of what we can do. Our core listeners believe that public radio is the best radio. So do I. That’s the reason I accepted the challenge of AUDIENCE 98. I count on you to do the same. And I look forward to working with you as together we advance our public service. No single study or person can fulfill public radio’s immense promise alone. David Giovannoni February 29, 1999 viii Acknowledgments Many people have worked on AUDIENCE 98. The combined vision and persistence of two, in particular, have made it work: David Giovannoni, its chief architect and thinker, brought a quarter-century of lead- ership in audience research to the project. Rick Madden, CPB’s Vice President for Radio and the system’s prime mover, brought a reluctant Giovannoni. Major contributions also came from AUDIENCE 98’s Core Team: Leslie Peters approached the project as a personal, 18-month quest to advance the industry by fitting right-brain data to public radio’s left lobe. Jay Youngclaus assumed primary responsibility for AUDIENCE 98’s statistical analy- ses and graphic presentations, and offered many ideas from the refreshing per- spective of a public radio newcomer. Industry professionals also helped. In a unique experiment, AUDIENCE 98 offered non-researchers the chance to set its agenda and present its results. Dozens of programming and development professionals submitted nearly 100 pro- posals to its competitive Associates Program. Although 1998 was too short to pursue all of their ideas, the front line views of the following individuals kept the study focused on practical, actionable information: Michael Arnold, Ellen Burch, Jay Clayton, Peter Dominowski, David Freed- man, Kim Grehn, Jeff Hansen, Don Hein, Ingrid Lakey, Steve Martin, Carol Pierson, Israel Smith, Vicki Staudte, and Frank Tavares. Thanks go to the AUDIENCE 98 Advisory Panel: Tom Thomas and Terry Clifford of the Station Resource Group; CPB Research Director Janice Jones; SoundPrint Media Center President Moira Rankin; and public station programmers Arthur Cohen of WETA and Steve Martin of WAMU. ix The project has drawn from other deep wells of knowledge and experience. George Bailey and John Sutton have unselfishly offered constant streams of ideas. Their collaboration on the AUDIENCE 98 seminars, with the indefatigable Barbara Appleby and Marcia Alvar, proved that researchers, marketers, programmers and manag- ers can work together to make public radio a stronger, smarter public service. AUDIENCE 98 has also been assisted along the way by Karen Akerson, Matthew Alshab, Steve Behrens, Anna Maria de Frietas, Deb Giovannoni, Carla Henry, Kent Kroeger, Chris Mandra, Chris Montgomery, Craig Oliver, Roberto Quiroga, John Riggin, Lisa Nackerud Ryan and Kay Tuttle. x 1. The Essential Findings of AUDIENCE 98 Distilled and synthesized, two key findings emerge from the thousands of facts generated by AUDIENCE 98. If they seem familiar, it’s because they so precisely reflect our time. Public service begets public support. Public support focuses public service. These two ideas powerfully and inextricably connect the reason public ra- dio exists and the reason public radio is able to exist. They engage the positive feedback of the quid pro quo – of doing well by doing good. Ten years ago, AUDIENCE 88 developed the “programming causes audi- ence” fundamentals of public service – the focus of our activities back then. Today, as listener-sensitive income surpasses all other revenues combined, AUDIENCE 98 focuses – necessarily – on the “programming causes sup- port” fundamentals of public service. Like the programming basics of the last decade, these financial essentials will have currency for years to come. This first chapter offers a summary. AUDIENCE 98 1 The Essential Findings of AUDIENCE 98 The Essential Findings of AUDIENCE 98 2 AUDIENCE 98 Public Service, Public Support Twenty years ago, pioneer researcher Tom That’s put enormous pressure on public radio Church observed: “Nobody can buy a public development professionals. They’ve re- radio.” He was right. His brilliantly pithy point – sponded heroically, in the best way they know that public radio is subject to the same com- how, with a barrage of professional training, petitive rules as commercial radio – is as true improved data management and creative now at it was then. fundraising techniques, fueled by CPB’s Radio Future Fund. Today, however, the rules are getting tougher. Commercial station mega-groups are setting up But the most powerful force affecting giving is multiple services in our markets. New technolo- not in their control. Programming not only gies are opening up new information and en- causes audience, it also causes audience tertainment possibilities. Audience targets for support. Fundraising is always about program- all media have become narrower. Competition ming. That’s the indisputable fact of 15 years of for people’s time and attention has become as research, reconfirmed by AUDIENCE 98. fierce as the stakes are high. If more than half of our audience still sits out This year Arbitron begins offering information pledge drives, ignores telemarketing and tosses about listeners’ education in its basic subscriber away mail appeals, it’s mostly because our pro- report, putting our upscale, college-educated gramming service is not yet the best it can audience in easy aim. be. That leaves us wide open to competition. The new rules make it much easier for us to These developments point in one direction. Lis- lose. teners soon may be able to buy a public ra- dio – or something very much like it – from For the moment, we have an edge on commer- someone other than us. cial interests, with a reputation, a history and the loyalty of millions of listeners. But we can’t In fact, it’s inevitable. The only question is when. afford to take any of that for granted. Our response lies in our two strengths: the pub- lic service we provide, and the public support Our other chief asset is information. Right now, that results. we understand more than any competitor about what draws listeners to our service, and inspires Back when Church was being a wit, public ra- them to give.