How would you Grow the Audience for public radio? What do you think about our reports? What do you think about this idea? Share your ideas and comments.
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Clear Goals, Sufficient Funding, and Accountability Are a Must
At the Public Radio Program Director's conference, Tom Thomas stated that the Grow the Audience project's goal is to increase the broadcast audience for public radio. That's a strong and welcome statement about the intent of the project. Radio isn't dead. There's room to grow our public service through radio listening and there should be specific growth goals, especially among Black and Hispanic listeners. Those growth goals should be sufficiently funded based on existing programming economic models. We know the range of financial investment required to generate an hour of broadcast listening today. Getting new listening, especially from previously unserved audiences, will cost as much or more. Anything less sets the project up to fail. Finally, someone must be held accountable for these audience growth goals. Goals tend to be missed if they have no champion. A lack of accountability for results is among the reasons past efforts to diversify the audience have failed. Someone needs to be in charge and needs to have incentives to succeed. That's a standard business practice on the fundraising side. Missing substantial goals gets you fired. Making them has rewards. Applying similar standards to meeting audience goals increases the likelihood they will be met. John Sutton & Associates | |