PRPD Summary

This year’s Public Radio Program Directors conference was held in Philadelphia. For me, this was a very educational conference. Some regard PRPD as the more ‘corporate’ conference, since the focus is on National Public Radio-carrying stations. However, there were some very intriguing findings about radio. If you are a KPFT programmer or are just interested in what listeners look for, a recent national survey of public radio listeners, which was conducted by the Radio Research Consortium and others, found several interesting trends:

• Listeners in the dozen or so markets surveyed all valued radio that offers civility, global perspective, depth, intelligence and authenticity.
• Listeners mostly believe newspapers have deteriorated in terms of quality and
  coverage, and they now are seeking national and global coverage from the Internet, the BBC, the Manchester Guardian and other sources, rather than the local daily.
• Listeners value programming that brings intelligent, insightful news; and intense discussions of issues that affects us locally.
• News/information programming has no particular starting advantage just because
  it’s done locally. Listeners compare us to the best of national programming. If you do not have news that resonates with listeners more than as merely a local story, it is of little value.
• Listeners in all survey areas called for programming to raise questions that draw out discussions, including: What unique meaning does a story have? Has it happened here before? What is the cause? What is the impact? How does this make sense? How did it affect the community? How will it affect the world?
• Our future rests on our ability to meet the standards set by the programs our listeners most value. Listeners expect us to make informed choices on their behalf. They want facts and data, not platitudes or pitches to their emotions. They don’t want to hear something they’ve heard 300 times before.
• On-air talent must embody the content. Listeners will not cut you slack because you are local.

Very good stuff.

As with all radio conferences, there is quite a bit of schwag, those books, CDs, key chains, etc. that are the bread and butter of companies trying to grab your attention on the conference circuit. PRPD’s better schwag included flash drives from American Public Media, copies of Amy Goodman’s Static, and pens galore. My favorite was a hidden gem. APM was giving out copies of Sound Opinions (a program I will mention later) and nestled away on the disc was a five-minute-plus freestyle by Common shortly after the untimely death of J. Dilla. Formerly known as Common Sense, Common brings a relaxed flow to the microphone, political activism (including around AIDS education and vegetarianism) and conscious rhymes to the world and a sense for great musicianship. Those qualities have long made Common one of my favorite rappers and, hey, anyone who can do a six-minute biographical tribute to Assata Shakur is good in my book! If you’re not familiar with what a freestyle is, it’s basically when a rapper makes up a rhyme on the spot to whatever beat is playing. Not many can freestyle well, but Common makes it look effortless here. Enjoy.

Common Freestyle (from Sound Opinions)

Friday was indubitably the banner day, where all manner of public radio stars held court on virtually everything you could think of when it came to radio. Fresh Air’s Terri Gross discussed what it was like to have Bill O’Reilly walk out of an interview, then accuse her of bias for asking hard questions (”I think for a man who prides himself on being one of the world’s toughest interviewers to fold to a challenging question is hypocritical”); Steve Inskeep of Morning Edition talked about how having children has reshaped how he covers stories impacting kids; Ira Glass previewed the first episode of This American Life, the Showtime TV program; and Moby played a few songs as part of a live recording of the new radio show Sound Opinions. Definitely my first time hearing Moby play chords from “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Ring of Fire,” and his performance was great. He was a very nice guy too and hung out with PDs for a good long time afterwards.

Another great session covered use of social media to involve listeners in a more broad way in radio. It reminded me of how far behind KPFT is right now in terms of using our website to involve listeners interactively in programming. By interactive, I don’t mean they fill out a form and send it in, but allowing conversation and community to blossom by creating those avenues. Aside from my blog, there is very little we do to communicate regularly about the life of the station behind the scenes. Lots of great public radio outlets, from NPR to Minnesota to Austin’s KUT have made impressive strides in visioning their online presence so that it compliments their on-air product. KPFT may be missing the boat in this area.

Overall, I found the conference very insightful in helping pinpoint program areas we need to improve. I’m glad to be back, though! Thanks again for supporting KPFT.