Rural Programming Initiative
Summary #2, KIDE

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October 2002

Where are you relative to your goals?
The goals we established at the beginning of this project have guided us toward improving our services to the community.

Programming:
We reported how we changed and improved our local morning public affairs program line-up. We are now considering how to improve our evening public affairs line-up. We have a secondary plan to change our 3pm hour to a family oriented daily program. This is still in a talking stage.

Looking at our current 5pm to 8pm evening line-up we see our public affairs shows fill only one hour blocks. This is a similar problem we had with our morning local public affairs shows. Three days a week at 7pm we run different talk shows that are produced elsewhere. We have music sets at either end of these shows. The late evening music is usually a rock genre.

We are considering a move of the talk show to 5:30pm. At 5pm we may run a 30 minute news block similar to our 9am news block. The news block would include the 5 minute NPR news, National Native News, Independent Native News, The California Report, and a local news/information segment.

An obvious problem presents itself in regard to full hour public affairs programs spanning the station ID at the top of the hour. A solution may be running a two hour talk show block so we could run a half hour show at 5:30pm and fill the balance with the full hour feature.

Changing our evening public affairs line-up allows us to examine our evening and later night music programs. Our 5pm to 7pm music mix was an identified segment to improve. Currently our 5pm New Music Show is well-listened to, but sometimes the show runs too hot as a lead up to the talk shows. If we move the talk shows to an earlier block, the music mix has more flexibility in later hours.

As for enacting these changes, we have more time to create the format because we want to measure our current audience one more time in February 2003.

Staff and out-reach services:
Our goals included the hiring of a full time Development Director. This happened. The Development Director completed our CPB application. We are back within the CPB ranks. We just received our first CSG funds in seven years. The CPB funds are for a prorated share of the FY-02 round. We will hire a front office person to take over our computerized daily log scheduling and be available to the public by phone or visit during business hours. This will benefit us and the public.

As for added services from FY-02 CPB funds, we will purchase a PRSS computer so we will have DACS access and the ability to change channels, thus the ability to download programs from various channels.

FY-02 CPB funds will also be used to complete our solar power project. We will add more solar panels to reduce our electric power grid consumption by two thirds.

The Development Director is currently working on a proposal document to present to the Corporation for National and Community Service, specifically the VISTA program. We want to create three VISTA worker positions in Hoopa. Two workers will concentrate on further development of KIDE's capacity building aspects.

We are looking at developing our own website, but not necessarily do any streaming at this point. We want to do this for two reasons. One, we want to reach out to our tribal members living off the reservation with local news and information on a daily basis.

Second, we want to create a public affairs programming education and information re-enforcement service. The premise being, there is never enough time to fully cover an issue on the air. We want to offer more information to our listeners about the programs heard on KIDE. We also want to open a feedback mechanism that any listener can retrieve and add their comments to a public bulletin board.

The FY-03 CPB, CSG funds will allow us to hire two part-time announcer/producers. This will be the enactment of one of our goals. These two positions will allow us to increase our locally produced broadcast weekend hours.

Of course we re-established our Community Advisory Board. The CAB has met three times. They received station orientation and established their by-laws and elected their officers. The CAB will meet on a quarterly basis.

Most of you defined one or two target audiences. Based on the research, are you reaching those audiences? If not, what are you planning to do about it?
We feel we have maintained our identified target gender audience, female ages 25 to 35. We are glad to see an improvement in our in-the-office audience. We are concerned about the drop in our overall listening audience percentage figure.

Our goal remains to target the female audience ages 25 to 35. We feel this group controls the major portion of the day-part format. While in the general population there may be more highly paid male managers, we see more female members of our community taking on more of the grassroots organizing over social and environmental issues.

Our programming goal is driven by the need to bring more awareness of and information on social justice issues, native cultural concerns and environmental needs. The women hold the key to achieve the needed changes and improvements.

We see the need to increase our younger audience for similar reasons. We need younger people to use KIDE as a more important element in their lives. The surveys show the younger people listen to commercial radio more than KIDE. Without changing the goals of our earlier day part programming, we want to create a better late night format that younger people will tune in.

Music attracts younger people, but we want to create programming that also makes the younger audience aware of local issues and native concerns. The family hour mentioned above is meant to inform the pre-teen age group about child rearing and health issues. Pre-teens and teenagers usually care for their younger siblings and relations during their parents' normal working hours.

As for the later teen and younger adults we want to bring them awareness of local issues that they can do something about. In fact they are the ones better suited to bring about change. We feel they need more information and a better means of sharing what they already know.

Our goal in this regard is to collaborate with the new tribal recreation department director who wants to reach out to younger people about living a life of 'wellness'. A life free of drugs and alcohol and a life of being responsible for one's actions. He has an idea to use KIDE to reach a younger audience, but he knows we have to change the music format at night. He wants to create a hip-hop format and bring in younger local people by telephone and as live studio guests to speak to local issues faced by our younger community.

Listening audience percentages:
While our in-the-office percentage increased, we still see a dip in audience numbers in the mid-afternoon hours. This may be due to a reliance on AIROS from 11am to 1pm. The AIROS programming during this time often contains Pow-wow music which does not play well in Hoopa. California tribes do not have the Pow-wow tradition that most other tribe share and enjoy.

We have two of five days filled during the 11am to 1pm block with the help of three volunteers. Until we can fill all five of these blocks with live announcers we hope to create a locally produced music block. The two part time announcer/producers' task is to create two hour music/information blocks for later broadcast. With the help of a live assist program the weekend crew can put together the remaining days while we run satellite feed programs.

As for the overall drop in our listenership numbers, this may be because of the audience survey concentrating only in the Hoopa area and omitting our Willow Creek audience. In this regard the two surveys were conducted differently and thus we can not measure one against the other very well. The Willow Creek area has more telephones, but their FM radio reception is poorer. The Hoopa area has fewer telephones, but we reach every household with an FM radio. The next survey may give us a better glimpse of our Hoopa area audience.

What is your current thinking about programming at your station? What areas are you monitoring? How satisfied are you with the level of public service you are providing? How do you plan to improve it?
My current thinking about KIDE's programming is we need to keep improving on the current line-up. Knowing what we want to do is not the same as actually doing it. We still need to hire the two part-time announcer/producers. These two people must be able to hear in their minds the kind of format we want to achieve.

We also need to find the right person for the office position. We need someone who is well connected with the community and able to write clearly. This is an important job as it will help us sound better in between music sets.

There are little everyday improvements we need to maintain, like pre- announcements of what is coming up in the next set and program promotions. These things, I feel, will come along when we hire more announcer/producers and office assistance. Then our current crew should feel some relief from their over burdened tasks.

I am monitoring our mid-morning and early evening hours. As mentioned above, these blocks are the next improvement goal.

As for the public service we are providing, we can do better. The website and the VISTA workers will make marked changes.

Our current local shows seem to work well in regard to services offered. It is just a matter of keeping these shows going and creating more and different local productions.

Have you seen a noticeable increase (or decrease) in your listener-sensitive financial support? (membership, underwriting, community events, etc.)?
We have seen an increase in underwriting, due to our full time Development Director. We are gearing up for this year's Hoopa High School basketball season. The community always expects us to carry live remote broadcasts. We have a special underwriting deal running this season. We plan to create a quick On-air fund drive for local donations and membership.

We are working with a local community organization on a special Native Arts dinner and auction. This organization maintains a networking group and has monthly meetings. We were the presenter at this networking group meeting in October. The network includes regional social service agencies from Orleans to Eureka. The idea is to help raise funds for our local community organization with a non-broadcast event. What KIDE gets out of this is broadcast contracts with several non-profit social service agencies for public awareness programs and PSA productions. The whole project will take a year to develop. The agencies were supportive of the concept and were impressed by the fact we are planning a year in advance.