Rural Programming Initiative
Summary #2, KSER

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September 2002

What did you learn about listening to your station and your research?
The second round of research was highlighted by some interesting discrepancies between the first round and the second. There was also confirmation of discoveries revealed in the first report. Both surveys suggest caution should be exercised before making any major changes in format or programming. For example, the first survey suggested a strong tune in of listeners at Noon for the BBC Outlook program. The second survey suggested a significant drop in listenership at Noon that was not recovered until much later in the afternoon. Both surveys suggested that our afternoon public affairs block is strong and that in-car listeners remain a significant part of our audience. The research indicated a strong liking for our programming among those who listened, but the core numbers of listeners is too small. The conclusion remains that we must work to increase the overall number of people who listen to this radio station as their number one choice in order to increase membership support.

Where are your programming strengths and weaknesses?
The KSER Foundation Board of Directors is confident that our general programming is strong and supportable. The overall programming format and structure of the broadcast day is practical and listenable. Any changes that have been, or will be implemented are relatively minor when compared to changes that could be made.

Our biggest weakness is location and geography. Geographically, we are situated in a region that is very conducive to multi-pathing and signal interference, particularly at our relatively low signal strength. This makes it difficult to get a good clear, static-free signal in many areas, particularly in the Seattle market. Our physical location, just a few miles north of Seattle, makes the temptation to "be" a Seattle radio station very strong, which distracts us from our need to "be" an Everett radio station.

Our biggest strength remains the potential benefits we would receive by moving our radio station from its current location into our city of license, which is Everett. Everett has only one other radio station, an AM sports-talk station that relies heavily on syndicated national programming. It offers very little local programming beyond brief weather, news headlines and traffic reports squeezed into the local avails in the national programming. In addition, it is working to raise its power to 50-thousand watts. We believe when that happens the station will need to focus much of its attention on attracting and holding a much wider, regional audience which will mean even less programming focused on local issues. If we can get our radio station physically moved into Everett and developed an awareness in the community for providing quality, locally-focused, news and public affairs we can developed the core audience we need. The radio choices in this market, between Seattle radio and Canadian radio and satellite delivered radio means that we have to carve our niche with programming that is unavailable from other sources.

What process are you using to decide on program changes?
Program changes at KSER are made by the Program Director. However, changes are not made without input from hosts, Board members and other considerations. We implemented some changes in September, after the baseball season ended. There were some grumblings of discontent, but the reasons for the changes were clearly explained and ultimately accepted.

What program changes have you made?
The survey information received in this project suggested that our mornings are weak, our afternoon drive is strong and there is a significant drop off in listeners at Noon when we interrupted the music with the BBC arts magazine, "Outlook." Suggestions for the morning have included getting traffic reports for the station, dropping the current programming entirely in favor of music only in the mornings, or continue to do what we are doing in the mornings. But, without a major investment of staff and/or money, there is little that can be done with the mornings, except abandon what we've been doing in favor of more music. However, since the option of "doing nothing" leaves in place a program of local commentary, news and information mixed with information pieces targeted for an audience interested in health and environmental issues, it strengthens arguments for this being a "community" radio station that offers more than just music. It also leaves in place a program that can be easily adapted for local content, like traffic, when the time is right.

Thus, we decided, for the time being, to leave the mornings alone and focus on changes that might show some immediate progress.

We dropped "Outlook" from the schedule and now have a program of music from 8 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. We also implemented a more predictable structure to our day-long music program "The Sunlit Room" and are trying to impose some predictability to the program. We are presenting one promotional announcement per half hour at approximately 20 minutes after the hour and 10 minutes before the hour. We have other scheduled programming, "thank you's," calendars, information bits, etc at the half hour and underwriting announcements at the top of the hour. Each host is encouraged to keep back announcing to a minimum and stress forward promotion. It is hoped that this kind of structure will help create the idea in the minds of the listeners that there is some predictability to the schedule throughout the day. We hope this will compensate somewhat for the lack of predictability that our Sunlit Room offers when compared to the more predictable strip or non-format music programming.

This past quarter, in response to some program hosts who left the station and programming concessions compelled by the baseball schedule, some programming changes and shifts were implemented. Some programs changed broadcast days, other programs were shortened and others had start times moved ahead. These changes were initiated by the Program Director and made with the idea of unifying the schedule. The changes did not happen until after lengthy discussions were held to explore alternatives. The affected hosts were also consulted and briefed on why the changes were necessary. The changes were then presented to the Board of Directors after the fact. Fortunately, most of the hosts understood the reason for the changes and accepted them.