Rural Programming Initiative
Final Report, WTIP

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1. You set some programming-related goals for your station when we began this project.
Please describe which ones you have accomplished; which ones you are still working on and where you are in that process; which ones you have abandoned and why you abandoned them.

Our programming related goals all have centered around improving and adding more localism to our schedule. As we have stated in previous reports, our community calendar shows appear to be the most consistently listened to programming. We have improved the quality and quantity of the information disseminated on these shows. We are contemplating expanding the length of the shows, but as of yet have taken no action. We have added a literary program entitled Stream of Consciousness in which local people, including the authors themselves, read prose and poetry. We have also added more local sports coverage.

2. Has there been a financial impact-either directly or indirectly-as a result of your participation in this project? (For example, has membership increased or decreased; have you used the research to get new underwriters or raise your rates; have you used the research in seeking and getting grants). Please tell us the percentage increase or decrease in financial support since the summer of 2001 that can be tied to programming and/or the use of the research.

Since 2001 our membership dollars have increased by approximately 35%, our Business Underwriting has increased by 15%. We have only been on the air for 5 ½ years, so we believe some of the increases are due to people still finding us. However, based on the increase in listenership since the beginning of the survey, we believe that much of the increase in membership is due to our participation in the survey. We believe that our Underwriting will also increase as we begin to use our data from all the surveys to reach out to businesses.

3. Please summarize what you have learned about programming and listening at your station as a result of your participation in this project.

We have found that local news and public affairs programming is our strongest aspect of the station. When listeners were asked why they listen, the majority say it's for the local news and information.
Listening in winter is characterized by higher averages of time spent listening than in summer. We can assume that we share a significant amount of listeners with Minnesota Public Radio since after our 2001 survey when MPR began broadcasting in our listening area our numbers in general showed a decline. After the initial drop in listening reflected in our June 2002 survey we have showed growth including an overall 12% increase in core listeners from our first survey in 2001.

4. Can you generalize from anything you have learned about programming and listening at your station that would be useful for other rural public radio stations?

It appears as though the trends in daily listening at WTIP are consistent with public radio listening in general. Trends over the course of a year show that even while there are more people in the listening area during the summer months because of our tourism based economy & flux in seasonal residents, listening in the winter depicts longer amounts of time spent listening by more listeners. However, membership drives conducted in the summertime are consistently more profitable than those held in spring or fall.