Rural Programming Initiative
Summary #1, WXPR

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WXPR is participating in the Rural Programming Initiative because it offers the station the unprecedented opportunity to get a three-year, four-survey picture of our audience, and how we might serve that audience better. In a rural area, Arbitron does not provide such information. Purchasing four surveys ourselves would be prohibitively expensive, and would not include the training and station sharing provided in this initiative. In using the information we get from the initiative, we set an overall goal of increasing Time Spent Listening among WXPR listeners for whom WXPR is not their "most frequent" station. Because we do not feel the need to drastically overhaul our programming, we are approaching changes based on the first survey very cautiously. The two changes we discuss in this report deal with drops in listening during the midday and early evening hours, weekdays.
First potential change, midday, weekdays

A drop in listening between the drive times is not surprising, but this survey shows that the expected drop after Morning Edition (from 18.8% in the 8am-10am part to 13.9% in the 10am-noon part) continues into the noon-2pm part. Listening drops to 9.9% in the noon-2pm part before returning to 13.9% 2-4pm.

We discussed what happens at noon that might account for the decrease in listening, and decided to look at our noon newscast as a possible tune-out.

We came up with several options:
1. Drop the newscast altogether
2. Move the newscast to 1pm, which is a programming breakpoint
3. Shorten the newscast in order to return more quickly to music

The first thing we did was research what other radio stations are doing at noon weekdays. We found that, without exception, they are doing newscasts. That ruled out #1 as a way of keeping our listeners. It also argued against option #2, with the thinking being that any move would cause current newscast listening to fall off, with little obvious gain.

So we settled on option #3. We cut out of the NPR newscast at 4 minutes past the hour, rather than letting it run until 6 minutes past. We also made an effort to streamline the local portion of the newscast, so that we are back to music by 9 minutes past the hour. In the past, the noon newscast often ran to 12:15.

Second potential change, 4-7pm daypart, weekdays

The survey results for this daypart were very perplexing. It showed that, with 7.9%, the evening drivetime was our lowest listening time of the day. Listening at home was nearly identical to listening in the car, and there were no great distinctions between genders or among age groups. The one exception was that the 18-34 age group showed by far its heaviest listening in the 7pm-midnight daypart, but that age group constitutes only 5% of the WXPR audience.

We carry All Things Considered for the first two hours of this daypart, followed by Solitudes, a locally-produced one-hour New Age music program. The survey shows that the 7pm-midnight part, at 10.9%, is heard by nearly 40% more listeners.

This result is very much at odds with both national listening in this daypart, and the results of member surveys we have done over the years. Our most recent survey of WXPR members showed the same result as our previous survey four years earlier. In both cases, All Things Considered was the most frequently listened to program on our schedule.

Out of this perplexing mix of signals, we came to one potential programming problem to fix: perhaps Solitudes is the tune-out. So we looked at how we would change the 6:00 hour to keep more people tuned in.

There were two alternatives:
1. Drop Solitudes and Hearts of Space, moving Northwoods CafÈ to 6pm and World CafÈ to 9:00. World Radio Network would move up to 11:00

2. Move Northwoods and World Cafes up, but air Solitudes and HOS at 11:00

When we went back and looked at our member survey, we decided that we didn't have enough information to make either of these changes. In the member survey, we asked several questions relating to Solitudes and Northwoods CafÈ, and whether we should move them or drop Solitudes. The opinions were evenly split - no pressure to change, no huge response against change. We had more than 500 responses to the member survey, so the answers carried real significance.

And again, this is the first of four listener surveys, so we may know more with the next survey.

In any case, we did draw up a plan of action for making this change: °  Timeline - Solitudes/HOS change - to take place in June
°  Work with Ops to find a way to put New Age music on at 11pm
°  Work with CAB to make the case for the change
°  survey results
°  improved programming flow between dayparts
°  improved programming strip across weekday evenings
°  operationally better °  Keep BOD informed of the process
°  Develop Member survey to send with Winter program guide, with questions pertaining to this programming change
°  Review 2002 Rural Programming Initiative survey results
°  If decision is made to make the change, consult with volunteer CafÈ
hosts °  Promote
°  one month before - small article in newsletter
°  two weeks before:
°  program guide article °  begin on-air promotion
°  send press release