Three Things for July 15, 2021

From the Public Impact Group

This is Three Things for public media leaders for July 15, 2021.

Here’s what’s up this week:

1. Competition Watch: News about Audacy and City Cast

2. Community Foundations and Media Funding

3. What would be on the “Must Keep Audio” List?

THING ONE: Audacy Expanding Its Local News Presence & City Cast Adding Eight Markets

It’s been nearly four years since Audacy (Entercom at the time) merged with CBS Radio bringing a group of historically powerful AM news/talk stations together as part of its expansion to become the second-largest radio company in the U.S. behind iHeart. But the days of monster AM news stations are fading with listeners, particularly younger audiences, leaving AM radio and the onset of electric cars resulting in the possible elimination of AM radios on the dashboard.

So last week’s announcement that Audacy will be adding more than 50 journalists in eight markets signals a pretty aggressive move to strengthen its local and digital presence across its network of stations. Audacy owns all-news or news/talk stations in 22 markets, including six of the top 10¹.

“The past year has underscored the crucial role of journalism, and the demand for trusted quality content has never been higher,” Executive VP of Programming Jeff Sottolano said in a release.

“Audacy’s local news brands have been delivering on-demand news and information for decades and are now poised to build on that foundation. While other news organizations are downsizing, this further investment will allow us to leverage the credibility of our news brands to expand our reach and engagement while continuing to deliver the premier coverage our audience is accustomed to and relies on.”

Those of us in public radio shouldn’t take this initiative lightly. The press release indicates the production of original long-form podcasts from local news stations, along with an original national weekly podcast highlighting the top story of the week, drawing on reporting and interviews from its news stations. Also in the works are daily in-depth podcasts and on-demand audio that explore local stories and issues, and custom newsletters and in-app experiences.

What will be interesting to watch is its approach by utilizing a centralized digital news team working across its network of news and talk stations. I’ve always believed that complacency happens when you’re not being challenged, so it’s good to see a significant audio player recommit itself to local news coverage. Moreover, it should make public radio’s local news product better.

The bigger question also is how Audacy will seek to monetize these investments in local news coverage.

Elsewhere, City Cast, the David Plotz start-up, currently operating in Chicago and Denver with a daily local news podcast along with a daily email newsletter announced that it’s expanding to eight more markets: Boise, Houston, Las Vegas, Nashville, Oakland, Omaha, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City. The choices are interesting in that the only overlap with the recent Axios Local expansion is Nashville, which should make for a healthier news ecosystem there at the same time that Nashville Public Radio is developing a new daily talk show.

THING TWO: Media Impact Funders on Community Foundations & Media

Last month Media Impact Funders² published an extensive report examining the role of community foundations in supporting media and journalism efforts across the country. In addition, the idea of “place-based” foundations investing in support local news in communities has been a constant theme from the Knight Foundation (who funded this study) at its annual Knight Media Forum conferences including its most recent virtual event from earlier this year.

During one session, the panel discussed a specific trend utilizing the role of community foundations in pooling funds from various philanthropists to support critical news and information. Ashley Swearingin of Central Valley Community Foundation talked about the collaborative effort by local funders in Fresno, Calif., to support the Fresno Bee and other local journalism and community engagement initiatives. The Impact Media and Measurement Fund has raised more than $1.6 million so far. 

The Media Impact Funders report notes that over 12 years, community foundations invested $124 million from 153 funders to 700 recipients specifically for journalism, news, and information projects.

The study digs into how community foundations in different regions invested in media and journalism from 2009 - 2020. For example, four of the top five recipients from Midwestern Community Foundations were public media organizations, with Minnesota Public Radio leading the way garnering $14.4 million in grants.

Community foundations based in the northeastern U.S. heavily invested in public media as well, with eight of the top ten recipients being public media organizations.

The recipients of grants from community foundations in the south and the western U.S. tended to be more diverse by media type. The report also provided examples of specific support for media organizations. It included North Texas Public Broadcasting (parent of KERA-TV/FM) as a sample displaying the funding connections and networks between a single recipient organization (yellow circle) and the foundations that support it (blue circle). The larger the blue circle, the more significant the funding level.

The geography diversity in this graphic is fascinating and most likely comes from donor-advised funds from several community foundations outside of Texas.

The report concludes that the bulk of giving across many media types is concentrated to just a handful of community foundations, the scope of giving today is an encouraging sign that community foundations are recognizing the importance of supporting media as part of a larger strategy to build and sustain healthy communities.

But, as Sarah Scire notes in a NiemanLab post this week, “we’re talking about a sliver of community foundation funds being earmarked for “journalism, news, and information.” About $1.6 billion of the media-related grants — about 5% — came from community organizations. Just $124 million of those funds were directed toward journalism.”

There is definite alignment between the mission of most community foundations with public media organizations in addressing community-wide issues. Media Impact Funders notes that it specifically wants to better understand the level of giving by donor-advised funds compared to discretionary funding by program staff and whether community foundations have mandates to ensure a certain percentage of giving remains in the region.

There’s also some irony in the relationship between public media and community foundations. Many community foundations are on-the-air on stations across the country as underwriters to reach potential donors to give to the foundation. However, there’s an obvious need to expand beyond the transactional underwriting relationship to working together to address community needs through the power of quality journalism and community engagement.

The Council on Foundations notes that there are at least 750 community foundations across the country and has a handy locator map on its website to find those in your coverage area.

THING THREE: Where Would Public Radio Rank on the “Must Keep Audio” List?

A Toronto-based research firm, The Solutions Research Group (a different SRG than the one that we know in public media), has been releasing a “Must Keep TV” survey since 2008 asking respondents to identify which broadcast, cable, and high-penetration streaming brands would be on their ‘must keep TV’ list if they had to choose a limited number.

The results from this nationwide survey of 1,400 people from May 2021 uncovered the power of streaming services in the television sector, with Netflix landing in the top spot for the second consecutive year. Of the top 10 “Must Keep TV” brands, half are now streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus, and HBO Max. The four broadcast networks plus ESPN round out the top 10. I find it’s also interesting that none of the big three cable news outlets (CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC) are in the top 15.

PBS fell from the top 10 (it was ranked 9th in 2020) to 11 in 2021.

Looking over the list led me to a thought experiment about where public radio would fit in a similar list around audio brands. To start this experiment, I turned to the Share of Ear study from Edison Research.

The chart above is from Q4 of 2020 and shows AM/FM Radio listening³ as still the leader in audio consumption. However, the 39% share is a significant decline from 52% in 2014. Public radio would also get a small slice of the listening within the 6% share of podcast listening.

This leaves at least 55% of the time spent with audio sources where public radio, actually all of the radio sector, is not a part of the equation.

How would we assess where public radio fits into the list of “Must Keep Audio” brands? I actually would say that we would do pretty well, and here’s why:

1. Public radio’s overall market share is growing. Public radio has a 10% market share or better in at least eight of the top 40 PPM markets⁴ in the May 2021 Nielsen Audio rankings. This was almost unheard of a few years ago when only a few markets could muster a combined 10% share.

2. Public radio’s P1 listeners spend significantly more time with us (and very little to other radio stations) than P1s to commercial radio. That loyalty factor would come into play when respondents would be asked about their “Must Keep Audio” sources.

3. The unique aspects of our content, both in broadcast and in podcasts, would also help public radio do well in this hypothetical survey. Listeners to commercial music stations are also probably using streaming audio and perhaps their own music to get their musical diet filled.

So, to conclude this marginally scientific process here’s a guess of a Top 10 of “Must Have Audio” brands⁵ in no particular order.

What do you think are the most “Must Have” audio brands in America? I’d love your thoughts. Thanks for reading.

1. Audacy’s news stations include WINS New York, WCBS New York, KNX Los Angeles, WBBM Chicago, KCBS San Francisco, KRLD Dallas, KYW Philadelphia, and WWJ Detroit. Among its news/talkers are WWL New Orleans, KMOX St. Louis, WCCO Minneapolis, WBT Charlotte, and KDKA Pittsburgh.

2. The full report is Community Foundations & Media: Funding Data from 2009-2021, by Media Impact Funders, June 2021

3. AM/FM Radio includes over the air and radio streams.

4. These would include San Francisco, Washington, DC, Boston, Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland, Austin, and Raleigh/Durham.

5. I’m including “owned music” as an audio brand.