Perhaps the greatest challenge facing local NPR News stations is attracting new audiences. The brand is well-known and used by core audiences, many of whom have listened for decades. The core NPR News audience is heavily skewed toward older, highly educated, whites. The main way younger listeners have found these stations was through their parents’ car radios, which only hardens the demographic bubble. Now, NPR News stations are taking efforts to bust the bubble and lean into completely new audiences.

Paragon and Izzi Smith’s Listen Again Tomorrow collaborated with stations for a second “What Now Conversation” a few weeks ago to give stations a platform to share their local efforts. Public radio is not alone in attempting to secure new audiences. Needs and wants of new audiences usually differ from current audiences, making new audience development more challenging. Their needs differ on the time of day, what they’re doing (not us), and where they are consuming content. Their wants differ by the individual.

These were the headlines from the virtual meeting:

  1. Pause, STOP, and do something new.
  2. Strategic planning is needed, and research is helpful.
  3. Identify a specific target (for your community and station). What does NEW audience mean? Hint: “Younger and more diverse” is not a target.
  4. Commit. Don’t do it until you are prepared and resourced!
  5. Long term commitment is required but short-term failures are expected and okay.
  6. Monetization – consider new revenue models needed for new audiences.
  7. What will your org stop doing to free up resources?

Station efforts that were spotlighted in the webinar showed a wide range of creative tactics:

  • In May, Minnesota Public Radio launched Reverb to expand the station’s efforts to serve younger audiences with multiplatform coverage of the topics they care about most. Stephanie Curtis, MPR’s Director of Programming, explained that Reverb is staffed by new employees from the younger target audience. They create a different take on news content that centers their perspectives, answers their questions, celebrates them, and explores how they’re impacted by issues in a changing world, and all accessible where they are — on mobile, online and on social media. Instagram and TikTok are key drivers to tell local stories and popular culture in short bites.
  • Chicago Public Media has launched a weekly newsletter called The Goods that delivers the best music, art, and culture that Chicago has to offer from an urban alternative perspective. Digital Media Producer Morgan Ciocca explained that each edition of The Goods features one curated playlist, two local artist profiles and three opportunities to do good.
  • KUER and PBS Utah has acquired the 88.3 FM license to bring a new bilingual format of music and news to Salt Lake City. KUER and PBS Utah Executive Director Maria O’Mara told the gathering that the new bilingual public radio station will serve the region’s growing Spanish-speaking community. They have hired former NBC News and Telemundo journalist Edgar Zuniga as Program Director. Zuniga is a two-time Emmy Award winning journalist and served on the board of West View Media, a journalism non-profit that covers the majority-minority neighborhoods of Salt Lake City’s West Side, and on the advisory board of PBS Utah where he provided a voice to the state’s Latino communities.
  • Jeff Penfield, Program Director of KERA News in Dallas, talked about outreach at live events to pierce the typical audience bubble. KERA staged an Arts Access Funding Fair for artists and creatives in the community that brought together artists to discover ways of connecting to more funding resources in the North Texas community. This audience was younger and more ethnic than they typically see connecting with the news station. KERA also helped promote the Texas Vignette Art Fair, which works to close the gender gap in the visual arts. The exhibit of artworks exclusively by Texas women was on display at the Dallas Market Hall.

We applaud these efforts to break through to new audiences. But this game has just begun and will require years of concerted and consistent attempts to succeed. There will be failures, a few more successes, and an ongoing trial and error process that will be defined by each local stations ability to go where they’ve never gone before. I think about Wayne Gretzky’s famous quote, “You miss 100% of shots you never take.” It’s time for public radio to take its shots.

More about Mike.