THE SINS OF THE CONSULTANTS

posted by James Reel

    No doubt public radio station managers across the country are all a-quiver to learn from the Radio Research Consortium that public-radio listenership has lost 400,000 listeners (down from 27.2 million) since … well, who knows since when, because the RRC is vague about exactly what period it’s talking about. Which is typical, because the RRC, like just about anyone wielding statistics—the most weasly of pseudo-sciences—manipulates the interpretation of numbers to suit its agenda. And that agenda, dictated by RRC founder Tom Church, is basically to pull the plug on all this hoity-toity music and replace it with news and talk, so public radio stations will sound like the other jabbering stations on the dial. (From the beginning, in 1981, Church’s mission has been to make public radio sound more like commercial radio in every way possible.)
    So, allowing for the moment that ratings have any validity at all (and the only people who truly believe that are working at stations that are Number 1 in their target demographic), what could the problem be? Well, more and more public stations have been following the one-size-fits-all programming and presentation guidelines of the RRC, regardless of the needs and tastes of the local audiences. RRC influence has increased, and listenership is down. My, what an odd coincidence.
    I got out of the radio biz in 1988 because station managers were too happy to let Church and his cronies lead them by the nose. I came back last year because KUAT’s current managers seem like independent thinkers who can put the RRC’s infrequent good advice to proper use while ignoring the nonsense. If only other radio managers had a similar strength of will.
    Meanwhile, we should be calling for Tom Church to be burned at the stake, if it didn’t violate local pollution ordinances.