A Rising Tide Floats All Boats in the Arts

Mike has started a great thread about programming, and I hope to give it some real thought next week, but today I’m going to digress to a topic that has come up because of the economic mess we’re in.

Like most of us who work in classical music radio, I go to a lot of concerts.  I serve on boards.  All of us in radio use the power of the airwaves to promote live concert-going.  But right now, with the shrinking of arts coverage in newspapers the music organizations have lost a major means of communication.  Is it the job of radio to make up for that loss?

The smaller groups haven’t been able to afford paid advertising in the papers anyway.  It’s always been expensive, but most local papers at least have promoted via articles, reviews, and arts calendars.  Our professional critics in Seattle have all been laid off, we’ve just lost a landmark newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and our classical music station is owned by the Opera and the Symphony. And the arts groups are all in trouble because of the financial crisis.  They need help.

I spoke recently to Bryan Lowe, Program Director of KING-FM and to Sean MacClean, afternoon drivetime host, and both of them said the smaller arts organizations are pretty desperate for help.  The small groups can’t afford to pay for advertising (a small schedule is about $1000 for a week), and the station can’t afford to promote free for hundreds of arts organizations.  Not only that, but most programmers would agree not every local group should be heard on the radio.  That doesn’t take away from their value to the community or their need for support.

What to do?  How are the arts groups supposed to promote their concerts with decreasing support from the newspaper and radio station?

A friend of mine, Tom Burns, runs a station (not classical) in Michigan City, IN and he and I have been tossing this subject around.  He wrote in an email,

You can’t let your station be taken advantage  of by those promoting any form of community events.   Several times organizations buy ads elsewhere and then tell us we must run their promotions as PSA’s  or interviews because we are a local station. That is not so.  We ask organizations if they have a budget for any medium.   If they say yes we expect to be included. If they have no media budget we donate the time.  Occasionally someone will tell us there is no budget and then we learn otherwise. In each case that will happen only once.

Radio is a business.  You can’t pay the bills if you let  a few people take advantage of you.

One P.D. told me there are way too many music groups out there and a lot of them should go out of business or at least merge with other groups.  He’s partly right, but who are we to decide?

What can radio do to help the arts organizations survive and stay healthy? I think all of us agree that a thriving arts community is one thing that makes our cities livable.  People play instruments and sing.  They rely on local professionals to teach music to their kids — affordably.  They provide music for churches and weddings and neighborhoods.  We all have a vested interest in a strong amateur and semi-professional arts community.

Should just the big organizations survive because they can afford to pay for promotions?

I think it’s going to fall to classical radio to save the day.  Can you do an arts calendar online and drive to it from the air? Can you do some 15-second liners on-air for $10 each to promote concerts? How about a weekly email blast that lists concerts?

You’ve got the audience and the power to help. Who else can do this? They are public air waves, after all. And it’s not going to be forever.  Just help the groups stay alive during the crisis. If you can get even 10 more people to a concert you make a difference. And the groups will pay you back by promoting the station — in fact, insist on it.

A rising tide floats all boats.  In the long run your station’s survival depends on the survival of the arts organizations.