WQXR/WNYC: Report from the Music Personnel Conference

The Music Personnel Conference is not just a chance for those of us in the radio biz to get together with old friends.  It’s also a place to discuss best practices in our industry and to refill the well when  the daily grind has depleted it.  UPDATE: Here’s a timely article in the NY Times.

I took a lot of encouragement from hearing the presentation by WQXR/WNYC personnel about their new “merger,” if I can call it that. Above all, their attitude is that if they take care of the mission, the listeners will support the station.

Dean Cappello is Senior VP of Programming and Creative Creative Officer at WNYC.  He said President and CEO Laura Walker has had a two-FM strategy since 1996 and that they spent years trying to find a second FM station so they could get rid of the dual format on WNYC.  Nobody could have predicted the second station would be the powerhouse WQXR.  Now it’s a matter of trying to merge the two cultures.

Program Director Chris Bannon spoke about the decisionmaking process that encompassed everything from the library and programming each hour to hiring the right hosts for the new station. Commercials which could run as high as 18 minutes per hour on the commercial WQXR will now be no longer than four minutes per hour, and they will be public radio style spots.

There’s a conscious effort to keep a sense of humor on the air.  Hosts are encouraged to be themselves and let their personalities show.  The station has made the decision to be hyperlocal, so the syndicated shows take a backseat to the local hosting. [Editor’s note: local in NYC is not the same as local in a smaller market!]  And listenership is way up.

One of the most brilliant decisions management made was to hire Kathleen Ehrlich as the Director of Editorial Operations for Online, or some such title.  She is having station personnel blog, do original reporting, promote local cultural events, do Facebook and Twitter, and take comments.  The website is streaming all channels, especially Q2, its most adventurous programming stream.

50% of the station’s pledge income is coming in online!

Limor Tomer, Executive Producer for Music, WNYC, has made sure the adventuresome nature of the public station wasn’t diminished by the merger.  She said that besides the technical issues between the two cultures, there were philosophical issues.  “What do we stand for?”  Ultimately they are committed to creating an engaged, active listenership, or “less silicone, more carbon,” as she put it.  The hosts are out in the community all the time, engaging with their listening public.  And the station is forging close partnerships with many of the music organizations in town.

All in all, their thoughtfulness and devotion to serving the NY public is inspiring to the rest of us, and they were incredibly gracious hosts.

More about the conference coming as I can get to it.  Happy Monday!