WDCB
Chicago’s Home for Jazz!
Marketing & Communications
The Basics
• WDCB is in its 38th year of operation.
• A cultural outreach service of COD that reaches hundreds of
thousands of listeners in DuPage, Chicagoland & beyond.
• Format includes jazz, blues, folk, Irish, Latin & roots music, plus
DuPage-conscious news and arts coverage
• Personnel — 12 FT & 3PT staff, plus interns, student employees
and dozens of community volunteers
Marketing & Communications
WDCB introduces
world renowned jazz
pianist Laurence
Hobgood in front a
crowd of 100 people
for the live WDCB
broadcast during the
2014 Chicago Jazz
Festival.
WDCB has also
partnered in the past
with PianoForte to
present live events at
the Mayslake Peabody
Estate in Oak Brook.
Marketing & Communications
Our Audience
• Weekly audience average for the past 3 years around 170,000.
• More than 200,000 unique web audio listeners last year, that
came from all 50 states and more than 200 nations
worldwide.
• WDCB audio is now also carried by channel CAN TV42 on all
Chicago cable systems, reaching more than 400,000 homes.
• 175,000 unique wdcb.org website visitors in last year.
• Thousands more engaged through very active WDCB
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts
Marketing & Communications
Marketing & Communications
WDCB Brings Positive Attention To COD
• WDCB makes COD a major player in the culture of Chicago
• WDCB sponsors and presents dozens of public music & arts
events each year.
• WDCB is involved with hosting and promotion of events at COD
Marketing & Communications
WDCB on-air jazz host
Barry Winograd (on
left) presents awards at
the annual Luminarts
Cultural Foundation
youth jazz competition.
It is held at Buddy Guy's
Legends in Chicago.
WDCB hosts and
promotes the event in
partnership with the
Union League Club of
Chicago and records
and broadcasts the
performances by HS &
College students.
Marketing & Communications
WDCB’s Financials
• 6000-plus individual listeners gave nearly $700,000 last year.
• Donors from 35 states & 7 countries, including more than 1600
WDCB members in DuPage County.
• Nearly 1000 WDCB members make an automatic monthly
donation.
• Underwriting sales tripled last year, to over $135,000
• More than $200,000 in grant funding last year.
• More than $150,000 from cell phone tenants leasing space on
WDCB antenna tower.
• Reduced COD subsidy and beat COD President’s target for cost
savings by more than $200,000 each year in FY14 & FY15.
Marketing & Communications
Our antenna tower
on campus—beams
our signal out across
DuPage and greater
Chicagoland.
The tower is now a
revenue stream for
the station as we
rent space to cell
phone companies.
Marketing & Communications
Longtime afternoon
host Bruce Oscar,
Director of
Marketing &
Development Ken
Scott, and longtime
community
volunteer Bes
Nievera at the finish
of a successful
summer mini-pledge
drive in which
WDCB secured 500
donations from loyal
listeners during a 3day period
Marketing & Communications