Des Moines Register
03/36/06
Iowa Public Radio rides single wave
A merger puts changes in the air for the three stations cherished by listeners for
decades.
KYLE MUNSON
REGISTER MUSIC CRITIC
When Dale Edwards of Ames talks about public radio station WOI-AM 640, he
makes it sound like a friend he invites for coffee — not a steady stream of news
and talk shows.
"I listen all day long," he said. "It keeps me company."
Linda Shepley prefers the eclectic mix of evening music on Cedar Falls-based
KUNI-FM.
"If it's not KUNI, it's probably a CD," said Shepley, who lives in Des Moines and
listens to the public radio station on 101.7.
Public radio is like Iowa college sports. Edwards and Shepley follow different
teams, and they listen to different stations.
Each of the public radio stations at Iowa's three major universities — WSUI at the
University of Iowa in Iowa City, WOI at Iowa State University and KUNI at the
University of Northern Iowa — is cherished by its fans.
Now, the three separate stations are on the road to becoming a single statewide
network — Iowa Public Radio.
Cindy Browne, whose resume includes a stint as executive vice president of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, was hired last year as the first executive
director of IPR. Merging these three public radio stations, she said, is "a little bit
like the potato sack race three ways."
In one sense, there's never been a better time for Iowa's public broadcasters to
raise their profile by banding together.
The 36-year-old National Public Radio has doubled its audience in the last
decade and serves more than 25 million Americans on more than 800 stations
nationwide. A $230 million donation in 2003 by Joan B. Kroc, widow of
McDonald's founder Ray Kroc, helped NPR expand its news coverage —
showcased on the popular programs "Morning Edition" and "All Things
Considered" — as other media companies have trimmed or even slashed
budgets.
Public radio voices have matured into icons. Tom and Ray Magliozzi — Click and
Clack of "Car Talk" fame — are the undisputed rock stars of the auto-mechanic
scene. Terry Gross' Philadelphia-based "Fresh Air" interview hour is the "Charlie
Rose" of the airwaves.
"This American Life" has helped launch such renowned authors as David
Sedaris. And film director Robert Altman made a movie based on Garrison
Keillor, public radio's biggest star and host of the "A Prairie Home Companion." It
hits theaters in June. (Go to www.aprairiehomecompanionmovie.com.)
Under Browne's guidance, the idea for Iowa Public Radio has methodically
moved ahead with input from staff and focus groups. A broader and more
philosophical "listening project" this spring and summer will ask listeners around
the state this question: "What role can public radio play in assisting
communities?"
The eventual result could be an IPR similar to Minnesota Public Radio — a
network of 37 stations founded in 1967 that now boasts an operating budget of
$60 million and membership of nearly 88,000. Its American Public Media
production arm distributes such heavy-hitting programming as "A Prairie Home
Companion" and "Marketplace."
So, how many big differences will you hear on the public radio airwaves across
Iowa, and how soon?
Few if any tomorrow, next week or next month. There is no "silver bullet," Browne
said.
"There may be format changes or programmatic changes in our future, but
there's nothing that if you made this that or switched this from here to there, it's
like — OK," she said.
It's so early in the consolidation game that each of the Iowa stations will embark
separately on its ritual spring pledge drive this month, with no overall IPR goal.
But Browne does talk about refining news coverage through "more regular beats
so that we have people who are outside of the stations more, covering what's
going on."
IPR also is preparing a summer series featuring the state's three major
symphonies.
Emerging technologies are bound to play a role. NPR began offering podcasts in
August, and listeners have snapped up millions of them.
Kelly Peavey, 37, is a computer administrator in Des Moines who just recently
became a subscriber to NPR's "Story of the Day" podcast. It's the only way he
consumes public radio.
"It prevents the whole kind of, you know — I'm in the middle of the story, but now
I'm at work and I never get to hear the rest of it," he said. "A lot of stuff gets cut
off in a 15- to 18-minute commute."
IPR's consolidation began before Browne was even hired, with a 2004 consultant
study submitted to the Iowa Board of Regents that praised public radio's "local
news and event coverage, which brings communities together," as its strongest
asset.
The study also cited the trend in public radio consolidations, with networks
already formed in Wisconsin (1979), Colorado (1992), Maine (1992), Michigan
(1996) and South Carolina (2000).
The report acknowledged another trend when it suggested that IPR boost its
"non-commercial music and entertainment for a younger demographic ... a wide
range of contemporary music in a variety of styles, none of which is 'popular'
enough to succeed on commercial radio."
That's music to the ears of the Greater Des Moines Music Coalition (DMMC), a
grassroots, nonprofit fan group that has lobbied IPR, Browne and even the Iowa
Statehouse for public radio to launch a full-time progressive pop music station.
The model: Minnesota Public Radio's KCMP-FM "the Current" 89.3 in the Twin
Cities (also heard via KMSE 88.7 in Rochester, Minn., and a digital channel in
Pasadena, Calif.).
"We want a station exactly like the Current in Des Moines," said Fritz Jünker,
CEO and founder of the coalition.
The Current was launched in January 2005, out of MPR's "desire to be relevant
to a newer audience," said Thorn (no surname), the station's music director, and
to "fill a role we felt like commercial radio hasn't been doing for the last few
years."
Steve Nelson, Current's program director, described his station's Album Adult
Alternative (AAA) playlist as "deeper and broader than any commercial station on
the dial, based on what we think is good without a lot of concern for what's on the
top of the charts."
The Current is aimed at listeners younger than the median age of 45 that tunes
into news, Nelson explained, or the average 55-year-old who listens to classical
music. So the station programs a liberal mix of indie rock, reggae, hip-hop and
other styles and makes room for at least one local song per hour.
Thorn, as well as Browne and several IPR producers and programmers,
participated in February in a town-hall meeting in Des Moines organized by the
DMMC.
IPR's current offering of more progressive, AAA music is from KUNI, heard in
Des Moines through a 100-watt translator signal (101.7 FM).
Al Schares, KUNI's music director, talked at the town-hall meeting about acting
as "tastemaker" for his listeners — the traditional radio DJ role that has become
more scarce since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 enabled widespread
consolidation and uniform playlists in the radio industry.
But even if IPR decided to expand KUNI's music into a full-time station, there's a
hitch: The network needs its own frequency in Des Moines.
"We're waiting for the technology to catch up with our mission," Browne said.
She echoes her counterparts in commercial radio when she talks about her
desire to "slice and dice the spectrum" in order to offer multiple digital streams of
programming through a single FM frequency. But digital radio so far caters only
to early adopters of technology, with relatively few stations broadcasting in the
medium and receivers that cost $500 or more.
Browne also describes MPR as a "big organization that has the pockets, the
deep pockets" to try an experiment like the Current.
"We're at a different point in our life in that we're just trying to become (MPR),"
Browne said. "First things first."
There's also ready evidence to indicate that public stations can't simply dump
their staple NPR news and talk in favor of full-time AAA music.
Detroit's WDET attempted just that in September 2004 but reverted back to
"Morning Edition," "All Things Considered" and other news programming in
December.
"We found that we actually had lost a tremendous amount of listeners (50,000)
when those changes were made," said Kevin Piotrowski, public relations director.
"We reinstated all the NPR stuff that had been discontinued."
The consultants' public radio report to the Iowa Board of Regents also suggested
that IPR expand its reach into western Iowa, where KIWR-FM "the River" 89.7,
owned and operated by Iowa Western Community College in Council Bluffs, has
programmed eclectic rock music for the last decade. But Don Kohler, vice
president of marketing and public relations for the college who oversees the
station, said that KIWR has had too much success as a loner to want to join IPR.
"There's a very popular and growing local music market going on in the
Omaha/Council Bluffs metro area, and we've been able to highlight a lot of local
artists on our station," said Kohler.
"It's helped us improve our ratings in terms of our reach and . . . we have a nice
arrangement with some of the local artists that typically don't get their music
played on other stations."
Whatever hurdles — technological or otherwise — public radio will face as it
consolidates its bureaucracy and tweaks its programming, commercial radio
programmers readily acknowledge public radio has plenty of room to grow.
Local music is "kind of a difficult thing to attack," said Greg Chance, program
director for Clear Channel-owned pop station KKDM-FM "Kiss" 107.5 in Des
Moines. "You have to be very mass appeal, to all genres and all people."
Commercial stations, as he put it, don't have the luxury of "super-serving a very
small percentage of the total listenership." There are spots on the commercial
radio dial where locals - the Nadas on KSTZ-FM "Star" 102.5, the Envy Corps on
KCCQ-FM "Channel Q" 105.1 in Ames - have gained a foothold. But that's not
the norm.
"At the end of the day, mass appeal has to win the war," Chance said.
Browne, though, seems to be in search of a particular fit.
"I think the model should be homegrown," she said. "Every place is so different,
has a different history."
WOI fan Edwards believes a consolidation would be "probably good." But he's
also very protective of his constant companion.
"There's a little bit of local flavor we get here in Ames," he said. "It's sort of
informal and you know them. It's not smooth, it's not clean, it's not sophisticated,
and that's what I find charming about it."