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ED Report to the Listener on Pacifica's Election Year Programming Initiatives
August 16, 2004
Dear Friends,
I am writing to update you all on Pacifica Radio's programming
and distribution initiatives this election year.
Pacifica programs, including Democracy
Now! and Free Speech Radio
News, are distributed to the five Pacifica stations and
to more than fifty affiliates nationwide via our Ku satellite
system. We also distribute programming via the Public Radio
Satellite System (PRSS), other national and international
satellites, the Internet, the US mail, and even the phone.
Democracy Now! is heard on some 240 public television and
radio outlets (evenly divided between radio and TV). It's
also distributed by satellite on World Radio Network, Sirius,
and PRSS. A dozen stations carry the program in Canada, several
in Australia, and one station in Germany (daily). Free Speech
Radio News is carried by more than 70 community radio stations
here in the United States.
(For Pacifica's WRN schedule, which airs Democracy
Now! at 3pm, see: http://www.wrn.org/listeners/schedules/schedule.php?
ScheduleID=1)
Internet radio distribution is growing rapidly network-wide.
At KPFA, web workers estimate
some 20,000 listeners a week stream the station, about ten
percent of total analog listeners.
As reported to the Houston Pacifica National Board meeting,
analog listenership has been growing steadily this past three
years, up about 20 percent.
Three Pacifica
stations recently jumped into the country's largest Top
30 public radio stations, according to weekly audience estimates
compiled by Arbitron. WPFW 89.3FM
in Washington ranked #27, WBAI
99.5FM in New York ranked #28, and KPFK
90.7FM in Los Angeles ranked #29 in weekly listeners in
the metro survey period of Winter 2004 (see Pacifica's
Arbitron rankings).
All in all, Pacifica programming is now heard on more stations
and by more listeners on a wider variety of media platforms
than at any time since we started in 1949. Indeed, the last
three years has seen the largest and most rapid expansion
in Pacifica's audience in both relative and absolute terms.
Election Year Programming Initiatives
Internet Radio: Last month, Pacifica launched AudioPort,
an original, Pacifica-developed open source Internet audio
exchange and distribution service. See www.audioport.org
(and our press release).
AudioPort represents a significant milestone for Pacifica.
It is our first major step into multi-media service for the
entire affiliate community and is already being used by programmers
around the system. The new system is rapidly becoming an up-to-the-minute
sound archive and open-source resource for community radio
producers around the world to share programs and raw sound
material. Other election-year Internet initiatives are under
development.
Archives Special Programs: The Pacifica
Radio Archives team produced a
special 2-hour audio documentary on Pacifica's past convention
coverage featuring historic archival audio from the Archives.
The documentary hears from those on the inside and those on
the outside, those who are "on the boat" and those
determined to rock the boat. It's not just educational, but
inspirational!
Convention and Special Event Coverage: A team of programmers
from around the Pacifica system provided outstanding coverage
of the Democratic Conventions as well as the Boston Social
Forum (more below). In June, Pacifica programmers covered
the Hip Hop Convention and earlier this month, national programmers
provided on-site coverage of Unity: Journalists of Color convention.
Special congratulations to Pacifica's own Juan Gonzalez, the
President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists,
for organizing the largest single gathering of journalists
in US history.
10-10-10: Planning is underway on the partnership between
five Pacifica stations and five affiliates stations (actually
six stations) on a series of Town Hall meetings in the Battleground
States leading up to the November elections. (WMNF
Tampa; KOPN Columbia, Missouri;
KCBS Seattle; KUNM
Albuquerque; KFAI Minneapolis).
The inaugural events for this Town Hall series will begin
at KPFA this month with acclaimed Indian novelist Arundhati
Roy and noted economist Paul Krugman. These events will be
nationally broadcast later in the fall. We expect to gross
some 100k on these two events alone.
Special Live Programming: Pacifica's signature live event
programming will continue throughout the year. From the 9-11
Commission hearings to the historic peace marches earlier
this year to the reproductive rights march in April, Pacifica
has been an active presence at the seminal political events
of our time. We plan to offer full day coverage of the historic
August 29 march and rally in New York City to coincide with
the Republican Convention.
Headline News: Budget permitting, we will be launching a
full, Pacifica-identified top-of-the-hour headlines service
in the weeks or months leading into the November election.
This would be modeled after our headlines production at the
start of the Iraq war last year.
Exception to the Rulers Book Tour: Pacifica Radio's
Amy Goodman is still on the 70-city national tour to mark
the launch of her first book. Thus far the tour has been remarkably
successful for Pacifica and affiliate stations. I'm sure
you've all heard about it in your signal area. Again,
many thanks to Amy Goodman and the Democracy Now! team for
all their work.
Expanded Coverage from FSRN and Democracy Now!: We have
expanded Democracy Now! from one hour to two hours during
the conventions. We are also looking at expanding Free Speech
Radio News in the fall.
Financing
The National Office dropped a mailing of 225,000 pieces
in April. About half of the mail drop was to existing Pacifica
listeners and the other half are acquisitions. (Pacifica is
now registered as a charity in more than 40 states.) The mail
drop did exceptionally well, grossing more than $200,000.
Accordingly, we are dropping another 225,000 pieces this
August. It will be the same mailing. While we expect a much
smaller response, the historic opportunity to generate new
donors and new revenues cannot be missed.
By the end of this fiscal, the National Office will have
dropped more than 600,000 pieces of mail. This represents
the single largest direct mail campaign in Pacifica history.
The goal is to raise public awareness of the network, communicate
with members, and to generate revenues so we can produce and
distribute compelling programming.
The 10-10 program and special event fundraising efforts
are moving ahead. As previously mentioned, two events this
summer are expected to gross more than 100k. We've also
just won a 10k grant for the 10-10 program overall.
We are on target with our election year budget which was
provided to the PNB in April. Revenues, in fact, are greater
than projected. Expenses are right on target. Congratulations
to the Finance Team for making this happen.
Democratic Convention and Boston Social Forum
In Boston, Pacifica producer Stephenie Hendricks led a diverse
and talented team of producers, engineers, and on-air hosts
from around the Pacifica network. They did a great job! One
veteran Pacifica producer said this was the best Pacifica
production team ever.
The national team produced eight programs: three from the
Boston Social Forum and four evening shows from the Democratic
Convention, as well as What's At Stake? (WPFW, KMUD,
KEOS, WVJW,
WHUS) and Sunday
Salon (KPFA, KPFK).
The national team also organized production facilities for
three other national programs: Democracy Now!, Flashpoints,
and Free Speech Radio News. The team also produced several
local Pacifica programs from Boston.
Feedback from listeners has been positive. One objective
example: on-line listening to election programming on KPFA's
Internet stream during convention week was up more than 50
percent compared to the previous week. In some cases, the
streaming was actually double. And KPFA's Summer Fund-Drive
has done exceptionally well.
The team broadcast the Boston Social Forum on Friday night,
7/23, with Davey D, Sonali Kohlhatkar, and Margaret Prescod
as anchors. The team broadcast a bilingual show 7/24 with
Sonali and Fernando Velasquez. On 7/25 it was Larry Bensky
with Sunday Salon.
From the Democratic National Convention, Pacifica broadcast
four nightly shows, 9:30pm - Midnight EST. On 7/26, Leo Gold
from KPFT hosted with Verna Avery Brown from WPFW. Tuesday,
7/27 the team had Davey D from Hardknock Radio, KPFA &
Radio X in Seattle, and Sonali Kohlhatkar (KPFK). Wednesday
7/28 were Robert Knight (WBAI) and Caroline Casey (KPFA,KPFK).
Thursday 7/29, the team had planned to use Aura Bogado from
KPFK, but she got "locked" out during a sudden lockdown
from the DNC, so Caroline was used again with Davey D.
In person guests included John Conyers, Barbara Lee, Sheila
Jackson, and Dolores Huerta. Additional pieces ran on these
nights from the Pacifica Women's Bureau, from reporters at
KPFT, and from reports generated on site by anchors and FSRN
reporters. These reports included Michael Moore, RFK, Jr.
P. Diddy and others. The team opened up phones each night
from 11:30pm to midnight, building community with listeners
from Albuquerque to Boulder, San Francisco to Tampa, New York
to Houston.
Verna's show What's at Stake was broadcast Wed 7/28, and
a local KPFK show with Antonio Gonzales on Tuesday 7/27. Caroline
Casey did her KPFA/KPFK show Thursday afternoon, 7/29.
Democracy Now! chose to do all of their morning production
from a community TV station in Cambridge, yet worked closely
with folks inside the DNC and received available Pacifica
floor passes. Their two-hour production was carried live on
all five Pacifica stations.
Summary
Given the current national and international political climate,
Pacifica's historic role as the media voice for democracy,
peace, and justice is more important than ever. The Pacifica
National Office, working closely with station management and
national programmers, is providing a broad array of programming
initiatives this summer and fall with a financing component
built in. The initiatives rely on several decentralized production
centers and increased distribution among Pacifica's five member
stations, our affiliates, as well as a range of alternative
media outlets.
The overall goals are to:
1) Strengthen Pacifica's positive public profile;
2) Spark local and national debate on critical issues facing
democracy and human rights here and abroad;
3) Deepen Pacifica's affiliate relations;
4) Generate new sources of revenues.
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