There were two other discussion groups that seemed to mirror each other’s ideas remarkably well, one on establishing a constructive environment in the station, and the other on converting listeners into contributors.

In the forum on building productive internal relationships, “Bridging the Gap: Success Stories of Positive Working Relationships,” music directors and program directors of several stations explained how they work together: Know your audience, know your market, know your mission statement. Agree on the terminology to reach the sound you’re looking for. (What some people call “A-rotation” others may call “Tier-1”; to some, “war-horse” may be a term of denigration while to others it simply connotes high popularity. Agree to avoid terms that may have such diverse interpretation.) Develop a style sheet and be able to articulate it with staff and with listeners: If a listener cares enough to call or write, he spends a lot of time with the station; he is core audience and has a good possibility of becoming a donor. Recognize that no rule is hard and fast. You cannot say, “Never play this piece,” because it may work at a different time, surrounded by other selections. The panel stressed the importance of availability and communication between the music director/program director and the staff. The program director has to be able to communicate with the music director and be sure he can follow his wishes: “Is there something better that we could be playing than what we are playing?”—“Our medium is radio; it isn’t music—music is what you put on the radio.” Again and again, the panelists stressed the need for communication, trust, and willingness to learn. The music is passionate, you’re passionate, but this is a business, so you can’t take offense when there’s a disagreement. It’s a lot easier to build an amiable relationship from the first than to try to rebuild one later.

In the presentation “Listeners As Consumers: Using a Customer Service Approach with listeners Off Air,” a number of the same ideas were mentioned by the pair of personal motivators, Rick Phillips and Mary Kay Kurzweg, giving recommendations for turning listeners into customers. Your complainer is your best friend, because he cares enough to complain. Learn to handle conflict; don’t be drawn on irrational comment; interpret, listen, find the real issue. Cool down, respect their opinions, let them vent. Concede at least to yourself that you might be wrong. A good answer is always “You know, you could be right.” Study your own motives: are you trying to be right or to build a working relationship? Keep your sense of humor and keep a professional attitude. Ignore little conflicts, get to the point. Give the other person a little control so he doesn’t feel threatened. Encourage feedback from the listeners, at public events, by phone, by internet. If they are complaining about your programming, request a sample program from them—what did you play and what would they like to have seen? Encourage communication, and the comments will come; do a member survey or solicit comments and broadcast them on the air. Again, the stress is on timeliness: be responsive and don’t put it off; if you don’t have time, make time, because responding shows you care and are interested. The benefit is that the station gets their dollars—and maybe learns something in the process.

In other words, nurture the complainer; remove your own ego. Get the information and call back if you must, tell them thanks, respond promptly, be accessible to making changes. When in error, admit it on air where applicable (“I said the 22nd symphony, but it’s the 23rd”). When they don’t like the music, an answer like “Oh, tell me something you’d like to hear” is a good response: Find the nugget of gold in the complaint. Listen and let them vent. Address them by name—here’s a good argument for having Caller ID on the control room phone (and other staff phones as well). Send out cards to frequent callers, remembering their birthday or the birthday of their favorite composer, inviting them to remote broadcasts.

Let them vent but keep the “buts” out: “That’s very interesting but…” short circuits the communication—“everything before the but is a lie and everything after it is an excuse.” Ask what they suggest, try to find a mutual solution, look for commonality.
 
 

Fundraising Tools for Music Formats: Presentation of NPR’s 
“First-Time Givers Study”
 

Joyce Schreiber of NPR presented a very detailed study which broke first-time donors into News, Jazz and Classical categories, though her presentation concentrated on the latter. A few points: The classical audience values music more than public radio or the station. First-time classical givers average ten years’ listening before their first gift (down from the previous eleven—perhaps stations are fine-tuning their appeals better). They have little interest in premiums but tend to give the lowest amount cited (jazz listeners have much higher premium awareness). Classical listeners tend to respond to challenges more than news or jazz listeners, and prefer being called “contributors” instead of “members” or “subscribers.” Interestingly, classical listeners are more likely to contribute to religious and health organizations and least likely to contribute to political and environmental ones. Their main listening times are 5:00-11:00 a.m. and 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Many questions are unanswered by the research. For example, what does it mean that a very large percentage of first-time givers to classical music stations answered that the reason for the gift was that “a pledge drive was going on”? For the last nine years they haven’t responded to the pledge drive, so why now?

Schreiber suggested several possibilities based on the research, for example: Rotate some dayparts out of fund drives on certain days, airing short announcements along the line of “our volunteers aren’t here right now, but we do need your support, so you can visit our web site.”
 

Grand dramatic rights

This was scarily one of the most interesting and least relevant parts of the conference. According to copyright law, Small Rights are concert rights; Grand Rights relate to dramatic works, usually with costumes and props. (For example, if the symphony brings in dancers for a piece, it needs to pay  Grand Rights fees.) ASCAP and BMI are licensing organizations for Small Rights; for Grand Rights, one pays the copyright holder directly.

Copyright law is as old as the Bill of Rights, but the United States has usually been out of step with other countries’ interpretations of the same issue. (For example, in the Soviet era, Russia did not recognize other countries’ dramatic copyrights, so the U.S. reciprocated by not recognizing Russian composers’ rights.) Copyright law has recently been changed to bring the U.S. more in line with other countries’ rules, so some works that were Public Domain are now again covered under Grand Dramatic Rights. Even with the late changes, there are still differences between the U.S. laws and those of other countries. Each publisher (in the case of foreign-published works, a U.S. publisher is a “sub-publisher”) has his own rules and may not compare those rules with other publishers, because that would be collusion. For example, Boosey and Hawkes considers the Prokofiev ballets in its collection to be covered by Small Rights, but G. Schirmer puts its Prokofiev ballets in the Grand Rights category.

Nor is there any rule of simply going by date. For example, the Albinoni Adagio was re-discovered in the 20th century and is therefore under copyright protection (though under Small Rights).

The panel for this discussion consisted of representatives for licensing organizations ASCAP (Fran Richard) and BMI (Barbara Petersen) and for publishers G. Schirmer (Ed Matthew) and Boosey and Hawkes (Jeffrey Herman). All agreed that there is no simple rule regarding Grand Rights. The general (though not infallible) rule  is, “If it’s 1900 or later, check before scheduling.”

Where to check? With the publisher. To find the publisher, contact either BMI or ASCAP; both organizations maintain lists of the works and publishers under both their own and their competitor’s control and will be glad to direct a caller to the proper source. Web sites ascap.com or bmi.com probably won’t help because they are more oriented to the pop charts.
 

Summary

This was a very positive conference. Music was varied, speakers were varied, and yet the point seemed to coalesce around the view that radio is changing and that a station needs to be prepared to work as a team, to leverage its brand, and to spread its vision both on the air and onto the internet.

Created 3/29/2000

©1999 2000 Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio