WFIU Community Advisory Board Meeting
The Virgil T. DeVault Alumni Center, Metz Boardroom
June 30, 2014 at 4:00 p.m.
Notes Prepared by James Gray
Attending: Janis Starcs, Janet Stavropoulos, Ellen Sedlack, Charlotte Zietlow, Miah Michaelsen, Alain Barker, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Lynn Schwartzberg, Mary Hall, David Bowden, Lewis Ricci, Pam Davidson, Catherine Hageman, Becky Cape, Peter Jacobi, Will Murphy, James Gray, Eva Zogorski, Nancy Krueger, Phil Meyer, Eoban Binder, Joe Goetz, Marianne Woodruff, Todd Nation, Laura Ginger
Lewis called the meeting to order at 4:00pm. Janet Stavropoulos motions to approve the minutes. Miah Michaelsen seconds it.
New Business: Personnel
• Lewis R: First, I want to acknowledge that this is Ellen’s last day as a part of the board.
[Applause]
Thank you, Ellen.
We are going to be seeking new blood for the CAB soon.
Janet S: Who is on the nominating committee?
Will M: Lewis Ricci, Miah Michaelsen, Catherine Hageman, and Mary Hall are on the nominating committee. Next meeting, we should bring in potential candidates.
Lewis R: Please forward any names of potential board members to the committee. Please think of groups that are not well represented. Will, please send me a nomination form.
Year in Review: Underwriting
• Marianne Woodruff: We had a great year. We were fully staffed, and we that was a good asset. The “Says You” event was a success. We had a 10% gain in businesses this year, but businesses come and go. Any contacts that the CAB can share are always helpful.
Year in Review: Membership
• Eva Zogorski: Unlike Marianne, I can’t boast that we made our goal. We’re gearing up for some changes. We are going paperless. Pledge volunteers will have a new process.
Year in Review: Major Gifts and Grants
• Nancy Krueger: I have a few things to share. We had 53 cars donated last year. The Cobine Fund is up $67,000. Our Classical Music Fund is at $31,000.News funds are up as well. We had 7 estates committed to us. 36 members joined at $1,000 or above. We also received 6 grants.
Year in Review: Integrated Music
• Eoban Binder: I oversee WFIU’s online presence. Our web traffic is up. Our mobile usage is up too.
Year in Review: Programming
• John Bailey: We made a few changes to our products. Arts stories and Ask the Mayor segments have integrated into Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
We asked Indiana Research to survey our audience and market. The results were surprising. A good goal for a radio station is to have your 25% of your market tune-in at least once a week. We average 27.7%.
On May 1st, we replaced our locally produced classical music in the evening with Exploring Music.
I want to mention something we just learned about last week. NPR will be changing their show clocks for Morning Edition and All Things Considered. This means the show will feel different. It will have longer and shorter breaks. This is to protect longer stories, and it will allow for more “top stories.” It is the result of multiple conversations.
We are no longer using the services of PRI. This American Life left for PRX. We will retain This American Life in our schedule, but it no longer makes fiscal sense to keep working with PRI.We are losing 3 programs, and they will be replaced by Collector’s Corner, Living Planet, and Folktales.
At midnight tonight, we will need to be ready for the change in distribution for WFMT content which will now be coming through PRX as well.
Year in Review: Operations
• Will Murphy: We have quite a few things to be proud of this year. Here are a few.
-We have completed an upgrade of our automation system.
-There is a new voice reading our underwriting.
-We just hired a new music director.
-We also began our audience research with a survey. This returned some interesting
information. 22% of those surveyed say that WFIU is their most listened to station. 20% say that it is their most listened to station during their morning drive. 27% say it is their most listened to news source.
We asked Chris Cage of Indiana Research if he thought the data indicated that we should have
more news programming. He said it was a wash, and it is hard to say from the numbers he collected.
Another interesting note from the data: most people wrote “don’t know” when prompted for what phrase they associate with the station. Classical music ranked last. They were not given options from which to choose. The phrases were written by those surveyed.
Next year, we hope to have a large media audit which is an exhaustive survey that tells who is listening and at what times.
Lynn Schwartzberg: What was the long survey we took?
Will Murphy: This was the Jacobs Media survey. We’ll receive our results from that in a couple of weeks.
New Business: NPR One
• Will Murphy: I want to tell you about NPR One. This is my primary way to listen. Like Pandora, you can skip tracks and say you like stories. The software learns from what you tell it. I encourage everyone to check it out.
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Lewis Ricci moves to adjourn the meeting. Janis Starcs seconds the motion.
Adjourned.
Next Meeting is October 6, 2014 at 4 pm