Post by paulbrewer on Jul 6, 2010 15:08:45 GMT -5
For those of you who don't know me, I was a WTJU rock DJ for a few years and left in 2008 to go to grad school. I've been following the developments closely over the past few weeks and thinking a lot about the situation. I thought a lot about what things needed to change at WTJU back when I was there and I'm glad the station will be going through some major changes soon. Though like many of your I fear that it may be difficult for those changes to avoid destroying the best parts of WTJU. From Tyler's blog and the rock listserves I've been able to see that you all have done an amazing job discussing why we love WTJU and why it's important to keep the good parts. I could type for hours on those subjects as well as the ways TJU might best aim efforts of change. In the interest of everyone's time I've included, below, just the major areas that I think WTJU could benefit from change.
Not being a current DJ, I don't mean to be prescriptive - you all are the ones who will implement changes and will be dealing with them for years to come so I reckon you've got more invested in figuring out which are best. And you may have discussed many of these already - but I hope the ideas or arguments can be useful in your work going forward. Do you all think these are the important areas WTJU needs to improve, too?
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Parts of WTJU in need of significant rehabilitation or complete reinvention:
Marketing:
WTJU is practically devoid of marketing and marketing prowess. This contrasts with the large marketing presence of other successful non-commercial and commercial stations in the area, indicating that marketing is a key facet of successful broadcasting organizations in our market. Naturally, the more our name is out there the more potential listeners we will reach who will check out WTJU – until a point of saturation when most radio-listeners in the market have heard of us. As you probably all know WTJU is very far from that saturation point – we can all tell stories about the number of people we’ve come across who have lived in Charlottesville for years but never heard of WTJU. Since so few people in the market have heard of WTJU, increased marketing is guaranteed to lead to greater listenership.
For these same reasons, increased marketing is no doubt an important part of the schedule change/rebranding effort that Burr proposed. It could be as simple as having booths at more events and giving out merchandise (WTJU bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc), or more involved by sponsoring more live music and advertising online/on TV/in the weeklies. I’m sure volunteers could come up with many other creative ways to get the word out about us and our incredible programming.
Website, online access & online marketing
Our current programming style fits a niche in our local market but would also appeal to many of the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to radio online daily. I imagine some of you have already done the homework on the size of the online radio market so I won’t belabor that point. Our website is not easy to navigate nor is it sexy – the skilled and generous efforts of our webmaster notwithstanding. It is in need of a complete overhaul, including a highly-accessible entry for listening to the programs and capacity to handle many (500+?) streaming connections. Our style of station could benefit massively from online listeners and we should cultivate that potential aggressively. Concurrently, we should expand (begin?) online marketing targeted to both listeners in the TJU broadcast area as well as listeners anywhere in the world who are interested in our programming style – as we know, many of those exist.
A website overhaul could be executed by an organized multi-volunteer effort (WTJU could even make calls over the air for volunteer-assistance if need be) or via a paid professional. Perhaps WTJU has an avid listener who runs a web-design business and would be happy to trade web-services in-kind for underwriting.
Volunteer Coordination
During my tenure at WTJU (c. 2005-2008) there was no attempt made by the GM to bring volunteers together to work on and improve the station – save the expected assistance for marathons and, of course, the actual shows. Any meetings or work like this was on the departmental level. The GM said at one station-wide meeting, ‘Don’t come up to me and ask what you can help with at the station. I’m too busy to figure that out’. While that GM is no longer present, that does not automatically mean that this mindset has also departed. A volunteer station should have volunteers doing more than just programming and announcing the shows. Volunteers should be intimately involved in many areas of operation at WTJU, including marketing, production, and tedious marathon-related paperwork that consumes the valuable time of our professional staff.
Of course asking for more work from volunteers requires a certain level of dedication and enthusiasm from the volunteers. However, I believe that such dedication and enthusiasm can be cultivated, in part, by the presence and organizational efforts of a station-wide volunteer coordinator. Someone in this position might provide a list of tasks that needed to be done around the station – posted online or in the station so that volunteers could come and work on them when it was convenient – and also organize work meetings when large tasks at the station could be dealt with. I know the WTJU volunteers love the station and many want to help with such tasks but have rarely been given the opportunity and the minimal guidance needed to do so. The increased marketing mentioned above would certainly require more work and coordination, something that would naturally fall into the purview of the volunteer coordinator. The presence of a volunteer coordinator would also enable the station to recruit and utilize volunteers who are not programming a show – increasing the labor pool for WTJU significantly.
A volunteer coordinator would ideally be a paid position, part or full time. If there is currently no budget for that – such a position could possibly be split into a working group with at least one member from each department.
Here are the strong points that come to mind. I don’t think these are original, but I hate to just mention areas in need of improvement, so I’ll keep them short:
Loyal and excited listenership.
Enthusiastic, uber-knowledgeable DJs.
Unique approach to programming in our area – suited to the highly-engaged and knowledgeable listeners the Charlottesville area is rich in.
Thanks to everyone for fighting for our incredible cultural institution!
Paul
Not being a current DJ, I don't mean to be prescriptive - you all are the ones who will implement changes and will be dealing with them for years to come so I reckon you've got more invested in figuring out which are best. And you may have discussed many of these already - but I hope the ideas or arguments can be useful in your work going forward. Do you all think these are the important areas WTJU needs to improve, too?
==============================================
Parts of WTJU in need of significant rehabilitation or complete reinvention:
Marketing:
WTJU is practically devoid of marketing and marketing prowess. This contrasts with the large marketing presence of other successful non-commercial and commercial stations in the area, indicating that marketing is a key facet of successful broadcasting organizations in our market. Naturally, the more our name is out there the more potential listeners we will reach who will check out WTJU – until a point of saturation when most radio-listeners in the market have heard of us. As you probably all know WTJU is very far from that saturation point – we can all tell stories about the number of people we’ve come across who have lived in Charlottesville for years but never heard of WTJU. Since so few people in the market have heard of WTJU, increased marketing is guaranteed to lead to greater listenership.
For these same reasons, increased marketing is no doubt an important part of the schedule change/rebranding effort that Burr proposed. It could be as simple as having booths at more events and giving out merchandise (WTJU bumper stickers, t-shirts, etc), or more involved by sponsoring more live music and advertising online/on TV/in the weeklies. I’m sure volunteers could come up with many other creative ways to get the word out about us and our incredible programming.
Website, online access & online marketing
Our current programming style fits a niche in our local market but would also appeal to many of the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to radio online daily. I imagine some of you have already done the homework on the size of the online radio market so I won’t belabor that point. Our website is not easy to navigate nor is it sexy – the skilled and generous efforts of our webmaster notwithstanding. It is in need of a complete overhaul, including a highly-accessible entry for listening to the programs and capacity to handle many (500+?) streaming connections. Our style of station could benefit massively from online listeners and we should cultivate that potential aggressively. Concurrently, we should expand (begin?) online marketing targeted to both listeners in the TJU broadcast area as well as listeners anywhere in the world who are interested in our programming style – as we know, many of those exist.
A website overhaul could be executed by an organized multi-volunteer effort (WTJU could even make calls over the air for volunteer-assistance if need be) or via a paid professional. Perhaps WTJU has an avid listener who runs a web-design business and would be happy to trade web-services in-kind for underwriting.
Volunteer Coordination
During my tenure at WTJU (c. 2005-2008) there was no attempt made by the GM to bring volunteers together to work on and improve the station – save the expected assistance for marathons and, of course, the actual shows. Any meetings or work like this was on the departmental level. The GM said at one station-wide meeting, ‘Don’t come up to me and ask what you can help with at the station. I’m too busy to figure that out’. While that GM is no longer present, that does not automatically mean that this mindset has also departed. A volunteer station should have volunteers doing more than just programming and announcing the shows. Volunteers should be intimately involved in many areas of operation at WTJU, including marketing, production, and tedious marathon-related paperwork that consumes the valuable time of our professional staff.
Of course asking for more work from volunteers requires a certain level of dedication and enthusiasm from the volunteers. However, I believe that such dedication and enthusiasm can be cultivated, in part, by the presence and organizational efforts of a station-wide volunteer coordinator. Someone in this position might provide a list of tasks that needed to be done around the station – posted online or in the station so that volunteers could come and work on them when it was convenient – and also organize work meetings when large tasks at the station could be dealt with. I know the WTJU volunteers love the station and many want to help with such tasks but have rarely been given the opportunity and the minimal guidance needed to do so. The increased marketing mentioned above would certainly require more work and coordination, something that would naturally fall into the purview of the volunteer coordinator. The presence of a volunteer coordinator would also enable the station to recruit and utilize volunteers who are not programming a show – increasing the labor pool for WTJU significantly.
A volunteer coordinator would ideally be a paid position, part or full time. If there is currently no budget for that – such a position could possibly be split into a working group with at least one member from each department.
Here are the strong points that come to mind. I don’t think these are original, but I hate to just mention areas in need of improvement, so I’ll keep them short:
Loyal and excited listenership.
Enthusiastic, uber-knowledgeable DJs.
Unique approach to programming in our area – suited to the highly-engaged and knowledgeable listeners the Charlottesville area is rich in.
Thanks to everyone for fighting for our incredible cultural institution!
Paul