Hi, all! This is Judith Nole, and I’m the Development Director at Public Radio Tulsa, which is KWGS (NPR News/Info) and KWTU (24/7 Classical). I’ve been the Dev Dir here for seven years, but have worked in and out of public radio my entire adult life, in both news and development.
BIGGEST pain point? ***sigh*** Staffing is a big one. We have a full-time staff of only 8, and of those, only three of us pitch (with one more newbie making her debut this fall). We only live-pitch during drive time on the weekdays, and very select hours on Saturdays, but it’s exhausting. I’m very reluctant to bring in community voices, because they typically have their OWN soapbox to stand on, not ours. Another pain point: Improving our pitching. Since I began we are using much more scripting and are being MUCH more careful about planning our pitch breaks, but we still struggle to find the right mix between “quick and snappy” and actually telling a story. Looking forward to discussion about this!
I hope to get a fresh perspective on our pitch content, and to better learn how to put together pitch breaks that work and are good programming. I also hope to learn from others who support classical stations how they reach their classical audience: ours has been growing, but we struggle getting responses. Is it because these listeners are turned off by talk in general, or is it our pitching? I would love to learn ways to engage with this audience more effectively! And, of course, just basically EVERYTHING. I want to learn from all of you, and appreciate all of you so very much.