A Novel Marriage of On Air and On-Line: WXPN and Y100, Philadelphia
Written Jul. 11, 2006 by in Internet Radio + Marketing with 1 Comment
Philadelphia's WXPN (a non-commercial station operated by the University of Pennsylvania) announced a rather novel deal today with Y100rocks.com, the continuing web presence of now-defunct alternative rocker Y100, which was switched to gospel over a year ago. In the deal, XPN will devote 10 hours of on-air programming per week to alternative rock, to be hosted by former Y100 PD Jim McGuinn, and WXPN will also host "Y.Rock" on the Internet under the umbrella of WXPN's online brand.
Since WXPN is ostensibly non-commercial (though heavily sponsored) this represents a unique marriage on another level, as well. WXPN expects that donations will cover the expenses of the new venture, while Y100rocks.com will presumably benefit from increased traffic and site revenues.
There are several interesting things to note about this announcement. First, public radio is becoming increasingly aggressive with listener acquisition/aggregation, moving from "serving the needs of our listeners" to actively trying to capture "loose bodies" like the disenfranchised former Y100 listeners, who were not likely to have been listeners to WXPN's 35-54-focused format. Also, according to Roger LaMay, WXPN's GM, "It also gives [them] a station that's going to appeal to Penn students," which seems like a good idea for a station that has heretofore been geared to those students' parents more than anything.
There is a podcasting component to this venture, as well, which is an area where public radio (especially NPR) has been able to leapfrog over their commercial counterparts due to the fact that they own the rights to more of their content. We certainly know from our research that consumers want more control over their media, and public radio's natural advantages here may help them to reverse their recent (slight) downward trend after over a decade of solid growth.
The move is also a reminder that Internet Radio and Terrestrial Radio can work together without cannibalizing each other, though it certainly helps XPN that they don't have to play the ratings game. While you can understand the reasons why the two primary commercial rock operators in Philly didn't try this, by avoiding cannibalizing themselves now they have perhaps lost out on the chance to piggyback onto a reasonably valuable Philly-area brand and find new ways to capture the increasingly elusive 18-34 year-old male. We know from telephone studies that these listeners are out there, and they do listen to alternative/active rock--they just don't fill out diaries like they should. The coming advent of PPM may change that, and Philly's commercial operators (most notably--Radio One, who gave up the brand in the first place) may regret having passed up the chance to plant a flag with this format.
Execution, of course, will be everything. Sometimes these brand marriages work when they make sense, like the Starbucks in your Barnes and Noble, or that Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorer. Other times, they end up looking like the Arthur Treacher Kenny Rogers Miami Nathans Grill and Coffee bars you see on the turnpike.
Reader Comments
Your 2¢, in chronological order — add your comment below.
We're excited about this relationship for a number of reasons.
We're bullish on the opportunity here to reach more people and to sustain
that in a very conservative manner. We basically decided to make a strategic
investment that we think will pay itself off within the next couple of
years. We're not expecting much membership revenue, but we will be going out
there to folks reminding them that if this is a valuable service they should
contribute. We've pulled together a very do-able business plan and model for
this.
What's also interesting is that in the last couple years musically we've
become less "singer-songwriter" and more, um, alternative - as broadly
defined as possible. It is amazing how many artists we do share with the
Y-100 folks - we certainly don't play Nine Inch Nails or Wolfmother but
there is a space that we do share. There are a number of us PD's at AAA
commercial and non-comm (well, I'm in the minority) who do believe that AAA
is the New Alternative and one look at our playlist will confirm that. We
are playing The Raconteurs and Gnarls Barkley and The Shins and Radiohead
and Counting Crows and Dave Matthews and Keane and Death Cab and The Fray
and old Allman Brothers and Jackson Browne.
As for the HD2 situation - we're still undecided, but we definitely have yet
another option. Perhaps we're being over-realistic or perhaps not realistic
at all about the current HD2 scenario. The bottom line is still that no one
is listening. But we're ready to go when we think its right. We could be out
front but out front to whom is the big question. I wanted XPN to be out
front as a producer of a service for HD2, and that's why we're producing the
AAA service for NPR.
Anyway, keep up the great work on the blog and all the other great stuff you
do. See you in September at the PRPD..
Bruce
assistant general manager for programming
wxpn