BYU Radio is staffing up - is anyone listening?

[tuttle]

BYU Radio is staffing up. Dain Craig joined late last year as station manager and now Richie Steadman has joined their morning show. Looks like there is no place to go but up with a <deleted> in January's Nielsen report. Hopefully the news will be better as they continue to refine the product. Anyone given the station a listen and have any thoughts to share?

ramp247.com/pros-in-motion/richie-t-crosses-slc-street/

[CAwasinNJ]

Judging from the numbers for KUMT and KBYU-HD2 the answer is no, however I don't think the goal is as much the number of listeners as the ability to reach listeners. In other words, the fact that it's there is reason enough to justify its existence. The latest numbers will be coming out this afternoon though I don't expect much of a change.

A reminder, specific ratings numbers are NOT to be posted. We do not have the legal authority to do so.

[David]

KUMT did nudge up a little in the latest ratings, but the difference isn't very significant. I think BYU Broadcasting can afford to operate BYU Radio at a loss as long as KBYU continues to get good ratings and donations from listeners. BYU seems to have learned their lesson from all the pushback they received when they tried to 86 Classical 89 in favor of BYU Radio.

The January ratings are out now, and KKAT-AM also nudged up a bit. Maybe they picked up some disgruntled KLO listeners, as their conservative talk shows aren't much different than Salem Radio's offerings. Why Nielsen classifies KKAT as "news" is beyond comprehension, though. They toss in a few pre-recorded news headlines a few times each day along with TOH network news, but KKAT sure ain't in the same league as KSL or even KVNU. KLO's share didn't change, but you really can't expect much difference in one month's time. They'll have to stick with America's Best Music for at least six months IMO to get a solid ratings picture.

[CAwasinNJ]

Does anyone know if the broadcasting division of BYU or BYU Radio has a separate balance sheet from the rest of BYU? I would guess not. In a broad sense it's the same mission.

Ratings comments in a separate thread.

[henry]

Without going into detail, let me give a peek behind the curtain at BYUR and BYUB in general:

The goal of the station was to reach people OUTSIDE the normal Mormon bubble. BYUB landed that SiriusXM channel in 2011 and realized BYUradio could no longer play crappy 80s Mormon pop music. A tiny staff worked on a shoestring budget to create a talk station with *no* network affiliation. That's no easy task. The goal was to showcase the university and its academic prowess in an engaging manner that people would actually want to listen to (aka, a knock off of NPR). BYUR has been growing very slowly, and been given the freedom to hire actual radio people to do build it.

There's no direction from the main offices of the university, some collaboration with BYUtv but not as much as you'd think, so the staff have a lot of freedom to build it out. And now that more positions are slowly opening up, I think that's attractive to Salt Lake radio people who hold an LDS Temple Recommend (requirement to work for BYU).

I can't speak for today's direction, but AFAIK the goal is not to be "Mormon" (religious) but rather to be "BYU" (learning). Getting the FM signal caught 99% of the staff by surprise. There was LITERALLY a celebration with cake and balloons when it was announced that Classical 89 was spared. Tears of joy. That was a magical day.

I'm not sure how FM will change BYUR's focus (since it had always been national before, because of Sirius). I do know hiring Dain Craig was a GOOD HIRE. The station's overall manager is Don Shelline, who used to manage the Simmons cluster in St. George. That guys KNOWS radio.

As far as operating at a loss, CJ -- this is public radio. It operates at pretty much a 100% loss. It's a fancy billboard for BYU.