WBUR BizLab’s mission is to identify and test ideas for new revenue in public radio.

WBUR strongly believes that all of us in public media and nonprofit journalism need to remain vibrant and financially strong, so that we can continue to serve our mission of being a trusted and indispensable source of news and information. And to do that, we need to work together to identify paths forward in sustainability. And that is what BizLab’s year and this Summit is about: all of us coming together to learn, and to openly share what we’ve learned, to collectively become stronger.

2019 was an exciting year for us. Because of funding from CPB and Knight Foundation, BizLab was able to work with a diverse group of NPR stations across the country, all with different challenges and different opportunities. The 2019 cohort of stations were the DCist from WAMU, Louisville Public Media, WDET from Detroit, Capital Public Radio from Sacramento, WLRN from Miami, and Vermont Public Radio. The challenge put forth to these stations was to spend 6 months with us identifying a new path to revenue.

How does an organization find a new path to revenue?

There are a lot of ways to launch a new revenue stream within an organization. Many of us have experience in doing this, both at our stations and in other industries.

One way is through acquisition of a business or expertise. For example, NPR, WBEZ, WNYC, and This American Life acquired the podcast distribution platform Pocket Casts. By acquiring a revenue-generating business in an adjacent industry (in this case podcast distribution), an organization can add a new revenue stream and valuable new assets to its portfolio: new technology, skills and expertise, and podcast consumption data insights. The acquisition of non-revenue-generating assets allows organizations to further branch off to create new products or to use the assets to increase revenue in existing revenue streams.

For organizations where acquisition of new products and other organizations is not a viable option, the best option for creating new revenue is by innovating internally, using the skills and resources already available to the organization. While “innovation” can be a buzzword, and R&D and innovation labs can be more flash than substance, there are known methods that work: Design Thinking and Lean Startup methods are used by startups and entrepreneurs of all shapes and sizes to identify product ideas and test them quickly and efficiently. This model for new product design has been used for over a decade by both  fledging startups and top corporations.

But we are a mission-driven non-profit. How do the principles of product development apply here?

Although we are in public media, where our content is provided as a public service, the principles of product design still apply. Even when we do not directly charge for the goods and services we provide, that doesn’t mean that the value we provide cannot be monetized. The example of corporate sponsorship is probably most clear: when corporate underwriters provide support for our station, they are receiving something of value to them: access to new customers. Our underwriters need access to our audience, and the on-air underwriting spots provides this to them.

This concept of value exchange also applies to a donation. Our public radio members donate to us because of what they get when they donate. It varies per donor: some donate because it makes them feel good that they financially supported something aligned to their values. Others donate because they want the tote bag or exclusive premium — they are purchasing a good. Others donate because they want to reinforce their identity as a “public radio nerd” and be an insider. By projecting to the world that they donate, they are making it clear they are true insiders.

Self-declared Public Radio Nerds on Instagram

The point is that new revenue comes from us providing new value to our audience, and asking them to pay for it. And the tighter the connection we can tie between the value we produce and the benefit people get from it, the more likely it is that the audience or user will contribute, by taking action and paying. 

The first step of product development is identifying a problem people want solved

With the six BizLab stations, we set out to understand the values, needs and wants of the target customers of their ideas. Through interviews, focus groups, surveys, and data analysis, each team spent two months focusing on listening and learning about what matters to the audiences, companies, and external stakeholders who interact with public media. Several themes emerged. From audiences, we heard statements like:

“I need my news delivered when and how I consume it.”

“I want to be up to date on what is going on near me.”

“I want the latest news on the topic I am passionate about.”

“I want access to exclusive events.”

“I want to be in the know.”

These needs and wants speak volumes to personalizing our delivery of news and information, on their terms and on their platforms. If we make their lives easier, we will have earned a place in their news landscape. From companies and potential sponsors we heard:

“I want to connect with people who care about my type of business.”

“I need a simple way of creating ads that work.”

“I need a one-stop-shop for buying ads across multiple regions.”

These statements reveal how complex the advertising world has become, and if we can simplify the landscape and enable connections between companies and their customers, we will be solving concrete problems for them.

Cohort Station Product Ideas

With these values identified, the six stations were each able to define a product around a specific need or want they could solve.

• WAMU designed a membership for the DCist, distinct from a membership to WAMU with perks designed for the loyal DCist reader.
• Louisville Public Media launched a new membership program for Do502, an events listing website, centered around exclusive events and ticket discounts, again, distinct from a membership to Louisville Public Media.
• WDET tested the product offering for small businesses in Detroit — a social media sponsored content product, designed to reach their desired customers.
• Capital Public Radio reimagining a cross-network underwriting sales product, converting a longstanding 15-second spot agreement between CapRadio and California public radio stations into a regional underwriting product, giving new access to underwriters to reach the state of California.
• WLRN created a new climate and environmental newsletter product, launching it with an eye towards it being a new membership donation channel and sponsorship opportunity.
• Vermont Public Radio focused on deeply serving Southern Vermont residents by delivering localized and targeted news on multiple platforms, to increase their engagement with VPR content and to increase donations from the region.

Lean Testing

Today’s Summit will share the details of these projects through lightning talks and panel presentations. Because teams followed our innovation process, they did not launch these products immediately after determining these ideas met user needs. Instead they tested them. They each created the tiniest example of what the idea was and quickly showed it to customers in as much of a real way as possible. In this way, the teams collected evidence that the idea was a good one. And sometimes it wasn’t good! But because they had moved quickly and hadn’t spent many resources on their test, the failures were quick and painless. The teams could move on, glad to have not expended more time on the idea. 

Stations each went through four months of testing each idea, launching experiments as frequently as every two weeks. After each test, they refined their product idea. They continually built evidence of what was working, pivoting and changing as they learned what didn’t work.

Some examples of tests include: DCist and LPM asked people to join non-existent membership programs. LPM printed membership cards for the first 12 members on their office printers. WLRN posted sign-up sheets for non-existent newsletters to gauge interest in topics. WDET asked small businesses to sign up for a pilot program, simply to see if anyone would sign up. CapRadio pitched an advertising product that didn’t have a name yet. VPR asked people to register for a news & brews event that ended up being cancelled. But they learned in that test that people wanted to attend.

These teams went out on a limb and asked potential users to take action, so that they could see if there was tangible interest in this concept. They ran small, fast tests and earned small amounts of revenue in the process, in order to determine what would work and what would not work. It was through this process that the stations identified ways of expanding existing station revenue, whether that was through entirely new products or through new donation channels, or with new content to drive new donations. 

The Financial Results

Each project has many lessons learned embedded in the details you’ll hear today. In aggregate, the projects also tell a compelling financial story. During the testing phase, stations collected $83,000 in revenue. Remember, our goal during testing wasn’t to make revenue, but to learn what was working. And it was from this testing, that each team made proposals to their stations to launch a new product, defined based on the lessons learned. And their collective revenue targets for 2020, the first year of each product, totals to $600,000. The charts below break down these numbers by product type and by station. These teams deserve applause for these results!

Summit Overview

This introduction gives you the basic framework of how these stations went from a challenge to find new revenue to actually finding it. They took on the role of entrepreneurs this year, and through flexibility, speed, and curiosity they found new opportunities for their stations.

The rest of today will be about sharing our collective discoveries of what works, what doesn’t work, and the challenges we faced. The day begins with each station telling you more about their projects and results. Then we will discuss the organizational and cultural challenges of introducing new ideas and launching new products at an organization. We have a fantastic panel on leadership and innovation. And we will wrap up the day with concrete case studies of tools and tips for using text messaging platforms and asking for podcast donations.

In Conclusion

Lean in today, and have conversations and capture ideas that you can apply at your own organization. This work is not easy, but it is urgent, and we are in this together.

I want to emphasize one thing: all of us can do this. Every public radio station can identify new possibilities for revenue and quickly test and size the opportunity and choose to take it forward. When hearing about how BizLab cohort stations did it, in addition to observing what they learned, pay attention to how they did it. You can take both their lessons learned and their techniques home with you today.

[Download slides from this presentation or watch the video.]

BizLab stations across the country spent 2019 testing news ideas for revenue at their stations and in their communities. At the BizLab Summit, each station gave a six-minute overview of their project.

• Download their slides (PDF)
• Watch WDET, Vermont Public Radio, and WLRN’s panel discussion, followed by their lightning presentations
• Watch Louisville Public Media, WAMU, and Capital Public Radio’s panel discussion, followed by their lightning presentations

WAMU, in Washington, D.C., acquired and revived the digital news outlet DCist in 2018, helping to fill a void in D.C.’s news ecosystem. DCist.com has a large and loyal audience, but until now the audience was not directly supporting the website.

DCist’s project with BizLab aimed to craft a robust and unique membership program, distinct to the brand of DCist: knowledgeable, playful, and engaging. To test the team’s assumptions, their BizLab project invited previous backers of a Kickstarter campaign to join a beta membership program. That group was used to test hypotheses about which membership benefits and offerings would resonate. A few months later, the DCist launched its membership program to the public on November 1, 2019 and has seen a heartening initial response.

Louisville Public Media’s work with BizLab centered on integrating their new digital property, Do502, into their existing network of stations and membership offerings. Do502.com is an event listing site with a focus on curated lists that help people find new things to do and new places to explore in Louisville, KY.

Louisville’s BizLab experiments focused on creating and curating events specifically for the Do502 audience. Early research in the project uncovered that Do502 readers crave limited-access engagements and exclusive series, and the team used their project to explore how to engage their audience in this way. The team also experimented with how to launch and promote a membership to Do502, distinct and separate from Louisville Public Media’s existing membership program.

WDET, Detroit’s NPR Station, has identified many local, small businesses who are aligned with the station’s values, but can’t afford typical radio underwriting pricing. Additionally, it is neither efficient nor profitable for a WDET underwriting representative to pursue sponsorship at the level of a small business budget.

WDET worked with BizLab exploring social media underwriting opportunities for small businesses. Through in-person interviews, WDET discovered that small businesses frequently use Facebook and Instagram to promote events and drive traffic. They also learned these businesses care about the local community, telling their unique story and providing a niche service and product. They love WDET’s non-profit mission and its reputation within the local community. With this information, the team tested a WDET-branded social media post product on Facebook and Instagram that affiliated the small business with the WDET brand and halo, reaching a network of potential consumers. By prototyping it as an online, semi-automated process to sell and produce, WDET created an affordable underwriting product.

Capital Public Radio, in Sacramento, CA, has an existing network of NPR stations across California where in exchange for Capital Public Radio’s State Capitol reporting, partner stations provide weekly underwriting units on their airwaves. The BizLab project was focused on re-designing the function and mission of this network, Capital Public Radio Network (CPRN).

CPRN enjoyed financial success in its early years, through selling these partner station underwriting units, but revenue began to decline in 2009 and eventually fell to zero. Through BizLab, the team explored how to resurrect, restructure, and return CPRN to financial sustainability, by redefining the product in terms of the value it offered to underwriters: a one-stop-shop for reaching NPR listeners across the state of California.

WLRN in Miami has invested in their local coverage of the environment and climate change with a commitment to hosting local events and hiring an environment reporter. WLRN’s goal in their BizLab project was to explore how to generate revenue through this topical coverage and the creation of an environmental newsletter.

Their BizLab experiments tested different newsletter content, styles, and format, and then expanded into a technology integration project: the team brought in News Revenue Hub to integrate their newsletter, payment and CRM platforms. The final environmental newsletter product combines journalism and community engagement through the delivery of specialized content on a significant community issue. The newsletter is driving new membership, increasing current levels of giving, and is a vehicle for targeting specific underwriters for this newly developed product.

Vermont Public Radio’s vision is “exploring the whole Vermont story, together” – no small task when you consider VPR is a statewide public radio service in a rural state with few concentrated population centers. In 2018, during VPR’s 14-county listening tour, listeners consistently asked for more coverage of their local communities. VPR’s BizLab project centered around the idea of making the station “feel more local” in Windham County, located in Southern VT, to determine if this would increase loyalty, engagement, and ultimately, revenue.

To accomplish this, in partnership with VPR’s dedicated Southern Vermont reporter, the team worked to raise the visibility of regional content and the reporter’s profile in the community via social media and a new email newsletter. They also increased engagement with the community by soliciting story ideas and planning a “News & Brews” event to involve residents in the news gathering process. They are now also exploring the possibility of geo-targeted underwriting opportunities that would allow local businesses to reach their local customers.

In this panel each station discussed their reasoning behind keeping the product distinct from existing station offerings, how they made the case internally, and the pro’s and con’s of launching a new brand.

Panel Video

Moderator:

• Candice Springer, Assistant Director of Community Engagement, WBUR

Panelists: 

• Lisa Cooper, Underwriting Executive, Capital Public Radio
• Tracy Karem, Corporate Marketing Representative, Louisville Public Media
• Rachel Sadon, Editor-in-Chief, DCist

Audience Questions

Our panelists provided written answers to audience questions not covered in the live discussion.

Limited resources in marketing has come up a lot…. How do I convince my VERY busy marketing person to create a new brand communication plan?

• Lisa (Capital Public Radio): In the CapRadio BizLab project we stumbled in that regard. At first, we did not know that our network was even on the marketing team’s docket and the marketing team did not know we were razing the old model, beginning anew, changing the name of the Network.  Marketing had invested significant time and effort in ensuring the Network was included in the stations’ new branding plan. This meant a lot of their time and resources were already invested when we told them we of the name change. It is taking time and dialogue to for us to get on the same page. Moving forward, we are working closely with our marketing team to ensure we are in agreement as we continue to consider a name-change, website, and marketing for our project. We have found there is no such thing as over-communicating.  I realize how basic that is. We were very excited to move forward with a new name which appeared to be a dismissal of all the work our marketing team had already done.  That was not our intent. Rather than being put into a position of damage control and mending fences, you should first get a new brand communication plan get on the radar of your very busy marketing person. Get their take on it, then take baby steps – make sure you talk in detail and start at the very beginning. Discuss the importance of your vision and how it aligns with their goals and the overall success of your operations.  It takes more time than I’d imagined.

• Rachel (DCist): We’ve struggled with this exact issue, and in a lot of cases it has just meant taking these kind of projects and work on ourselves.

Do502 found a distinct part of the D502 Audience that was NOT part of the LPMedia Audience.  Did the same thing emerge at DCist? Please talk more about that.

• Rachel (DCist): We don’t have as much data on this as I’d like, but we definitely see a substantial part of our donor base hadn’t given to WAMU.

How much did you rely on your legacy platforms to promote the digital platforms?

• Tracy (LPM): We promote Do502 on the three stations of LPM, especially on the music station. We announce ticket giveaways on WFPK, telling folks they need to go to Do502 to register to win. We also rotate promos, telling people to go to Do502 if they are looking for something to do.

For DCist, are the membership donations generated by your digital product eligible (Usable)  to receive CPB’s CSG grants the same way the radio $ is used?

• Rachel (DCist): I don’t officially know the answer to this, but I imagine that they are? We are wholly owned by WAMU.

What’s wrong with “millennial newspaper of record?” How are you broadening the DCist brand appeal? 2. Is it possible to create a brand that serves everyone?

• Rachel (DCist): I’m just not convinced that the things millennials want from their news is all that different from what everyone else wants; we see all demographics increasingly looking to mobile, consuming newsletters, wanting to know how to spend their weekend, enjoying well-written content, etc. Marketing to just millennials also runs a major risk of alienating a lot of people — including longtime Washingtonians — who would otherwise get a lot of value from the work that we’re producing. No, I don’t think it’s possible to create a brand that serves everyone, everywhere. But I do think that it’s possible to cover a city the size of D.C. holistically, in a way that all Washingtonians can find something that appeals to them and their needs.

Tracy – how many staffers did Do502 have prior to BizLab and how many would be ideal?

• Tracy (LPM): Do502 came with one staff person, who is still with us. Since acquiring Do502, we’ve added two additional people. One is the Digital Director, she is in charge of Do502, but also in charge of the digital for all the properties.  What we have now seems to work really well, so I doubt any more staff will be added

What other kinds of potential acquisitions are you considering or are being discussed in your organizations?

• Tracy (LPM): No other acquisitions at the moment. Apparently, we get approached a lot about buying other brands, but I think if we were to buy another property, it would have to align very much with our mission.

How do you create success when Human Resources are limited and there is no budget to expand.

• Tracy (LPM): For LPM, it did require some people, including myself, going outside their role in the organization. If resources are limited, talk to underwriting about ways to sponsor what you have in mind. They may have some ideas and relationships in place that can make the process go easier, especially if you start small with the experiments. The beauty of experiments is that you can try things on a smaller scale, so no one is being asked to do that much more.
• Lisa (Capital Public Radio): Similarly, at CapRadio, we were given an opportunity that had not previously been available to our Corporate Support team.  That meant we had to stretch our underwriting roles to include statewide buys. Knowing this would increase revenue in the future, we have had to be patient as it has affected pur regular and new business income in the now.  This patience must also be exercised by management since we are building for growth that will show up later. We are stretched very thin at the moment – a sacrifice we make for said growth.

Curious what the motivations are for acquiring a brand if you want to change its brand reputation and associations anyway?

• Lisa (Capital Public Radio): Within the world of prospective buyers, the CapRadio Network didn’t have a brand to speak of. With the exception of a couple of hand-picked grantors, the Network had been marketed to stations, not buyers. with the intent of ensuring participation based on content in exchange for units. We knew the Network had real potential for revenue – it had been built that way – and without specific effort and marketing to buyers, its revenue potential would likely continue to founder.
• Rachel (DCist): I don’t think that WAMU/DCist has done this at all (if that’s what was being implied here). We have kept the strategy the same largely as it was before. This wasn’t the case at our sister publication, LAist, where they have change the brand, etc. I suspect the motivation there and in other cases is the large platform already built in and strong brand recognition. 

How do you find a marketing/branding consultant who isn’t largely full of crap? (Not a joke Q)

• Rachel (DCist): Ooof. Bring as much of it in house as you can? Come in with a really strong vision and seek more help in the execution? If you find the answer, tell us!

Thank you to our thoughtful panelists and engaged audience members!

Moderator:
Joan DiMicco, Executive Director, BizLab, WBUR

Panelists:
Andi McDaniel, Senior Director of Content and News, WAMU
Ellen Oost, Director of Development, Louisville Public Media
Paul Adams, Director, Corporate Underwriting, Capital Public Radio

We shared best practices, tools, tips, and real life examples of this work, enabling attendees to hit the ground running at their own media organizations. The Summit covered revenue generation through digital audience engagement, spinning off new brands, event monetization, text-to-donate platforms, and podcast donation strategies.

https://youtu.be/dIqNF0-vSXg