Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • March 5, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 13 led in that measure since at least 2011, he said, and he's confident it will retain that lead at the end of 2018. Salhany said he isn't overly concerned by WNPR's recent higher ratings. "I've been here at the TICs for almost 30 years and numbers kind of go up a little bit and down some," he said. "At the end of the day, providing consistent information and local content, being part of the community and being part of our listeners' lives are really the most important thing for us." Asked if WTIC-AM planned to do anything different in the wake of the recent ratings, he said it would continue doing what it always has, "which is to be extremely local, in all of our content, whether it's our news, our traffic, our weather, our sports, our talk and information." The all-important morning drive time is a key focus for WTIC-AM, which features longtime morning host Ray Dunaway. Other names include Angela Dias in news, Bob Joyce in sports, Bob Cox in weather and Mike Alan in traffic. Salhany put the station's news staff at about seven full time and eight to 10 part time. Dankosky puts his station's count at about 22 in radio, of which about 20 regularly work in news. Salhany is complimentary of WNPR. "They've done some really good things — lot of respect for them," he said. "And we're a great radio station, too, and so we're just going to contin- ue to get better and work really hard to make sure that we provide the best local content for the community." Like WNPR taps NPR for national news and programming, WTIC taps CBS. Salhany said he doesn't think, though, comparing commercial and noncom- mercial stations is apples to apples. "We're really not the same type of station," he said. "We do local news 24/7 at the top and bottom of ev- ery hour, exclud- ing when we have sports, which is quite a bit, which they don't have." Meantime, WTIC is losing UConn sports at the end of the basketball season after UConn recently signed with iHeart Media and ESPN 97.9 FM to broadcast basketball, football and men's hockey. Salhany acknowledged people love UConn sports, but said WTIC "will be just fine," going forward. Another Entercom-Hartford official said WTIC would continue to empha- size local sports and would sharpen its focus on the professional teams it airs. WNPR's ratings surge mirrors an in- crease by NPR nationally. Total weekly listeners for all programming on NPR stations in 2016 reached an all- time high of about 37.4 million in fall 2016, up almost 4 million from 2015, according to an NPR news release citing Nielsen Audio ratings. Through last spring, it reported total weekly listeners for all programming on NPR stations reached an all-time high of 37.7 million. WNPR's gains Ben Bogardus, assistant professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University, sees three factors influencing WNPR's ratings surge. First, Connecticut is a highly edu- cated population and that's NPR's core audience, he said. "In Connecticut, Yale, UConn, Quinnipiac,Trinity, Sacred Heart — all of these universities in a very small state in a highly educated workforce, they tend to like NPR more than people in other states would," he said. The current political climate is an- other factor, Bogardus said. WTIC has some conservative talk ra- dio, including Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, which isn't as popular in the current climate as when the Democrats were in power, Bogardus said. "Conservative talk radio does better when they have the opposition party in the White House," he said, "and so as people are looking for alternative viewpoints, they don't turn on Rush Limbaugh and then hear the news on WTIC, they turn on WNPR for that sort of alternative point of view." Third, is what he calls the Netflix era, in which people prefer commercial-free viewing. Commercial talk radio has frequent advertisements, he said. "So listening to the radio in the car and being bombarded by constant ads, I think, is also turning people off," Bogardus said. "I think another sort of factor is the world of podcasting," said Bogar- dus, who teaches a course in that at Quinnipiac. "The idea of more highly produced, more longer-form program- ming, people are starting to warm up to. That's, again, what NPR does best." WNPR's DeFilippis said people tune in for the deep-dive stories, offering so-called "driveway moments" where a listener, hooked by a story or program, continues listening in their vehicle even after arriving home. WNPR research affirmed that its biggest fans are lifelong learners, DeFilippis said, and the station tends to attract those listeners. Dankosky said WNPR enjoyed news growth since about 2006, adding local hosts like McEnroe along the way. In 2016, Dankosky got a grant to start the New England News Collaborative, beefing up regional news relevant to Connecticut listeners through "NEXT." The growth is being fed by a broader audience, too, both younger and more racially diverse, which WNPR has inten- tionally sought through its program- ming, Dankosky said. Listeners also are nearly split between men and women. "We've been investing in news, local news, regional news, national news, international news," he said, adding that WNPR also partners closely with NPR in Washington, D.C., setting a high standard for its productions. WTIC is focused on quality, as well, Salhany said. "What's important is what comes out of the speakers every day and to make sure that we're local, we're committed to our community, we provide the best coverage we can with news, weather, traffic, sports and entertainment," he said. "That to me, I can guarantee you that we will do that in 2018." Radio ratings for Hartford-New Britain-Middletown metro area WNPR last September edged ahead of WTIC-AM's news-talk programming for the first time in overall ratings during a 24-hour period. Avg. listeners per % share of measured Cumulative September 2017 15 min. window listening audience weekly listeners WNPR 5,400 6.3 134,100 WTIC-AM 4,200 4.9 139,700 October 2017 WTIC-AM 5,000 5.8 156,600 WNPR 4,800 5.6 131,700 November 2017 WNPR 5,200 6.1 124,600 WTIC-AM 4,700 5.6 140,300 December 2017 WNPR 5,000 6.3 130,500 WTIC-AM 4,000 5 138,00 January 2018 WNPR 4,200 5.9 113,700 WTIC-AM 3,600 5.1 122,800 Note: WTIC's annual overall ratings in 2016 and 2017 were 7.9 and 6.4, respectively; WNPR's were 3.8 and 5.4. Source: Radio Research Consortium. Steve Salhany, Vice President of Programming, Entercom-Hartford Catie Talarski, executive producer at WNPR, works the control panel during a recent "Where We Live" talk show hosted by Lucy Nalpathanchil, seen behind the glass.

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