Interview: Daniel Ash; Vice-President, Strategic Communications; Chicago Public Radio

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 18, 2006 6:20PM

For an organization that depends on good communication, Chicago Public Radio discovered yesterday that the plans for the future of their programming aren’t being heard clearly by their audience.

After we posted yesterday on Chicago Public Radio’s move towards a more talk-based format at their three broadcast properties (WBEZ in Chicago, WBEW in Chesterton, IN and WBEQ in Morris, IL), we were contacted by Daniel Ash, the Vice-President of Strategic Communications for CPR. In an interview with Chicagoist, he acknowledged that “the way [WBEZ] 91.5 sounds during the day is going to be the way it sounds 24/7,” and that strictly music-formatted programming blocks will no longer be featured.

But he stressed that CPR still plans on serving Chicago’s jazz, blues and other music communities through a new broadcasting service on WBEW and WBEQ that will rely on contributions from the community at large. Thanks to a recent upgrade in WBEW’s signal strength, this new service will be heard throughout Chicago.

What this new programming will sound like is still being discussed internally, and CPR hopes to hear from leaders in Chicago’s music community as well about this venture. “Because we didn’t say ‘We’re going to drop this in 2007 and here’s what’s going to replace it,’” Ash says, “it created a vacuum for those who were very loyal. We have no intention of creating a station where people talk about music.”

Ash also talked about the station’s plans for the new service, why CPR abandoned its plans for music-formatted programming, and what role musicians and artists will play in this new venture.

Chicagoist: So is Chicago Public Radio really going all talk?
Daniel Ash: To clarify, the way [WBEZ] 91.5 sounds during the day is going to be the way it sounds 24/7. The original plan is to build a 24/7 service for WBEW [and WBEQ]. The new service is not a talk format, although it may include some traditional talk elements, just as it will most definitely include music. Our aim is to develop a service that is highly localized and a reflection of the Chicago area, which would include music.

We plan to build this service with the community in mind. The folks who are the local artists, the local musicians, who were quite frustrated with our old music programming, will work in a much more intimate way, with the station, in developing content.

C: What’s going to be their contribution?
ASH: [Chicago Public Radio CEO] Torey [Malatia] wants to create a public radio station that has a different sensibility than the daytime 91.5 [frequency] has. It’s music-rich, sound-rich, and not just people talking about music like a symposium about jazz, but it’s part of a discussion about life in the community. The segments could be a jazz group or a folk group that includes that art form but reflects the region. We’re hesitant to talk too much about this because it’s still in development. We’re developing it with both people internally and folks in the community, so [artists] will actually have more opportunity to have their content [on the air]. We don’t want something that sounds like NPR, we want it to sound like Chicago.

C: As of last month, there were still plans to create music programming on WBEW and WBEC. What changed?
ASH: We thought if we want to do what we want to do, we have to create a new style of radio, which sounds ambitious, even arrogant. But the thing is, no single format is going to work if we want to reach beyond our current audience. But we can’t make all of our decisions based on our members. In many respects, we’d be a commercial station if that were the case. We have to program for the region.

C: Are you worried about losing subscribers as a result of these changes?
ASH: We’re going to lose some. But we hope to get them back when this new service is up and running. And I’m very confident that we will. The jazz musician that was very passionately disappointed in what he read, once he sees that he can be more involved in the public radio station, I think he’ll come around. We have no intention of creating a station where people talk about music. That’s exactly the opposite of the direction we want to go.

C: Why not make this new format part of WBEZ’s nighttime programming and use those other two stations as a music-formatted compliment?
ASH: We thought about it. It becomes a business decision: how do you afford that type of programming and try to do something new at the same time. To do something new, you have to invest time and resources in the new project. Most of our music team is working on this new ideAsh: They actually see it as a new opportunity.

C: Did you discuss these changes with your program hosts, especially the stuff that’s produced locally? I’m thinking of Dick Buckley, specifically, here.
ASH: Although Howard [Reich] was able to reach [Buckley] late last week, he’s had surgery recently and he’s not in the office ever so his producer had a hard time reaching him. But every other on-air host and producer was fully informed about where we were going with this.

[When Chicagoist contacted Ash for more detail on this question, he said the following: “Chris Heim is no longer with the station; she was the host of Passport and our music director. Passport is now hosted by Tony Sarabia. Niles Frantz and Dick Buckley will be reassigned, if they so choose. We think both, given their deep knowledge of blues and jazz respectively, have much to offer the new service in development.]

C: In an interview in 2003, Torey Malatia said it’s difficult to measure the public radio audience. How do you determine what it is that your audience wants to hear?
ASH: Because we’re non-commercial, we don’t get the kind of ratings information that [commercial stations] get. We’re planning on having a series of public meetings and a lot of web activity where people can directly talk to us—and each other—about this new service.

C: When you want to create community social programs, it’s important to go to the leaders in the community to talk about what’s needed. Are there people in Chicago that you’re reaching out to or that you’d like to hear from to develop this programming?
ASH: We’ve developed a list of folks we want to consult. We want to talk to leaders and we want to talk to practitioners, people who are active in their community.

C: Who have you been talking to?
ASH: We just introduced the concept to staff. Their task is to take the concept and assess the strategy for engaging this external audience. They haven’t reached out yet, but I can say unequivocally, many producers, when they heard about the concept, though they were sad about music, many of them were coming to me to start talking about it publicly. They’re moving aggressively on ideas because they see the possibilities. We have to speak to those leaders, those musicians, those artists, who are going to be key to the co-construction element that this service is going to demand. It just hasn’t gotten underway yet.

C: What’s the biggest need that you want to fill for the Chicago blues and jazz community that isn’t currently there?
ASH: I think the biggest need is more young people need to be introduced to the form in a way that isn’t a backdrop to another genre, like hearing a jazz sample in hip-hop. People may listen to it but not understand the context. This new service was one where, rather than have two hours of jazz, two hours of blues, two hours of world music, we’re going to integrate it so we have a better chance of attracting the attention of curious people. Younger audiences are more likely to move across genres than we’re likely to admit.