WAMU 88.

5
COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Minutes of the Meeting of the Council
Wednesday, February 3, 2016

WAMU Community Council Members Attending:

Barbara Bares, Council Chair; Eugene Sofer, Vice Chair; Audrey Alvarado, Sharvell Becton,
Dr. Christine Berg, Lucinda Crabtree, Paul DesJardin, Navroz Gandhi, Trisha Hartge,
Nakeisha Neal Jones, Avis Thomas Lester, Matthew McCormick, David Nemazie, Margaret
O’Bryon, Tony Sarmiento, Stan Soloway, Shay Stevens, Jon West-Bey, and Donna MP
Wilson.

WAMU/AU Staff Attending:

JJ Yore, Carey Needham, David Taylor, Kathleen Allenbaugh, James Coates, Lettie Holman,
Lucy Horn, Andi McDaniel, Brendan Sweeney, and Anne Healy.

Members of the Public:

Cathleen O’Brien and Glenn Ihrig (WAMU Volunteer Hosts)
Diane Adams, Cliff Brody, Chivonnie Gius, Danette Kauffman, Reginald Ragland, and Gar
Young.

I. Welcome – Barbara Bares, Council Chair

Barbara Bares opened the meeting at 7:05 p.m. She welcomed everyone to the first
Quarterly Meeting of 2016, and she introduced the six new members of the Council:
Lucinda Crabtree, Navroz Gandhi, Avis Thomas Lester, Stan Soloway, Jon West-Bey, and
Donna Wilson. On January 21st, WAMU aired a Day Sponsorship honoring the six Council
members who retired at the end of 2015: Kent Lynn, Larry McCarthy, Daniel Okonkwo,
Micaela Mejia Pond, Jody Steiner Kelly, and Ginny McArthur.

Barbara said that she thought a good way to start a new year might be to look at some of the
significant events of the past year. 2015 was a year of changes for the station. Among the
many highlights of the past year: JJ celebrated his first year as General Manager; Atlantic
Media Strategies was engaged to work with station management and staff on a station
identification project which led to the drafting of a five-year strategic plan for WAMU; major
changes were made in personnel and staff organization; Diane Rehm announced that she
would be retiring at the end of 2016; and a series of training programs were held to improve
the on-air and writing skills of the news department. In addition, a number of changes were
made to the programming schedule during 2015, and still more changes were made to the
schedule at the end of last month. Barbara noted that 2016 promises to be another year of
great change for WAMU and the media environment. She ended her opening remarks with
an appropriate quote that she had heard and liked: “When you are finished changing, you are
finished.”
II. State of the Station Report - JJ Yore, General Manager
JJ informed the Council that instead of giving the entire report on “The State of the Station”
himself, he had asked the Department Directors to bring the Council Members up-to-date
about what has been happening in their departments since the Council’s last meeting on
December 9th.

A. Schedule Change Feedback -- Kathleen Allenbaugh, Marketing & Communications

Director
Kathleen informed everyone that the new programming schedule that went into effect on
January 25th is posted on the station’s website. (http://wamu.org/programs/schedule)
Before the changes went into effect, all WAMU members were notified by e-mail and letters
were sent to our major donors. Listeners were encouraged to give us their feedback, and
Kathleen reported that as of this morning, 950 messages had been received. All of them are
being answered by staff and volunteers. A response guide was prepared to make sure that
everyone who contacted us received an appropriate response to their comments and
questions.

B. New Content Initiatives & Newsroom Restructure – Andi McDaniel, Senior Director of
Content and News
Andi opened her report on content initiatives by playing a montage of excerpts from some
of the new shows that were added to our schedule at the end of January. She said that one
of the programs she is particularly excited about is Reveal. Andi explained that we are
partnering with the producers of Reveal and that WAMU reporter Patrick Madden has
already contributed several pieces to this program. We are also working with The Moth Radio
Hour, another of the new shows, on a series of events. Andi played excerpts from two new
programs WAMU is creating: “What’s With Washington” and “The Big Listen.” “What’s
with Washington” is designed to promote greater engagement with our audience by asking
listeners to submit questions about the Washington region they have wondered about. “The
Big Listen” is a program about podcasts. Lauren Ober is the host/producer and of this
program and we are airing a series of pilot shows to explore audience reaction. Andi
informed the Council that the initial response from our audience to both new initiatives has
been very encouraging. JJ added that the goal of our new content initiatives is to increase
the racial, ethnic, and age diversity of our audience to make it more reflective of the listening
community we serve. Council Member Tony Sarmiento suggested that the questions
submitted to “What’s With Washington” might give us a way to measure the diversity of our
audience. JJ and Brendan agreed and explained that when choosing from among the
suggested topics, we would try to select those of interest to a diverse audience. Navroz
Ghandi asked about efforts to market the new programs, and Kathleen Allenbaugh
responded that we notifiedour members about the changes before they were made and that
we made announcements on air and on-line to reach all of our listeners.

Andi asked Lettie Holman, WAMU’s Program Director, to bring everyone up-to-date on
plans for WAMU’s longest running program, The Big Broadcast, which has been a weekly
feature on our station since 1964 and has only had two host/producers in its 51 years – John
Hickman and Ed Walker. Since Ed’s death last October, Rob Bamberger, host of WAMU’s
Hot Jazz Saturday Night, has been filling in as interim host. Lettie said that we have been
interviewing a number of strong candidates to be permanent host and expects a decision in
the near future.

Newsroom Restructure: Andi informed the Council that we are entering the first phase of what
will be an ambitious five-year plan to grow our news staff from 20 to 60 positions and to
expand our regional coverage. Initially, the newsroom will focus on five regional beats that
are especially important to the Washington region: Transportation and Development,
Education and Inequality, Race and Ethnicity, Power and Influence, and Arts and Culture.
The new beats will deliver in-depth reporting via broadcast, digital, on-demand, and social
platforms. Our goal is to cover fewer topics more deeply. The coverage teams for these
beats will include multimedia producers and editors. Andi explained that we need
consistency in the quality of our content across all platforms, and we need more editorial
supervision to achieve this goal. (Please see Attachment #1) Trisha Hartge asked Andi which
public radio stations are doing digital well. Andi responded that a number of stations are
doing a good job including WNYC and WBUR.

C. Audience Updates – Lettie Holman, Program Director

Lettie opened her report by informing the Council that the latest audience ratings for
WAMU show substantial audience growth over the past year. (Please see Attachment #2)
The Fall 2015 report on the Top 30 Public Radio Stations listed WAMU as #1 in Metro
AQH Persons at 28,600 and #1 in Metro AQH Share at 7.7%. WAMU is #2 in Metro Cume
Rating at 11.6%. Lettie gave the following explanation of these terms:
If WAMU were a store rather than a radio station, the weekly cume is the total number of different shoppers
in the store.
AQH listeners represent the number of shoppers in the store during any fifteen minutes. AQH listeners stay
and shop longer, and come back for more return trips compared to cume listeners who only shop once.
Share is the percentage of those listening to radio who are listening to WAMU.
Cume Rating is WAMU's weekly cume audience expressed as a percentage of the Washington, DC
population.

WAMU’s Fall 2015 total audience was 777,000, an 8% growth over 2014’s total audience.
While we do not have access to data beginning in January 2016, DCRTV reported that
WAMU is at the top of the DC ratings for the first two weeks in January. Lettie said we will
not have any data from the schedule changes for several weeks. Avis Thomas Lester asked
how listening is measured, and Lettie explained that we receive our audience data from
Radio Research Consortium (the company that negotiates with Nielson Audio to obtain
these ratings on behalf of public radio.)

D. Leadership Searches – JJ Yore, Carey Needham, and Andi McDaniel

JJ reported that the search for the Senior Director of Development is almost complete and
an announcement will be made shortly. JJ said that he is delighted with the choice and looks
forward to introducing this person to the Council at the next meeting. Carey said that the
search for the Senior Director of Technology is in its final phase. Market Enginuity is now
managing WAMU’s Underwriting Department and looking for a Director of Corporate
Marketing. Andi said she has begun recruiting for an Editorial Director to head the newly
restructured newsroom.

E. Financial Report – Carey Needham, Associate General Manager

Carey’s report comparing FY 2016 and FY 2015 Revenue and Expense Detail as of
December 31, 2015 was sent to the Council Members prior to the meeting. (Please see
Attachment #3) Carey reviewed this report with the Council Members. He explained that, as
we are part of American University, we follow AU’s two-year budget cycle. We are now in
month 10 of the first year of the current budget cycle. Fiscal Year 2016 began on May 1,
2015 and will end on April 30, 2016. Carey showed everyone a graph illustrating WAMU’s
operating performance over the past 10 years. He pointed out that our revenue grew
substantially from 2005 through 2010 which made it possible for the station to make
substantial investments in programming, technology, and personnel. We were also able to
purchase our station in Ocean City and invest in a new facility. However, as our expenses
grew with the substantial costs associated with our move to our new media center, revenue
growth began to flatten leading to significant deficits in the past few years. Carey said that
our efforts to increase station revenue while keeping expenses down are beginning to pay off
– we anticipate a deficit of only $500,000 this year -- and we are trending toward a balanced
budget in 2017. David Nemazie noted that WAMU’s audience growth does not seem to
have resulted in a corresponding growth in revenue. Carey agreed that we have been
underperforming in converting listeners into members and that we are making changes to
improve our performance in that area.

III. Community Dialogues – Eugene Sofer, Council Vice-Chair and Chair of the
Community Dialogue Committee
Gene explained that, as an important part of its mission, the Community Council sponsors a
series of off-the-record meetings with community leaders and experts in various fields to
provide valuable contacts and background information to the station’s news team and
program producers. Last week several members of the Council’s Community Council met
with Andi McDaniel, Brendan Sweeney, and Michael Martinez the plan for this year’s
Community Dialogues which will take place on March 22, June 21, and October 5. One of
the major beats that the news department has created is Development and Transportation,
and the Dialogue Committee decided to focus on development for this year’s meetings. The
tentative topics for the three meetings are: Technology and Development in the DC Metro
Area, Development and its Impact on Inequality in the DC Metro Area, and Education and
its Impact on Development in the DC Metro Area. The first dialogue will focus on
Technology and Development. Gene invited Council Members to participate in planning
these meetings and suggesting possible participants.

IV. Old Business, New Business - Barbara Bares

Barbara announced that the only item under “Old Business” was the approval of the
minutes of the last meeting of the Council which was held on December 9, 2015. She called
for a motion to approve the minutes. The motion was made and seconded and the minutes
were approved as written. In the absence of any “new business,” she opened the meeting to
comments from the members of the public in attendance.

V. Public Comment
Gar Young, a long-time listener and supporter, said that he was pleased with all of the
exciting new programs. Cliff Brody, also a station supporter, said he was delighted with the
station’s new leadership team. Chivonnie Gius, a station volunteer and member, said that as
a millennial she appreciates WAMU’s outreach on social media.

VI. Adjournment
There being no further business, the Chair called for a motion to adjourn the meeting. The
motion was made and seconded and approved by the Council. The meeting was adjourned
at 8:50 p.m.

Respectively submitted,

Anne
Anne Slattery Healy