SoundExchange Reporting Blog

Thanks to all who attended my session Digital Media Metrics at the Public Radio Programming Conference here in Baltimore today. Also, big thanks to Mike Reszler of APM/MPR for, in actuality, graciously letting me horn in on what was originally his session, so I could present some streaming usage metrics that we’ve gleaned all that there SoundExchange data you guys send us each quarter.

Here, as promised, is my slide deck for your downloading pleasure: SoundExchange Reporting – PRPD 2011

As always, I’m greatly enjoying the PRPD conference and, in particular, meeting many of you in person. I’ll be here for the rest of the conference, often times hanging out at the NPR Digital Services booth, so please introduce yourself if you see me

Just wanted to remind y’all (or, as we said it back in my native and beloved Pittsburgh, yinz) of a couple of important events and items. Namely:

1. I’ll be traveling to Baltimore next week to speak at the annual Public Radio Programming Conference. Be sure to stop by my session or the NPR Digital Services booth and say hello!

2. The deadline for submitting your Q3 SoundExchange data to us is starting to get uncomfortably close (close enough to start raising my blood pressure, at least): it’s a little over three weeks away: Friday, October 7, 2011.

3. Finally, while more and more syndicated shows are submitting playlist data to NPR Digital Services, many still do not. If you stream one that doesn’t, you (unfortunately) are responsible for getting the required data and uploading to us along with your local playlists. If you produce a syndicated show that is not currently sending playlist data to us, then please start!

I hope to see many of you next week in Baltimore!

Here’s another preview of the information I’ll be sharing at next month’s Public Radio Programming Conference in Baltimore.

Each content channel that we report on to SoundExchange each quarter must be identified as one of the following formats:

• Classical
• Jazz
• Music Mix
• News and Information
• News/Classical
• News/Jazz
• News/Music Mix
• Adult Album Alternative

The recently filed Q2 2011 reports covered 503 content channels streamed by 316 public radio stations and here’s how they break down by format:

So, almost a third of all reporting channels are of the News/Music Mix variety, while only a small (but feisty!) 5% of channels are News/Jazz.

If this sort of information floats your boat, and you’ll be in Baltimore for the conference, be sure to drop by my session on 9/21 for more such goodies!

Attention fans of metrics and crab cakes: I’ll be speaking at the PRPD‘s upcoming Public Radio Programming Conference in Baltimore. Specifically, I’ll be taking part in the following session:

Digital Media Metrics: Making Sense of it All

In the digital world we can count almost anything, and in many cases the numbers can be overwhelming: page views, visits, visitors, time on site, bounce rates, click paths and the list goes on. So where do you focus? Where do you put energy? This session will look at smart metrics vs. dumb metrics, and it will focus on the most important question: what should you count and why? More than just a primer on digital metrics, this session will help you devise a strategy to move from tracking digital metrics to being a digital analyst. And learn fascinating streaming trends from SoundExchange reporting.

Mike Reszler – Managing Director of Digital Strategies & Content, APM &MPR

Phil Johnson – SoundExchange Reporting Project Manager, NPR Digital Services

This session will be during the first set of breakout sessions, on Wednesday, September 21 at 11:00am (consult the conference schedule for exact location). It should be an interesting and informative session; in addition to all of the great info that Mike will be sharing, I’ll be presenting some streaming metrics based on all that data you’ve generated and submitted for quarterly SoundExchange reporting.

NPR Digital Services will also have a booth at the conference, where I’ll be hanging out between sessions, so be sure to stop by to say hello, ask questions and enjoy our usual stellar offering of free candy! I hope to see many of you there.

While we’re on the topic, don’t forget, the deadline to submit your Q3 2011 SoundExchange data (covering July 1 through September 30) to us at NPR DS is Friday, October 7.

Now that the Q2 SoundExchange reports have been submitted (and since Q3 data collection won’t heat up for a while yet), I’m spending some time looking at what else the reporting data can tell us about our online audiences. I’ll be digging into the data for the next couple of weeks (around taking the family on summer vacation!) and will be presenting a number of findings at the upcoming Public Radio Program Directors conference in Baltimore. I’ll be participating in a session on digital media metrics led by Mike Reszler of American Public Media.

To whet your appetite, here’s a chart showing the percent of public radio’s online audience that comes from outside the United States for the past year:

These numbers are based on the reporting data supplied to NPR Digital Services by stations that are covered by the CPB-SoundExchange webcasting agreement. An international session is defined as any stream request that comes from an IP address outside the United States. These numbers include all sessions, regardless of duration or start time (e.g. includes overnights, weekends etc.).

As you can see, the percentage of online audience outside the US has hovered around 20% pretty consistently for the past year.

I’ll be sharing more information like this in Baltimore and on this here blog, so stayed tuned!

I’m just back from a few days in San Francisco for the annual NFCB Community Radio Conference. I had a great time meeting lots of people, attending lots of interesting sessions and sampling some of the great local eats.

I also got to participate in a great panel discussion about music licensing. I spoke for a few minutes about – brace yourself – SoundExchange reporting for stations covered by the CPB-SoundExchange Webcasting Performance Agreement. The panel also included John Crigler and Melodie Virtue, two excellent lawyers from Garvey Schubert Barer in Washington, D.C. who know quite a bit about copyright issues and how they affect public broadcasters. In addition, Travis Ploeger, SoundExchange’s Manager of Licensing and Enforcement, was there and spoke in detail about statutory licensing for webcasters.

Travis, John and Melodie presented lots of great information and answered many excellent questions from station folk. I found it quite helpful and informative and hopefully the session attendees did as well. Nobody cried, cursed or stormed out in anger, so, all in all, I’d call it a success!

I had a few slides on SoundExchange reporting, which you can download here.

Travis also had some slides related to the statutory license, which you can download here.

This was my first time attending an NFCB conference and I hope to go to future ones. Thanks to all who attended our panel and a big thanks to the fine NFCB folks who put it all together!

This week I’m headed to lovely San Francisco for the annual NFCB Community Radio Conference. It’ll be my first time attending this gathering so I’m excited to meet lots of folks and attend a lot of interesting sessions.

I will also be participating in a panel Music Licensing on Thursday, June 2 from 4:00-5:15pm, which should be very informative and useful for any stations that stream music. Here are the session details:

Music Licensing
Moderator: Janis Lane-Ewart, KFAI, Minneapolis, MN
John Crigler, Garvey Schubert Barer, Washington, D.C.
Phil Johnson, NPR Digital Services, Boston, MA
Alan Korn, Berkeley, CA
Travis Ploeger, SoundExchange, Washington, D.C.
Melodie Virtue, Garvey Schubert Barer, Washington, D.C.
Everything you ever wanted to know about music licensing—for broadcast, for streaming, for podcasting and other digital media.  Who gets paid how much and by whom; reporting requirements and how to meet them; the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and what it means to you.

If you’re going to the conference, you won’t want to miss this chance to learn from, and ask questions of, the experts – not me so much (though I’ll be happy to answer your reporting questions), but a couple of great legal minds with lots of experience in this area AND a real, live SoundExchange representative. Don’t miss it!

Joining me at the conference will also be NPR Digital Services’ Sales and Marketing Manager Joe Orlando, who’ll be available to answer your questions about any and all of our offerings, and Keith Hopper, our Director of Product Strategy, who’ll be taking part in a panel on Content Management Systems on Thursday morning.

Here’s the full NFCB conference agenda.

Even if you don’t attend my session, please say hello if you see me! I’d love to press the flesh and put faces to names (and call letters)…

For those who missed the big announcement, last week Public Interactive underwent a name change: we’re now known as NPR Digital Services. This is part of a broader plan to expand the services that we offer to public broadcasters, the first step of which is the Core Publisher. As we say while we now have a new name and  expanded services, we’re still keeping the same nonprofit dress code (whew!).

More information on our new services will be forthcoming in the coming weeks and months, so keep an eye peeled for that and, of course, feel free to contact me with any questions.

Also last week, I gave a brief talk at  AMPPR‘s Public Radio Music Conference in New York City. in addition to fielding questions related to SoundExchange reporting, I also presented some interesting stream usage and song play statistics that we’ve pulled from all that data you’ve been submitting to us. You can see the slides I presented here.

I enjoyed attending the conference and meeting more of you folks face-to-face. The next conference I’m scheduled to attend will be the big NFCB conference in early June. I hope to see many of you there!

Big conference week for us!

I’ll be speaking at AMPPR’s Public Radio Music Conference in New York City on Thursday, March 10 about – what else? – SoundExchange reporting. In addition to answering whatever questions you guys have, I’ll be sharing some interesting stats, charts and graphs on some of things we’ve gleaned from all the data that we’ve been collecting.

Meanwhile, down in Austin we’ll be well represented at the iMA conference, where we’re hosting the opening reception, on Thursday from 7:30-9:30pm where our new leader, Bob Kempf, will speak (click here to RSVP).

A number of of our folks will also be taking part in the session Take Advantage of NPR and PBS! Tactics You Can Implement Now (Friday at 9:45am), where they’ll be discussing topics like Project Argo and NPR’s Core Publisher Pilot.

If you’ll be attending one of these conference, be sure to say hello to me or my co-workers! We don’t bite.

Finally, if you haven’t done the following two things already, please do so ASAP:

1. Register for coverage under the new CPB-SoundAgreement

2. Submit your Q1 2011 SoundExchange reporting data (deadline, Friday, April 8, 2011)

We hope to see you in New York or Austin!

I’m just back from three days in Las Vegas for  Western States Public Radio’s 2010 Conference. I’m not much of a gambler (total losses: $3), but it was still fun to see Sin City live and in person. The highlight, by far, was going to see Cirque du Soleil’s The Beatles LOVE show. Simply fantastic and very highly recommended!

The other highlight was getting to give a (short) session on SoundExchange reporting, which included some interesting stream usage data that we’re starting to glean from all of those files you folks are giving to us each quarter. You can download my slide deck here. As always, please contact me with any questions or comments.

Big thanks to Paul Stankavich and Tom Mara and all of the WSPR folks for giving me a few minutes of time to speak, and for once again putting together a great conference!