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Friday, October 27, 2006
10/28: WABE reaches fundraising goal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta’s biggest public radio station 90.1/WABE-FM continues to ride high, reaching its fall fundraising goal as usual and seeing a steady rise in viewers and sponsors.
Last week, WABE brought in a record $950,000 in pledges over 10 days. That’s a 46 percent increase from the comparable pledge period in 2002 when $650,000 was pledged.
And thanks to the fact nearly everybody pays by credit card now, fulfillment is at about 90 percent versus 80 percent in 2002. General manager John Weatherford said fewer people are requesting the gifts that accompany the donations than in the past, saving the station even more money. (Among the gifts included a fleece, a shortwave radio and a Bob Dylan CD.)
Are people happy with WABE right now? What would you recommend to improve it?
The station raised its pledge target an ambitious 9 percent over the fall of 2005 to cover employee and programming cost increases, Weatherford said.
WABE, which splits time between classical music and news/talk shows such as “All Things Considered” and “Fresh Air,” has been steadiliy drawing more and more listeners, with 380,600 people checking out the station in a given week over the summer, according to Arbitron ratings. That compares to 276,000 in 2002.
And before the end of the year, Weatherford said WABE will offer two additional channels for the small numbers of people with HD radio: one fully classical and another all news/talk. You can hear those separate channels already online
