Thomas Hjelm of NPR on Digital Integration and Innovation

Charlene Weisler What is the importance of your current role to the future of NPR Thomas Hjelm Digital is a department but more importantly it39s an organizational concern one that39s central to every part of NPR and the public radio system as a whole I39m responsible for defining and executing NPR39s strategies for innovation and growth across current and emerging digital platforms I also work with our partners across public radio to develop collective systemwide strategies for building platforms audiencesamp160and value I often say my job is to make my job obsolete We don39t have a Chief Radio Officer here so why a Chief Digital Officer I39m still fighting that fight but I39m getting thereCharlene How has digital evolved since you first started 21 years agoThomas My career has been spent working for socalled legacy media companies that have decided in one way or another to transform themselves When I started no one knew just what digital media was or would become but people who took a long view of things saw that it was worth experimenting with I was at NBC at the time and we were given permission to create an quotonline networkquot of original content It was a lot of fun though it certainly didn39t produce much money or many viewers Todayamp160it is a real business with a real audience and the technology has caught up with our creative ambitions Now digital departments are no longer just the guys in shorts sitting in the corner Digital is woven through every modern media companyCharlene Tell me about NPR OneThomas NPR One is a smart phone app that delivers audio content from NPR and most member stations and public radio producers in a form that39s personalized based on the user39s listening tastes interestsamp160and location It39s an experiment in making our content available in ways that map to the changing behaviors of listeners amp160especially younger listeners Yet in other ways it builds on the standing model the format even the business model of public radio It39s geotargeted so when you download the app it will call up an instance of the local member station So in New York you get a WNYCbranded version of NPR One You get content produced by WNYC alongside NPR content and you can pledge your membership support to WNYC there too There39s also a mix of sponsorship inventory some sold by NPR and some available to the member station39s local sales team It39s like radio then only using algorithms plus some editorial controls to tailor the audio experience to the individual If you tend to skip certain content over time it will deliver less of that and if you like certain types of content you39ll gradually get more of it The more successful we are in engaging listeners through this quotpersonalized radioquot the more we learn about them so it becomes a powerful data and engagement toolCharlene What have the results been so far for NPR OneThomas The retention satisfaction and demographic numbers are all very encouraging Thirty six percent of users come back to use it within a month That rate is far greater than is typical for an app The satisfaction score is 4 out of 5 based on our surveys Best of all the basic demographic skews younger than traditional radio with 18 to 34yearolds making up a third of the audience and they39re as affluent and educated as our current NPR audience It39s a big step toward taking the enduring value proposition of public radio and making it available in new ways for new listenersCharlene amp160Does the fact that Public Radio is a collection of fairly independent stations have any advantagesamp160 Thomasamp160 Yes As a system public radio is quite decentralized even diffuse There are 264 NPR member stations out there all of them under their own management and marching to their own strategic drum That is part of the genius of public radio Stations in huge markets and small markets and inbetween markets have their own voices and identities As local institutions they have a direct and intimate connection with their listeners and they reflect those communities back to themselves in ways no other media organizations can Being a distributed network can also bring advantages in digital terms When I visit stations I39m so impressed by the innovation and creativity of these shops and the great work they do in digital journalism audience engagement even product design and almost always on very lean budgetsCharlene amp160What are the disadvantages How do you help maximize collective effortsThomasamp160 There39s something to be said for a collective network strategy If everyone is doing their own digital thing inevitably there39s redundancy inefficiencyamp160and lost value to say nothing of a fragmentation of the audience So how do I handle that Well I39m still just a few months into the job but in an effort to find common ground my first task has been to define and socialize a common value chain that links all of us across the system It39s simple We39re all in the business of growing the audience knowingamp160and understanding the audience engaging the audienceamp160and ultimately monetizing the audience through membership and sponsorship This narrative applies to NPR it applies to New York Public Radio to Vermont and Abilene but above all it applies to the network as a whole So if we can all get behind that it begins to clarify our respective links in the big value chain the roles we play in relation to each other the investments we make and the priorities we set It39s a first step and obviously those are very broad terms but it39s critical if we39re going to as you say maximize our collective effortsClick the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this article are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers

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Thomas Hjelm of NPR on Digital Integration and Innovation

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