Atlanta Radio: Public Broadcasting Atlantic Rebrands Portfolio

Public Broadcasting Atlanta has revamped its branding for its radio station, TV station, website and app, using the WABE moniker for everything, according to Atlanta Media Watcher Rodney Ho at ajc.com.

The TV station will now be known as WABE instead of Public Broadcasting Atlanta. In fact, the corporate name will be WABE as well, effectively retiring the name Public Broadcasting Atlanta.

The changes, with help from a local branding company Matchstic, include a fresh logo, updated ID music and a new slogan: “Amplifying Atlanta.” This replaces the five-year-old radio slogan “Where ATL meets NPR.”

The move is in part to combine different brands ― including radio station 90.1/WABE-FM and TV station ATL PBA/Channel 30 ― under a single umbrella. The TV station website www.pba.org will be merged with www.wabe.org starting Wednesday with wabe.org being the primary site.

Focus groups initiated by the organization showed WABE was by far the strongest brand name.

“We know that the simplicity and elegance of WABE will help us be more effective in building awareness about our shows,” said Jennifer Dorian, the CEO and president of WABE. She joined the operation a year ago after a long run at Turner Broadcasting.

In essence, she added, “it’s about strengthening our position in Atlanta and eliminating confusion.”

In metro Atlanta, WABE competes directly with Georgia Public Broadcasting, which relies heavily on government subsidies but also has to serve the entire state with nine TV stations and 19 radio stations. (About 41% of GPB’s annual budget comes from a state appropriation.)

In comparison, a vast majority of WABE’s funding comes from individuals and corporate underwriting.

GPB’s TV station in Atlanta on Channel 8 is the dominant force in town and generates far bigger ratings than WABE’s PBA/Channel 30. On the radio side, eight years ago, GPB took over daytime FM programming from Georgia State University’s 88.5/WRAS-FM, which offers much of the same national programming as WABE. But WRAS has not been able to make much of a dent in WABE’s radio dominance over the years, generating about 15 percent of listening compared to WABE.

Doran is happy that the WABE flagship radio station has a relatively young listenership, with a median age of 44. The station’s demographics also reflect the city of Atlanta as a whole, with 35% of its listeners Black. About 7% of its listening is through streaming and she hopes to grow that to 20% in the coming years.