Non-Com KCMP Ratings Soar In Twin Cities

From David Brauer, minnpost,com

In December 2009, a mere 1.5 percent of local radio listeners tuned in to Minnesota Public Radio’s The Current 893 FM KCMP. That left the hip music station in 20th place, behind every other tune-spinner in the market, including MPR’s venerable Classical service.

Eighteen months later, The Current is the local ratings success story.

In April, the station topped its nearest commercial sound-alike, Cities 97. By June, that 1.5 had nearly tripled to 4.3, good for ninth overall. Among 25-to-54-year-olds — precisely the younger listeners MPR coveted when when it opened the station in 2005 — The Current ranks fifth, eclipsing JACK-FM, 93X, KOOL108 and bearing down on longtime powerhouse KDWB. Among 18-to-34-year-olds, the station is sixth.

What’s gotten into the scenesters? Theories include consistent (but not too consistent) programming, a relatively obscure band’s Grammy and even crappy seasons by Brett Favre and Joe Mauer.

Inside MPR’s decidedly non-scruffy walls, program director Jim McGuinn’s office is charmingly archaic: magazines, tour posters, an acoustic guitar and a boom box. A musician and veteran of public and commercial radio, the lanky, T-shirted McGuinn is steely-eyed about the business, but retains a puppy-dog enthusiasm for the music.

As one fan told me, “I think Jim McGuinn has been an extremely positive influence on the station. He's reduced the sad-bastard piano ballads by at least 65 percent since 2007-08.”

The Current was designed to be “more taste-based and hunch-based,” according to former MPR exec Sarah Lutman. From the beginning, the station’s tastemaking was potent enough to pack local clubs and alter sales charts, a phenomenon City Pages music critic Andrea Swensson dubbed “The Current Effect.”

But even though the station was fulfilling its mission to, in Lutman's words, “be a music service that has a very, very strong community focus and an energizing effect on the civic engagement of the next generation,” its ratings still sucked.

McGuinn came from Philadelphia modern-music public-radio station WXPN in January 2009, four years after The Current debuted. Philadelphia was the first test market for Portable People Meters (PPM), the user-wearable devices that pick up a silent tone to record listenership. They debuted here in April 2009.

McGuinn hit town after the Current’s playlist underwent a major upheaval — from an “antiformat” where DJs literally brought in favorite CDs from their collections, to a tighter, consultant-advised format that caused one part-time host to quit over the moroseness.

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