Telling Public Radio’s Story
Telling Public Radio’s Story – Fiscal Year 2023
Item 6.1 of the annual CPB SAS Report
1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged.
WUNC delivered high quality news and information that gets people talking and helps citizens make informed decisions about their lives and community. We produced hourly newscasts, features for radio and digital, a weekly show focused on relationships and health, podcasts and weekly folk radio show and a 24/7 Music Discovery radio stream.
2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.
WUNC has lead and partnered with other stations and news outletsfor statewide coverage of important North Carlolina issues. WUNC helped build, contributes to and depends on a statewide distribution network to share regional and state news stories as well as severe weather coverage and important breaking news. WUNC partners with local students and educators for our Youth Reporting Institute, a program that helps train the next generation of reporters and audio storytellers.
3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served.
WUNC has a daily impact on a substantial listening audience. It is on average the most listened to radio station in the Raleigh market for persons 25 +. WUNC reaches a large cross section of the community and initiates conversations and sometimes actions that often result from the impact of news we cover.
4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2022, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2023. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.
WUNC partnered with Greensboro Poet Laureate Josephus Thompson to turn his live poetry performances into a weekly radio program titled Poetry Café. The show featured specifically Black content creators producing programming designed for a Black audience. During fiscal year 2022-2023, the WUNC news team provided live statewide coverage of the 2022 midterm elections on election night and covered the legistaltive session through spot news, features and WUNC's Politics Podcast. Also during this fiscal year, our weekly show Embodied, which explores sex, relationships and health, was picked up for carriage by several other public radio stations across the county including Houston, the #6 market in the country. In fiscal year 2024, WUNC launched Due South, a daily show focusing on news and southern culture from a statewide perspective. Plans are in the works to cover the 2024 election cycle in depth including live coverage on Super Tuesday on through the general election in November.
5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn't be able to do if you didn't receive it?
CPB funding is essential to the operations of WUNC. It makes up roughly 6% of our overall operating budget. We leverage some foundation support and raise the majority of funds from listener contributions and corporate underwriting. WUNC receives no direct support from the University or the state. If we lost CPB funding it would put pressure on other sources of revenue and likley mean the loss of reporters, producers or other content creators.