KMSU Local Content and Services Report
LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICES 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.
KMSU engages with a vast amount of community organizations, ranging from the arts and cultural scene to immigrant populations and educational groups. KMSU’s multiplatform experiences for our listeners includes live streaming of the station’s signal 24 hours-a-day. All of our locally produced programs are archived at Radiofreeamerica.org. In addition, all of our locally produced interviews are uploaded as podcasts to SoundCloud. These include short and long form interviews ranging from university professors, community newsmakers and city/government leaders to player and coach interviews of the university’s football, hockey, basketball, baseball and softball programs. Other Tier 2 sports receive reporting coverage as well. Additionally, the station has a very active social media presence with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. KMSU engages with its audience in person by supporting and having a live presence at numerous community live music events and art festivals in Southern Minnesota. KMSU demonstrates its commitment to provide access to underserved communities by dedicating 6-hours of programming each Saturday to Latino and other International cultures. Lastly, the KMSU Community Advisory Board meets twice a year to give direct advisory feedback to station management on programming, outreach, and fundraising efforts. The board is comprised of a mix of engaged community members in terms of age, gender, education, and profession.
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.
KMSU regularly conducts interviews with various community non-profit organizations to help amplify their message, including The Echo Food Shelf, The Mankato United Way, VINE Faith In Action, Living Earth Gardens, and other community-engaged organizations. These interviews increase awareness of the organizations and the good work they are doing in Southern Minnesota, as well as make listeners aware of how they can help those organizations and how those organizations may of service to them. Through our Human Race Radio show, we specifically address the subject of racism with the help of the Mankato Family YWCA, which has eliminating racism as one of its missions. KMSU also conducts interviews and produces short-form news stories with various university professors and recognized student organizations to help share the work the university is doing with the Greater Mankato area. Most of the topics are of a community service nature. KMSU is a member of AMPERS, the association of Minnesota public education radio stations and broadcasts many of the short-form programs that are produced by other AMPERS stations and by the AMPERS organization itself.
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.
KMSU supports local and Minnesota musicians by playing their songs on the radio, as part of our normal daily programming between 9am and 12pm. We regularly receive phone calls and text messages from listeners that they appreciate the commitment to showcase local talent. And many of the artists are extremely grateful for the opportunity to expose new people to their music. In addition, students host the Noon hour and routinely feature MSU, Mankato students who are part of the Music Industry program. During our Spanish-language programming on Saturday afternoons, our hosts routinely get phone calls and text messages requesting song selections and birthday, anniversary, and quinceañera messages.
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 2019, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2019. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.
KMSU airs National Native News each weekday as well as the AMPERS-produced Minnesota Native News program on a weekly basis. Saturdays from 12pm to 4pm are completely dedicated to serving the Spanish-speaking community with a mix of traditional and contemporary Spanish-language music, public service announcements, and other health and economic information. From 4pm to 6pm on Saturdays, students from the Kearny Center for International Students play music from their homelands and share cultural traditions. One of the interesting aspects of this show is how outspoken the students are about the differences between the culture they experienced at home, and the culture of campus and Southern Minnesota. For FY20, KMSU plans to continue to highlight different cultures through its Spanish Language programming and focus on International Cultures on Saturday. We intend to establish a locally-hosted World Beat music program that will explore music from additional Cultures. In addition, we intend to integrate high school students from surrounding communities into our Obligatory High School Timeslot, which happens Saturday mornings at 10am in which High school students create an hour of music and talk programming. Currently, only the high schools in Mankato are part of that program.
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?
KMSU has not yet received CPB funding, so we cannot answer the question with regard to what impact the funding has HAD. However, if funded, KMSU plans to utilize the money to support our membership fees to the Public Radio Exchange, pay for the PRSS interconnect-distribution fee as well as help us acquire other quality public radio programming from distributors such as National Public Radio. In addition we intend to use the funds to help us purchase the equipment to upgrade our transmitter to HD. In the future, we would anticipate creating a multicast channel devoted entirely to Spanish Language programming. CPB funding would help KMSU become an even bigger asset to the artistic, cultural, and educational experience in Southern Minnesota.
