Jose Fajardo has weathered the first storm of any public radio general manager: the semiannual pledge drive. Last month he ended it after the promised 10 days with a total just over $872,000, still $60,000 short of the goal. He has ways planned to make that up: Asking later for a kind of birthday present in celebration of Hawaii Public Radio’s 35th anniversary.
There’s another milestone being passed this month: the final buildout of 14 transmitters and translators bringing both of HPR’s two radio streams to audiences on all islands.
“To bounce the signal from one studio here on Kaheka Street all the way to Hilo, it’s an enormous feat,” he said.
The new president and GM, who started full-time May 16, most recently served as executive vice president of the Orlando Regional Chamber of Commerce, but before that, was president and CEO of Central Florida’s public broadcasting TV and radio stations.
Born in Puerto Rico and “an Army brat,” Fajardo, 53, is a single dad of three grown children who felt ready to jump into a new island community. A successful network is linked to the community, he said: These days, anyone can listen to national programs through podcasts or their smartphones.
“The way they listen to Hawaii Public Radio is by this station producing local programs, having a local voice, having a local personality that makes us relevant here in Hawaii,” Fajardo said. “That’s how we succeed.”
QUESTION: Was it your decision not to extend the fund drive to meet the goal?
ANSWER: I feel it was important for us, if we say we’re going to end a fund drive on a certain date, that we should end it on a certain date.
And there’s always a danger when you extend the drive that negative feelings start coming into the drive — asking for too much money, or beginning of the begging process, or overextending the invitation we have with our listeners to come into their homes and cars, to ask them to join.
Also we had become aware that the FCC had just approved the final authorization granting us permission to start broadcasting the new HPR-2 frequency in Hilo …
The way I look at it was, we have an opportunity to come back … in a celebratory way, come back on the air, celebrate our 35 years of being on the air, and also celebrating the fact that we are a statewide network …
Q: The actual anniversary is November?
A: … Nov. 13.
Q: How far off your fundraising target was it? I assume there was a budget tied to that.
A: We missed our goal by about $60,000 … We will do a day-and-a-half or two-day fund drive, sometime in November, after the election but before Thanksgiving, to celebrate the fact that we’re a statewide network and celebrating our 35 years of being on the air, taking that as an opportunity for why we’re coming on the air, asking for another contribution.
Q: Is it unusual that HPR has a statewide network?
A: It is very unusual for a radio station to have two signals. And it’s unusual to have a statewide presence.
There are states that are statewide networks.
Q: Such as?
A: For example, Nevada Public Radio is sort of a statewide network. Northern California has a Northern California-capital-Sacramento network.
I believe Alabama or Mississippi have a public network. But in those cases they have other public radio stations also providing service. …
We’ll have 14 transmitters, including translators and repeaters that will cover almost the entire state.
Now there are some pukas here and there. We can’t cover them because of the terrain, the mountains, the volcanoes. But those are areas of very small population.
We’re very proud to say that not only are we basically the only public radio system in the state of Hawaii, but in some areas, we’re the only radio service. And that’s what makes us uniquely important in terms of service of Hawaii. …
Q: Why do you think this has succeeded so well in Hawaii?
A: I think a couple reasons. One is there’s a need to feel connected. … And this public radio system allows us to be connected with one another in our own state, but also connects us with the mainland and connects us around the world.
This system began in the late ’70s, thanks to the vision of several community members who had heard of this magical thing called “public radio.” They brought that idea to Hawaii with the intention of having a public radio station. And in 1981 they were successful in turning on that first transmitter, that barely serviced Oahu, in the “quarries” of the University of Hawaii-Manoa.
And over time as the story unfolded of what public radio was able to bring to this small community of Honolulu, people on other islands started to raise their hands and say, “We want that” …
Q: Studies show younger listeners are not really listening to the radio. Are you concerned about that?
A: Yes, I think there are many trends where the audience for radio is decreasing, and that’s more specific toward commercial radio. There’s data to show audience for public radio has been increasing. …
Q: What about the demographics, though? Are they younger?
A: I’m setting up the answer to your question. So, yes, our demographics tend to be slightly older than typical radio. And this is true of all public radio, not just Hawaii Public Radio.
But still, that audience, that demographic of adults, 35-, 45-plus is still a significant size of a population. … The younger demographics, the audience that a lot my peers in the Public Broadcasting System are concerned about, do not listen to radio, terrestrial radio.
However, they do listen to public radio programs, just not through the radio.
Q: Podcasts?
A: They listen through podcasting.
That younger demographic, they know about “This American Life,” they know about “Moth.” They know about “Freakonomics.” They know about “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.”
Our job here at Hawaii Public Radio is to ensure we make that connection between their listening of these public radio programs, and connecting that back to their support of Hawaii Public Radio. So we have to work hard at that. …
Q: What is your listening-audience size?
A: We have combined, HPR-1 and HPR-2, about 196,000 listeners.
Q: What will the new statewide network enable you to do?
A: For the last several years, before my time, as HPR has been looking forward to the completion of the statewide network, that was going to become an occasion and still will become an occasion to realign our programming streams, to make our programming more efficient with the schedules that we have. …
It requires our listeners to tune away from us, although they’re tuning back into us. But that act of tuning away they may not decide to go to HPR-2, or go to another station. …
The intent is, once we are able to say we have statewide coverage with both HPR-1 and HPR-2, with almost identical footprints, that then we can take one of our streams and make it the all-news station … and the other station can become the arts station by airing classical music throughout its day.
So those that only want to listen to classical music can have the classical music station, and those listeners who want news and information have their station.
Q: Do you know yet which one is going to be which?
A: Yes, but we’re not ready to say …
We’ll still have jazz on our station, Hawaiian music, we have a little Brazilian, we have a little eclectic music peppered in between.
Some of that eclecticness will stay with our format, but we also look to expand a little bit of some music that might be more attractive to the younger demographic.
