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CPB SAS Narrative

CPB Station Survey

SAS – Section 6. Local Content & Services Report (FY24)

  1. KVNO HD 1 is a 24-hour classical music radio station located on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a mission to elevate life and create community through classical music. We are the only full-time classical music radio station within two hours in any direction, placing us in the unique position to provide uplifting classical music for all and elevating life in the Omaha/Council Bluffs metro area and beyond. One of our goals is to make KVNO as accessible as possible to many different communities, so we stream live at KVNO.org, on a dedicated smartphone app, through Tune In radio and on individual smart speakers. KVNO provides a unique local element with locally curated and hosted programming an average of 19 hours/day. The remainder of our daily programming consists of nationally syndicated programming. As a classical music station, KVNO is very community focused. We highlight local events and aspects of our community that are important to listeners. We also have the distinction of functioning as the cornerstone of the local arts community, and we provide a platform for many artists and arts organizations, connecting them to the public in a variety of ways. We feature in-depth stories about the arts every weekday at 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. and keep these stories on our website, KVNO.org. We also house a robust arts calendar on our website that any artist or organization may use to promote their event. KVNO partners with the Omaha Symphony to produce live broadcasts of their Masterworks series, including the Choral Collaborative, a special concert that features high school choirs from around the metro. We also record these plus symphony chamber music concerts to produce a program that highlights the Omaha Symphony called “In Concert with the Omaha Symphony.” In addition, we record Handel’s Messiah from Voices of Omaha, Christmas at the Cathedral from the Omaha Symphonic Chorus and several other organizations to produce holiday programming. We partner with a number of other organizations as media sponsors on various events and initiatives, including the Omaha Film Festival, Opera Omaha, University of Nebraska at Omaha Summer Music Theater Production, Omaha Sister Cities, Visit Omaha on behalf of the Food Bank of the Heartland and the Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival, a local festival that features composers and musicians from around the world performing original works that highlight their ethnic roots.  We also partner with the Omaha Chamber Music Society on Good Vibrations, a program that collects older instruments, refurbishes them, and gets them into the hands of young students from Title I schools in the area. Good Vibrations also provides resources to music teachers in these schools to better help their students excel in music. In addition, KVNO makes the arts accessible to children through our Classical Kid program. We choose a young person between the ages of 8 and 13 every month, naming them our Classical Kid. They win a $300 musical scholarship from the Soener Foundation, plus they are highlighted on-air, in our social media and email marketing and have the opportunity to perform in our annual Classical Kid Showcase. We celebrate the students at the Showcase by recording their performances and hiring a professional photographer for portraits with their instruments, both of which we provide free of charge. During the designated time period, KVNO also hosted a premiere event featuring a popular host of a nationally syndicated classical music program and his partner, a celebrated jazz singer and former Omaha resident. Our listeners had been asking for a live event, and we were very pleased to bring this to them. We also started a new local program called “Symphonic Connections,” hosted by the resident conductor of the Omaha Symphony. KVNO works together with the University and the community by employing a number of UNO students as reporters and producers, giving them real world experience at a professional radio station.
  2. KVNO HD 2 is run entirely by students at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, who air programming
    for students and play-by-play of university sports. The station has won many awards over the years and serves as hands-on training for communication and broadcasting students.

    KVNO HD 3 is devoted to news and public affairs programming. It airs primarily programming from the BBC but also syndicated programs such as Democracy Now, City Arts and Lectures, the Commonwealth Club of California and the Georgetown Forum. All three stations are available on the air, however, KVNO HD 1 is the only signal available without an HD radio. All are available via the Internet, on smart speakers and on the KVNO smartphone app.

  3. KVNO partners with a number of other organizations as media sponsors on various events and initiatives, providing them with airtime, promotion across our platforms, marketing support and emcees for their events. These organizations include the Omaha Film Festival, Opera Omaha, University of Nebraska at Omaha Summer Music Theater Production, Omaha Sister Cities, Visit Omaha on behalf of the Food Bank of the Heartland and the Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival, a local festival that features composers and musicians from around the world performing original works that highlight their ethnic roots. We also partner with the Omaha Chamber Music Society on Good Vibrations, a program that collects older instruments, refurbishes them, and gets them into the hands of young students from Title I schools in the area. KVNO annually sponsors a used instrument drive to collect instruments. Good Vibrations also provides resources to music teachers in these schools to better help their students excel in music. We also recorded OCMS’ annual performances to air on KVNO. We partner with the Omaha Symphony to broadcast live five of their masterworks concerts and produce an annual program featuring the previous year’s concerts. Another partner included the School of Music at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who provided event space and support for our Classical Kid Showcase, held annually to provide an opportunity for our monthly winners to perform for family, friends and the community at large. We regularly partnered with the School of Music and the School of the Arts to support and help promote their events. The Writer’s Workshop in the School of the Arts hosted a bi-monthly Arts Today feature on a book of note. We also partnered with Nebraska Public Media, providing weekly arts stories on their Friday Live series. Through our Classical Kid program, we collaborate with public and parochial schools in the metro and the Omaha Conservatory of Music to nominate and celebrate their music students.  Finally, we partnered with a number of businesses and non-profit organizations to provide engagement for our listeners on-air.
  4. While it is difficult to measure defined impacts of our collaborations, we do know that our partners whose content we aired – the Omaha Symphony, Omaha Chamber Music Society, Voices of Omaha, Omaha Symphonic Chorus, Cathedral Arts Project, Schwalb Center for Jewish Studies, etc. – were extremely grateful for the help in highlighting their works and reaching new audiences. Sharon Struve, a board member and singer in Voices of Omaha wrote this to KVNO after we aired Handel’s Messiah, “Listening to the Voices of Omaha’s Messiah concert this afternoon prompted me to thank you and all of the KVNO staff that helped make this airing possible on KVNO.  We are indebted to you.” Josh Tague, the marketing director for the Omaha Symphony wrote to us, “KVNO is a dream partner!” Rachel Larson of the Omaha Film Festival wrote, “I cannot say enough what a joy and pleasure it was to partner with you at KVNO! Our festival was a huge success thanks to you, and we are giddy with excitement to work with you and KVNO again this year!” The free programming we provided to Nebraska Public Media helped their bottom line. The impact of our Classical Kid partnership with schools has helped to increase awareness of music in schools and encouraged students to continue to pursue a music education. Former Classical Kids have gone on to compose and perform at very high levels and cite the KVNO Classical Kids program as a great influence on their musical education. A mother of one of our Classical Kids wrote, “Thank you so much! This was such a treat for Ezekiel, and we’re so grateful for all you did to make it happen.”
  5. KVNO employees reflect a wonderful and diverse group of people, including a wide range of ages and backgrounds. During the requested time period, KVNO also aired a classical music program called “Reflections of Us” that highlighted diversity in styles of classical music as well as composers and musicians. KVNO continues to offer “The Sound of 13” in syndication, and several stations around the country air this program. We also air “Concierto,” a program that is presented in both English and Spanish. Our work with the Omaha Chamber Music Society on Good Vibrations also helps us reach a younger audience who attend Title I Schools.
  6. The impact of CPB funding on KVNO has been tremendous. The grant allowed us to help fund our robust local arts and local programs such as our annual local holiday offerings and “Symphonic Connections” hosted by the Omaha Symphony’s resident conductor. It also allowed us to help fund the salary of an audio engineer who has recorded and produced local programs such as “In Concert with the Omaha Symphony” and made improvements to our overall sound. Finally, the CPB grant allows us to purchase important nationally syndicated programs such as The Met, Exploring Music, Performance Today, the New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra that would otherwise not be heard in our market.