Radio Krakow

Friday, May 8th, was take your Fordham graduate student to work day (Poland style).  Our group traveled around Krakow to various media companies to discover how technology and media play an increasingly integral part of business.  Among the companies visited, Radio Krakow (RK) was the most insightful as to where Poland could be headed with regards to media in the future. 

In the States, radio seems to be dying.  Streaming music options like Spotify and Pandora, on-demand podcasts, and iTunes music downloads are dominating the space.  Radio Krakow is, however, dominate among quality media outlets of Poland.  There are, of course, other stations and outlets that play pop music with more popularity but this government/public funded organization is living its mission and doing it well.  The reason Radio Krakow exists is produce content according to their four standards:  1) Opinion Forming 2) Nearness 3) Usefulness 4) Quality.  Think Poland version of NPR and you have Radio Krakow.  They are marching lock and step with the people of the historical city they support and the reason, in my brief exposure to the company, does not have much to do with the modern facility or extensive upgrades to their recording studio.  It has to do with their people.   

We were fortunate to have their CEO and Editor in Chief, Marcin Pulit, give us a thorough snapshot into the company operations and then a tour of the facility. He broke down how RK operates, where their money comes from, how their content is organized and analyzed, and what the future may hold.  It was interesting that he used what we refer to as a vanity metric, Facebook likes/fans, as an indicator of their reach and popularity.  I initially scoffed at the 54k number he threw out (for comparison:  NYC NPR at 55k, NPR national at 4.3M) but digging deeper, that number indicated one thing to me - Facebook is the most popular social network in Poland and Marcin knows it.  Granted RK is publicly supported and salaries are set, but their leadership knows that eyeballs and users mean more revenue and more success.  

Even more impressive and interesting was Marcin's stance on visiting the United States.  Unlike the 80% of students that want to leave Poland to work or study abroad after graduation (with a fairly universal desire to visit the States) Marcin adamantly stated he was not going to come to the US unless the visa rules were adjusted.  That stance and an acute knowledge of his company's operations, its employees, and its consumers, garnered one thing from this proud USA citizen:  respect.  Not that he or Radio Krakow needs it.  

Here's to opinion forming, local, useful, and quality content.  Something US news and media institutions should strive to emulate.   

Check out Radio Krakow.

Na zdrowie!