The Future of Public Media: From Stabilization to Transformation

Please welcome Tim Isizgate. Good morning everyone. Um great to be back at night media forum. I'm Tim Isizg the CEO of public media company. Uh this year we are marking 25 years of service to local public and independent media organizations around the country. At PMC, we believe all communities should be connected and enriched by local media. It's a simple statement, but it's at the core of what we do and really the thread throughout our work. Um, and it's why we created the public media bridge fund. I'm pleased to be with you today, not only as CEO of public media company, but as a dad who, like many of you, is trying to create a brighter future for my kid and for future generations. Last summer, Congress eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, ending the public support that has underpinned one of the great forces in our democratic society for the last 60 years. In its aftermath, all local public media organizations have been destabilized. And that problem is particularly acute for some 115 that were most reliant on CBB's funding. These atrisisk stations of course are are almost all in underserved and rural areas of the country and most are a rare or sometimes the only source of local information. Most are small but collectively they reach over 40 million Americans. Let me say that a little better. Individually they may be small but collectively they are huge. As Marbel has said often, we moved at the speed of news to create the public media bridge fund last summer and with the number of catalytic funders, many of whom are in the room today and I want to thank you for your support. By the fall, we had distributed 26 million to these most atrisisk stations. We're going to do some more this spring. Um, in coordination with other efforts, we have temporarily averted a mass shutdown that really would have jeopardized the entire public media network. Now, our focus is is really shifting to help stations move from temporary to enduring solutions. Um in a few minutes you're going to hear a panel um led by Eric Langner, the executive director of the fund um who'll discuss how we're going to use this window of opportunity to sustain operations and transform service. And in the spirit of night media forum, I want to talk about a new future for public media, which is really the future of vibrant communities and democracy in America. But we have to do that with eyes wide open. Over 60 years ago, FCC chairman, then FCC chairman New Menow famously described the media landscape as a vast wasteland, arguing that commercial companies had no market incentive to produce media that serves the public interest. Today, we're in a totally different world, of course, and the media landscape has changed dramatically. It might be best described now not as a vast wasteland but as a dense and perilous jungle. This jungle is encroaching on us, bombarding us all day long, reducing us to consumers and political ponds too often, reshaping how we spend our days and manipulating how we relate to each other as humans and neighbors. Of course, this jungle is dominated by trillion dollar companies. trillion dollar companies. Polarization, social isolization, division, misinformation. These are its hallmarks. Algorithms and AI are its tools. Within this jungle, the giants are drowning out the light. Too little feeds our curiosity. Not enough educates us. And trust is systematically eroded. There is no market incentive to connect us as neighbors, to build trust, and to prioritize the public interest. And as we all know too well, this jungle is growing and morphing fast. Last year, we lost the visionary Jessica Clark, uh, a friend to many of us in the room, and I know she's with us today, challenging us to claim a different future. as she knew well, we need a counterbalance to this jungle and we need it urgently. Everyone here, everyone in this room has been working to be that counterbalance, some of us for decades. We are all in this together. Stations, ethnic media, digital newsrooms, nonprofit newsrooms, independent filmmakers. When I define public media today, I think far beyond traditional definitions. It's all of us producing independent community rooted and missional aligned media that serves the public interest. We are all public media. Yet, despite the ingenuity and determination of so many and and catalytic philanthropy, our efforts simply are not keeping up with the speed of change and the scale of need. This this is not a criticism, only an acknowledgement of the forces working against us. So, how do we cultivate a new publicly supported media system that's scaled, fit for purpose, and funded for purpose for the next 50 years? Given the dominant role in media in all of our lives, in our communities, in our society, I think this is the most important question that we need to answer for the future. And let me be clear, in a landscape dominated by trillion dollar companies, it's going to take a hell of a lot more than the $535 million that was given to CPB each year. A hell of a lot more. A nation that takes democracy seriously must seriously invest in public media. That may not seem possible in today's political climate in this moment, but in truth, we keep seeing things that happened that seemed impossible just months ago. To me, it's a it's a question of determination, of imagination, of boldness. I spent my career at the intersection of of media and politics, and I can tell you there is a hunger for stronger, connected communities across the political spectrum. And I think that's why we must define the solution now so that we're ready to help rebuild and reconnect our country when this moment passes. And it will. And if public media isn't at the very top of that rebuild agenda, then we have failed our moment. In 1967, the Carnegie Commission uh informed by the leadership of community leaders across the country defined the core principles of the public broadcasting act. Those leaders met their moment and from that wasteland built the future. Folks, we are in the Carnegie Commission moment of our generation. We have in our hands the agency, the opportunity, and I would even say the responsibility to build a new enduring public media system for the next 50 years. We must meet this moment and out of today's jungle build our future. Now, I want to introduce you to two communities and two leaders that are leading the way forward. Thank you. If KCAW went away, I think Sika just really wouldn't be Sika. >> You're listening to the bells of St. Michael's Orthodox Cathedral. This is Raven Radio, KCAW Sitka. KCAW is it's really the heartthrub of this community. It's community radio at its best. When you listen, you hear voices, you know, you hear friends and neighbors, but you also hear really excellent broadcasting. >> The SECA school board has given Superintendent Dedri Jensen Hi. >> All of our coverage is exclusively shaped by being rooted in SECA. We're out here in the middle of the ocean. It's this little place of about 8,000 people. Our news team lives here and so they're thinking always not only what is the story that we must cover and what is the thing that you know people are just going to be asking this question what's going on what's happening with this but also how does what we cover make a community >> so many people make their livelihoods from the waters 10% of people in Sikka make their living in some way related to salmon >> fisheries and fisheries management are incredibly complicated KCAW does an incredible job getting that information right of being unbiased in their presentation of information and being inclusive of all voices. >> The fisheries reporting they do locally, regionally, and nationwide really helps you connect the dots. And that's just like a really key piece of KCAW and community reporting. >> I think people take Raven Radio as the starting point for how they're going to live their life, how they're going to make their decisions, how they're going to get involved. People want to be in community and they want to hear from their neighbor and they want to know about their neighbor. And so that's going to be the thing that keeps Raven Radio strong and the essential connection between me, the person on Raven Radio, and you, the person listening to Raven Radio. The culture and the language of Southwest Louisiana goes handinhand with the music. Lafayette is in the center of Louisiana. It is also the center of Cajun and Creole culture. What makes KRVS unique is that they're so specifically Lafayette. They're the only station playing at music and having hosts that are from in town producing these shows, you know, in our native language, right? Which is Louisiana French, Louisiana Creole FM radio. He's having a CD release party that he recorded back live in Alaska and I think you will enjoy this one. Cora Dave, I actually got a gig because somebody outside the country was tuning in over the web and was interested in booking me in in my band through KRVS. And if that was to go away that it would hurt. It would hurt the culture. >> I remember the first time I heard KRVS French programming. It it blew me away just realizing this, yeah, this is a living, breathing cultural dialogue. It really is the soundtrack of our of our culture here. One thing I really appreciate about this culture is that it recognizes that we die and insists on living in joy anyway. You're listening to KRBS 88.7 left right here from Vermillionville. Great to see everybody out today. Please welcome Eric Langanger, Mariana Robertson, and Cheryl Dval. Okay. Um, wow. It's so great to be here. Um, so, uh, my name is Eric Langanger. I'm the executive director of the Public Media Bridge Fund, and we are so thrilled to be able to support both KRVS and KCAW as two of our, uh, 74 grantees. Um um as you saw in in um um as you just saw in that short film, um these two organizations not only provide a critical source of information and news and culture, but they're deeply woven into the uh the cultural and social fabric of their communities, creating a sense of trust, of belonging, um and community connection. Um, when we thought about making this film, frankly, we could have selected any of our 74 grantees to tell stories of local impact. Um, and how those organizations are working inside their communities. Um, our grantees operate 186 stations. Um, they serve 30 million people, uh, mostly in rural and small communities. Um, uh, and they're spread out across 29 states and territories. Um when we organized and launched the bridge fund, our initial mandate, our initial goal was to be sure that we could stabilize the system and make sure that organizations like these and hundreds of of others could continue to do what they do to serve the local information needs of their communities. And now as we project forward um our focus will very rapidly shift to how do we um how do we move from stabilization into sustaining and transforming the public media system so that it can be more resilient, durable and locally focused. Um, so I'm so thrilled to have both Mariana and Cheryl here on stage um, so so that they can tell a little bit more about their story, about their stations, um, and about how they're looking to the future now that we've suffered this um, highly destabilizing loss um, in federal funding. Um, so Cheryl, if we could start with you. Um, so um, clearly you're you're a a local bastion of of of culture and and representing um, a part of Louisiana. Um do you want to just share a little bit about the size of your organization? How you how you do what you do? >> Well, there are four full-timers. Um two of us more on the development end, two more on the technical end, and volunteers and contractors who produce about 70 hours a week of mostly music programming. And as we just saw from the artists, you you really are kind of not only a local but a global home for a very unique art form. Um >> with only you say four full-time employees. So with with that sort of staff um um how how what is what does your output look like? Local programming, local events, local partnerships, how how do you do what you do? >> Oh, gracious. Uh we live there. Um and we really have close relations with the musicians um from that region and we offer multiple hours a week of locally produced public affairs speaking with nonprofit leaders from social service and um cultural groups. We have live performances in from our studio pretty much every Wednesday, probably in about two hours from now. Um, and really we rep the culture hard. We are the station where you're going to hear more of the music from this region. Not just the accordion-driven Zidico and Cinjun and Creole music, but there are singer songwriters, there are punk bands, there are R&B and swamp pop and just an incredible amount of music from this corner of Louisiana that is most definitely not New Orleans, >> right? Um, Mariana, so uh I think as we saw in the film, you're you're a source of news and reporting. Um, how big is your team? >> We are also we are also small. We're four people total and me. Um, four full-timers and three news folks. So, our news director, we have a reporter and a news resident. >> And and since the federal cuts, you've had to shrink a bit since then. >> Yeah, we used to be five and now we're four. So those numbers are little, but also it means we're 20% less staff. >> Um, so in addition to the news reporting and the coverage of the fishing industry, you're also responsible for emergency alerts, emergency information, and across how like a pretty vast amount of coastline. >> A pretty vast amount of coastline. So we have our main signal in Sikitka and then we serve seven additional communities that are even more remote. You saw Sitka. So, um, those are three federally recognized tribal communities and then some additional fishing communities. And we serve all of them with emergency alerts. Were the backbone of the nationwide emergency alerting system and it's important that we do that on our FM signal because the internet is now reliable in these communities. Even in Sikit, where we think of the internet as pretty reliable, it's like here, we lost internet and cell service for 16 days my first summer that I worked in Sika and we stayed on the air. You could always tune into Raven Radio 24 hours a day in Sitka. Took us 36 hours to get back up to the translator communities, but it's essential that we're there because we need to be able to provide not only the emergency alerts, but also the information. When people hear about an emergency, the first thing that they do is turn on Raven Radio to hear a calm voice telling them, "Here's what you need to do. Here's what you need to do next." And they expect that and they deserve that. >> Absolutely. And I'm I'm assuming that across the parishes that you serve, it broadband access is also is also challengy. >> Yeah. >> Yes. Um, so, um, we've just entered into our partnership with you all between the Bridge Fund and and your organizations. But, um, as we look forward to the next year, we'll be closely partnering with you, thinking about coaching, advisory work, um, building out new business models, helping with partnerships, all with an eye towards sustainability. how in in in light of the loss of federal funding, which for both of your organizations was quite significant, um how can we reimagine your operations to help you um chart this path forward so you can remain local, remain vibrant. Um so maybe Cheryl, we'll start with you. If if if you want to just share a little bit about your hopes and dreams for how both locally and globally you can thrive and how we'll be working with you to to try to make that happen. We are able to reach way beyond our primary broadcast signal thanks to streaming, thanks to our app. And what we've begun to notice during the most recent membership drives is that more people from throughout the US and across the oceans are listening because they really can't get this content anywhere else. Um, we've had, you know, contributors from Canada. We're beginning to make connections with stations in Franophhone Canada. We have shifted some of our repeats, the 20% or so of programs that are in Louisiana, French, and Creel to the overnights to 2 a.m., which is morning drive in Paris. We are hoping to cultivate stronger relationships with national underwriters, with donors from other places. Um, part of the fact of living in Southwest Louisiana is that we are very much like the rest of the state. The per household income averages around 55,000 a year. And we understand that we are culturally very rich and materially poor. That informs the culture, too. And so, you know, we're hoping that we can definitely expand our membership base and our support base um through underwriting through sponsorships beyond the constituency that we traditionally serve since 1963. Well, it it will be wonderful helping you map out some of those strategies. Um uh uh Mariana, do you want to talk a little bit about in three or five years where where where will Raven redio uh hopefully be? >> Sure. So, I'm an optimist. So, I actually think this is the most exciting time maybe ever to be working in public media. We've always done more with less. our constraints have always led to creativity. So, I'm excited to see where that leads. And if it's okay, I'll I'll say one hope and one dream. Um, my hope is that we continue to collaborate. Alaska is an incredible example of this. KCAW is part of a collaboration of six stations across Southeast Alaska. We share back-end services. We share engineering, and that allows us to focus all of our resources locally where they're most needed. On the larger Alaska scale, there's 27 stations. Basically, every week since the recision, we've been meeting weekly to talk about what we're doing, share ideas, share content, share support, and the public media bridge fund is now widening that to a national community. We've always been a national community of public media, but we have this really focused example and this chance to learn from the brilliance across the network. There's brilliance on the stage with me now, and we're going to learn from each other and build together. And that's my hope that we continue to build and grow stronger together and keep that wonderful network of collaborations. My dream for Raven Radio is in three to five years. And this is something we had started before. We had we were already really excited about what it meant to be a public media and a radio station in 2020 67 8 forever. Um and we wanted to build new digital approaches. We wanted to experiment. We were excited. We had a lot of ideas. And then the recision hit and that forced us to really cut back and go to the core and say what are the things that are most important to us? And for us that's local news and local voices. And so now with the breathing room that public media bridge fund has given us and that focus, that laser focus on local voices and local news and all this excitement that we still have, I'm dreaming about a Raven radio that is as reliable and as remarkable online as we are on the air and that continues to lift up all the voices in our communities and that can sustain for years and years to come. And I think, you know, I'm not attached to too much other than that. So the future really feels like it's ours to build. Amazing. Um well, I I think Knight will be very pleased. We're going to end early on this clock. So, so um I want to thank both of you for for for sharing your stories, for opening your stations to our filmmaker, um for being a part of this. Um so as as we move um through this stabilization phase at the bridge fund, we're about to move into a whole new phase that will take many many years. Um as we focus on how do we create sustainability and transformation across this broader public media landscape. As as Tim mentioned, we're taking an expansive view of what the future definitions of public media will be. And that will include building statewide networks, building um collaborative business models, developing new services that generate new audience, new revenue. Um for us, our north star is that every community in this country should have a strong and vibrant and locally focused public media. And while doing that, we need um durable regional and network effects that can support that work um across communities in the country. Um we are so thrilled and thankful to have Knight's support in this work and there are several other funders in this room that have um been really instrumental in helping us get started. Um and we're also so pleased to be on this journey with many other organizations who are also um trying to tackle these same issues. INJ um Press Forward um who is actually coming up on stage next. Um so thank you all so so much for having us and letting us letting us tell our story. So thank you.