Three Things for August 5, 2021

From the Public Impact Group

This is Three Things for public media leaders for August 5, 2021. Here’s what’s up this week:

1. The German Marshall Fund proposes a total revamp of CPB and much more

2. Some New Info from the Share of Ear® Study

3. PMDMC Recap - Part 2: Let’s Talk About Courageous Leadership

THING ONE: The “Full Stack” Approach to Public Media

Last week the German Marshall Fund released a new policy paper that called for an overhaul of what we know today as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, creating a new ecosystem for public media.

The “full stack” approach to a new public media, visualized below, is an ambitious attempt to describe and define public media in the digital age that goes far beyond transmitters, stations, and programs as it seeks to address the information and misinformation challenges facing local communities across the country.

The white paper, authored by Sanjay Jolly and Ellen P. Goodman¹, provides some challenging ideas to completely remake what we have known public media to be for the last 50-plus years, describing this moment as a chance to reconceptualize and build anew the public media stack.

The authors define “public media stack” as originating from Matt Locke, who led innovation strategy at the BBC, as a way to think about“public media institutions as platforms for infrastructure, not just as content-commissioning organizations.” Mike Janssen from Current interviewed Locke two years ago offering a good reference to the concept. The idea aligns with a concept that would replace the old broadcast networks with digital distribution models.

The aspirations behind this proposal are valid given the state of information disorder² in America and the opportunity that exists in our digital world to provide universal access to, as Jolly and Goodman write, “to truthful and socially relevant information, strengthening local capacities for democratic engagement, and safeguarding individual autonomy.”

The authors recommend establishing policies in four areas as part of this proposal:

• Governance. The suggestion would be to recast CPB at the Corporation for Public Media (something that has been discussed since the onset of digital platforms) while also removing public media’s technology-specific funding preferences and significantly expand its base of grantees to include a wide range of content producers, non-profit organizations, and technologists.

• Community resources. This would include guaranteeing universal broadband access, plus identifying and supporting community anchor institutions (universities, libraries, etc.) that can contribute to local content production, information access, civic-technological innovation, and other modes of democratic engagement.

• Technological development. The authors recommend developing standard protocols for the public media stack’s open architecture that would include building an interoperable public media platform (the video below is from six years ago and is not necessarily what the authors intended).

• Data Practices. Kim Hart, writing on Axios, described this element as “another crucial component. In order to operate, entities in the ecosystem would have to commit to basic data ethics and rules about how personal information is used. According to Jolly and Goodman, the 23-page paper offers an interesting glimpse that seeks to decentralize the production and distribution of content for the digital era “by leveraging technology in accordance with civic values and empowering people and anchor institutions to assert themselves in the information ecosystem.”

While something like this proposal is doubtful to happen in the near future, for economic and structural reasons, I appreciate the push that the document offers for public media to think differently about its future. For one, the focus on “Community Anchor Institutions³” is something we do pretty well already in communities across the country and should certainly seek out opportunities to do more.

What this paper has triggered for me is the opportunity for our existing system to think very differently about our future coinciding with the possibility of a $90 million increase in CPB funding for FY2024 ($565 million or about 19% over FY2023) should the Senate agree with the number passed by the House of Representatives last week.

There have been few times in the history of public broadcasting where the federal investment in the industry could be transformative, and this could be one of them. It would be a travesty for us not to think of ways to operate smarter and serve more Americans through more channels with this influx of new revenue. I would not suggest following many, if any, of the recommendations in the GMF paper. Still, we should start to map out how public media could bring about the most significant return on this investment at a time when our democratic and civic institutions are being challenged.

THING TWO: The Share of Ear After 15 Months of the Pandemic

The Share of Ear® study from Edison Research is one of the best measures of audio listening trends for folks in radio and podcasting. Some new data was shared last week during the RAIN 2021 Global Business Summit that shed light that in-car listening is returning in some measure, at least for people who do not work from home.

“We’re back, but we’re not back to pre-COVID levels. We’re back about halfway,” was how Edison Director of Research Laura Ivey described the chart below detailing where listening to audio was occurring during Q2 of 2021.

60% of all audio listening takes place in home, 26% in cars and 11% at work.

What was fascinating, though, was the disparity of location listening for those working from home as opposed to those who do not.

So how is AM/FM radio⁴ doing? Unfortunately, the Q2 2021 Share of Ear® study notes that it’s still hovering around the same as in 2020, which is about 11% less than the share of time spent with radio in 2019.

One final chart that was very interesting with implications for public radio news stations where morning listening is critical to its success shows the time by which 50% of Americans 13+ have listened to any audio.

Audiences are starting 45 minutes⁵ earlier than they were a year ago, but still 30 minutes later than before the pandemic.

I interpret these results for public radio, given the demographic profile of our audience, is that there is still a significant amount of listening at home and that those listeners are continuing to start their audio day later than in pre-COVID times. This is something to think about in managing our programming and promotions schedule and connecting with listeners during morning drive⁶.

Another key takeaway from the presentation is that the majority of listening to audio is now taking place on digital devices (smartphone, computer, Internet-connected TV, etc.) than on analog (or linear) devices (broadcast and satellite radio, CDs, etc.).

The cross-over took place at the onset of the pandemic more than a year ago and has continued to be the case as the country has opened up in the last few months. This tells me that if stations are not thinking about how to reach audiences that are seeking more control over their audio choices, then we are going to be left behind. It’s a big deal.

A couple of final notes on this presentation:

1. Westwood One's corporate blog offers seven insights into the research with a commercial radio take on the data. It’s worth a quick read.

2. Edison’s Laura Ivey also reported on its Latino Podcast Listener Report 2021, which showed remarkable podcast listening growth. Ivey said that 54% of U.S. Latino monthly podcast listeners started listening to podcasts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Finally, the American population paying for an audio subscription of some kind has doubled since 2015 and is now almost half of everyone (47%). Although not on the level that we see with subscription TV streaming services (Disney+, HBOMax, etc.), this is still staggering growth in the audio space.

THING THREE: PMDMC — This is a Moment for Courageous Leadership

For me, a great conference session combines inspiration and practical information that you can apply in your work after the conference. A perfect example of this was the session at last month’s PMDMC on Courageous Leadership. The session, moderated by Deanna Mackey, President of the Public Television Major Market Group and the founder of Public Media Women in Leadership, brought together three HR professionals from public media organizations and two relatively new CEOs from public radio organizations.

It goes without saying that the events of the past 18 months have brought the desire and the need to address essential changes in workplace culture in public media, and this session delivered on its promise of discussing what courageous leadership looks like in 2021 and a vision of how organizations can build a more inclusive workplace.

The HR leaders featured in the session were Sonja Pasquantonio | Director of Human Resources at Connecticut Public Broadcasting, Ryan Robinson | Director of Human Resources at WFYI, and Ann Dexter | Vice President, Human Resources at GBH. Each spoke eloquently about the push for change focused on flexibility, accountability, and empowerment across all levels of an organization, particularly for those in leadership positions.

The key takeaways from the HR leaders were to commit to:

• Transparency: In salary, in decision-making—explain the “why” versus top-down leadership

• Psychological safety: Moves vertically (up/down) and laterally. Without this hallmark, people will not bring their authentic selves to work

• Training: In the DEI space and through a continuum of professional development

• Accountability: Consider a DEI Scorecard and public-facing DEI dashboard. Be candid about missteps -- they’re a natural part of the growth process

• Policy: Employees (and managers!) seek guidelines that can develop and shape success. Policies help guide leaders’ effectiveness and consistency.

• Listening to Understand: Really hear your frontline staff and junior managers. They are in the trenches and have the best insight into what’s really happening.

The two CEOs in the session, Erika Pulley-Hayes | President and Chief Executive Officer at WMFE (and soon to be GM at WAMU) and Jun Reina | General Manager at Capital Public Radio, are no strangers to leadership in public media but are relatively new to CEO positions at stations.

Erika and Jun both discussed the critical role that empathy plays for leaders to guide a culture at this moment in time (and going forward as well). Jun described empathy in these COVID times noting that the role of a leader has been “immersing yourself in another person’s chaos.”

Another great takeaway from Jun’s presentation was using the term “re-population” in terms of the plan to return staff to the office, explaining that saying “return to work” was inaccurate because no one stopped working during the pandemic. At Capital Public Radio, the goal is to manage “dual cultures or a hybrid culture” that is intentional around building a culture that includes everyone. A key component is getting the technology right whether you’re working in the office or home.

Erika’s comments focused on the idea of emotional intelligence (EQ). She spoke of her journey of moving from management to leadership from her role at CPB to WMFE. Erika outlined the elements of emotional intelligence⁷ and offered five leadership practices requiring EQ:

• Model the way

• Inspire a shared vision

• Challenge the process

• Enable others to act

• Encourage the heart

With empathy being such a vital aspect of the conversation, the session also included a wonderful short video from researcher and storyteller Brené Brown that reminds us that we can only create a genuine empathic connection if we are brave enough to really get in touch with our own fragilities.

Thanks to Deanna, Erika, Jun, Sonja, Ryan, and Ann for an inspiring session. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share it with others. Thanks for reading.

1. Sanjay Jolly holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and is a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication. Ellen P. Goodman is a professor at Rutgers Law School, founder and co-director of the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law, and a non-resident senior fellow with GMF Digital.

2. Information disorder can best be described as the sharing or developing of false information with or without the intent of harming, and they are categorized as misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.

3. Civic resources: libraries, universities, hospitals, public broadcasters, community centers, etc.

4. AM/FM Radio includes listening to a station’s broadcast signal and its audio stream. Ivey noted during the presentation that while the vast majority of that listening occurs via a traditional over-the air-receiver, a growing percentage (11.5%) takes place online.

5. It’s important to note that the Share of Ear® study has a different methodology than the PPM methodology used in larger Nielsen markets. Share of Ear® is an audio listening diary survey that measures all audio respondents listen to during a 24-hour period. The survey tracks what respondents listen to, how much they listen and when, where they listen, and what device they listen on.

6. I’ll still call this “morning drive,” even though many listeners are not actually driving!

7. The elements are self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills.