Tim, sharp, incisive....and courageous, as always. I know some will gravitate to the "externals" - COVID, competition, and I could add in the news cycle. But it feels more like the inability to adapt and/or resistance to accepting these changes and developing new strategies. Paul and I will have more to say about all this in the coming weeks as we begin to prep for PRTS 2024, preparing questions to help stations determine "what's wrong?" and "how can we fix it?" The audience must be given a voice and a seat at the table. Thank you for brilliantly teeing this up.
FWIW, just one listener's experience, but there are just so many options, and NPR programming is predictable, stale, and from a journalism perspective, uni-dimensional. My impression is that appeals to some, sort of a place of comfort. But that's not what I'm looking for. I also wonder how work from home has impacted listener numbers. There are far fewer rush hour commuters these days.
Many excellent points, especially about the federated system. I've sometimes wondered about local foundations, or even NPR outright buying stations. I'm curious what other public service models could be adapted to a station. Awhile back the previous CEO in Minnesota proposed a national endowment and that died quickly when the other major market managers couldn't get passed a shared principal gift effort that would leverage their combined wealth for the benefit of all Americans. Thanks for being provocative, Tim. I'm definitely noodling on all of this!
Tim, thanks for compiling this info and sparking a robust discussion, as you always do! Since you included WMFE (which just rebranded and is now Central Florida Public Media), I'll jump in and put forth an idea that's anathema in the nonprofit space but accepted truth in the entrepreneurial space: Not all deficits are created equal, and not all deficits are bad.
We did run a small deficit last year, albeit only about 4% of the "combined deficit of $4 million" reported by the four stations you grouped us with, according to your analysis. But our small deficit wasn't an accident. It wasn't because our revenue was down. It was a deliberate decision by our leadership team and our Board to invest a tiny portion of our very healthy cash reserves to grow the organization.
In the past year, we've added four journalists. We've launched a new local show, a local news podcast, and a new reporting beat. We've rebranded, and we've invested in marketing to tell our community about the multiplatform news organization we've become. The previous year, we also budgeted for a deficit, primarily to invest in our people and bring everyone up to market level compensation.
I talk about Central Florida Public Media as a 44-year-old startup, and I'm by no means the first to say that public media organizations must get into a startup mindset if we are to thrive in this media environment. If we were a startup in a for-profit space, nobody would expect us to turn a profit for at least three years; but we're a nonprofit, so we're expected to be in the black every single year. This double standard has got to be challenged. Don't get me wrong - I have no desire or intention to wrack up multi-million-dollar deficits. But small, short-term overages for an organization with healthy reserves? Not only are they not bad - often, they're exactly the investments we should be making.
Tim, sharp, incisive....and courageous, as always. I know some will gravitate to the "externals" - COVID, competition, and I could add in the news cycle. But it feels more like the inability to adapt and/or resistance to accepting these changes and developing new strategies. Paul and I will have more to say about all this in the coming weeks as we begin to prep for PRTS 2024, preparing questions to help stations determine "what's wrong?" and "how can we fix it?" The audience must be given a voice and a seat at the table. Thank you for brilliantly teeing this up.
FWIW, just one listener's experience, but there are just so many options, and NPR programming is predictable, stale, and from a journalism perspective, uni-dimensional. My impression is that appeals to some, sort of a place of comfort. But that's not what I'm looking for. I also wonder how work from home has impacted listener numbers. There are far fewer rush hour commuters these days.
Many excellent points, especially about the federated system. I've sometimes wondered about local foundations, or even NPR outright buying stations. I'm curious what other public service models could be adapted to a station. Awhile back the previous CEO in Minnesota proposed a national endowment and that died quickly when the other major market managers couldn't get passed a shared principal gift effort that would leverage their combined wealth for the benefit of all Americans. Thanks for being provocative, Tim. I'm definitely noodling on all of this!
WNYC deficit is leadership based. Wait until you see Baltimore’s financial statement. There is common denominator between the two organizations.
Tim, thanks for compiling this info and sparking a robust discussion, as you always do! Since you included WMFE (which just rebranded and is now Central Florida Public Media), I'll jump in and put forth an idea that's anathema in the nonprofit space but accepted truth in the entrepreneurial space: Not all deficits are created equal, and not all deficits are bad.
We did run a small deficit last year, albeit only about 4% of the "combined deficit of $4 million" reported by the four stations you grouped us with, according to your analysis. But our small deficit wasn't an accident. It wasn't because our revenue was down. It was a deliberate decision by our leadership team and our Board to invest a tiny portion of our very healthy cash reserves to grow the organization.
In the past year, we've added four journalists. We've launched a new local show, a local news podcast, and a new reporting beat. We've rebranded, and we've invested in marketing to tell our community about the multiplatform news organization we've become. The previous year, we also budgeted for a deficit, primarily to invest in our people and bring everyone up to market level compensation.
I talk about Central Florida Public Media as a 44-year-old startup, and I'm by no means the first to say that public media organizations must get into a startup mindset if we are to thrive in this media environment. If we were a startup in a for-profit space, nobody would expect us to turn a profit for at least three years; but we're a nonprofit, so we're expected to be in the black every single year. This double standard has got to be challenged. Don't get me wrong - I have no desire or intention to wrack up multi-million-dollar deficits. But small, short-term overages for an organization with healthy reserves? Not only are they not bad - often, they're exactly the investments we should be making.
Grim, indeed.