Pubradio strategy forum
planned to succeed PRC

Originally published in Current, Oct. 6, 2003
By Mike Janssen

The Public Radio Conference, pronounced dead earlier this year, has spawned a new annual forum for discussing overarching issues facing public radio.

The as-yet-unnamed gathering, slated to debut May 10 and 11 in Arlington, Va., will focus on strategic issues that appeal most directly to general managers. That distinguishes it from the old PRC, where the agenda ran the gamut of disciplines within public radio. But the national organizations planning the new conference hope it will still draw producers, program and development directors and others outside of top management.
The agenda, still being developed, might include topics such as increasing revenue, converting to digital radio and diversifying public radio's audience.

Talks about starting another generalist conference for public radio began soon after NPR shuttered the PRC.

NPR had several reasons. Attendance had waned since the early '90s, as people gravitated toward specialized meetings such as the Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference and the Public Radio Program Directors' Conference.

NPR also said it lost hundreds of thousands of dollars a year staging the full-scale convention and acknowledged that some in public radio were questioning the conference's value. Public Radio in Mid America, a group of Midwest stations, even asked NPR to cancel the final conference before it was held in May.

Planning such a wide-ranging event had also become a struggle for the network, says Dana Davis Rehm, NPR's v.p. of member and program services. "Everyone had a somewhat different idea of exactly what the PRC should be," Rehm says. "It was very difficult for NPR to figure out which set of goals we should focus on."

Criticism that the PRC lacked substance frustrated Rehm. She responded by asking stations and other public radio entities, including PRI and the Development Exchange Inc., to help develop the agenda for the final PRC.

Many felt the resulting PRC was the most useful and substantive ever, and thought the conference took to its deathbed only to make a case for longer life. "Some of us who were involved in the PRC thought, 'I'm not sure this should be over,'" says Eleanor Harris, PRI's senior v.p. for syndication.

After the PRC, Western States Public Radio, a regional group, passed a resolution asking CPB to revive the conference in 2004.

"The Board believes that we must discuss as a system where we are going," wrote WSPR President John Stark in a report to members. "We expect actionable, strategic outcomes from the meeting[,] not a marketing perkfest."

CPB President Bob Coonrod rebuffed WSPR. "The question still remains open as to how pressing the need is for a successor meeting or what exactly the purpose and focus of such a meeting might be," he said.

But at July's PRDMC, DEI President Doug Eichten convened a meeting of representatives from national groups, who unanimously agreed to plan a new event. Eichten says this might be the first time all 15 groups, who will co-own the conference's content, have worked together.

Unlike the PRC, the conference, billed as a "working meeting," will include no workshops or exhibit hall and few concurrent sessions. Planners expect attendees to think about issues and take ideas back to their offices after briefings from system experts.

The conference could also inform talks at public radio's other regional and national meetings. One measure of success is whether the national groups planning the conference "carry forward what we get out of this meeting into other meetings and work together on setting a more intentional agenda," Rehm says.

Rehm and Eichten say registration costs will be manageable for attendees, and expect the conference to pay for itself.

It will precede an abbreviated NPR Authorized Representatives meeting May 11 and public radio's Capitol Hill Day May 12. DEI has proposed handling logistics such as registration and working with the Sheraton National Hotel where the conference will be held.

The national organizations will meet again within a month to clarify the meeting's agenda and will report to the system on their work.

Posted Oct. 6, 2003
Current: the newspaper about public TV and radio in the United States
Current Publishing Committee, Takoma Park, Md.
(301) 270-7240