Board finds ‘young star’ in
senior ranks
Miller
steps up at PRI
Originally published in Current, Jan. 17, 2006
By Mike Janssen
Alisa Miller’s colleagues describe her with many of the same words: Smart. Innovative. Energetic. Now they can add another: President.
Public Radio International’s board gave the job to Miller, formerly senior v.p. of PRI Content, the network announced Jan. 3 [2006]. She succeeds Steve Salyer, who resigned last fall to serve as president of the Salzburg Seminar.
Handing the reins to an insider after considering candidates outside the staff could indicate the board is satisfied with the status quo. People who know Miller see this appointment differently.
PRI’s core business is distributing programs. But throughout her five years as a senior manager at the Minneapolis-based nonprofit, Miller has handled just about everything else — entrepreneurial efforts, relations with satellite radio, web applications and supplemental audio channels.
Her age — she’s 36 — and gender set her apart from the older chief execs of rival distributors NPR and American Public Media.
Because her work at PRI has kept her behind the scenes, relatively few in public radio know her by name or face. Those who do praise her as a sharp and ambitious strategic thinker.
"She has amazing imagination and drive and the potential to really bring PRI to the next level,” says Torey Malatia, president of Chicago Public Radio, a partner in PRI ventures. Her appointment tells him PRI could become increasingly adventurous and experimental.
"We went with a young star,” says Laura Walker, president of WNYC in New York and a member of the search committee.
Miller says PRI will continue to offer a diverse range of voices in its programming and to tailor its services to stations’ needs. She says the company is, in essence, “a venture philanthropy organization with a marketing arm” that wants to bring “money and intellectual capital to great ideas that can change public radio.”
PRI’s programs need to attract a younger and more demographically diverse audience, she says, and its nonbroadcast services and ventures will remain a key part of its portfolio.
Miller predicts that the audience for broadcast programming will continue to expand, but no longer exponentially. “Where we can see exponential growth is through station websites and other vehicles that support the whole core of what public media is about,” she says.
Steeped in strategy
Miller has spent much of her career shaping partnerships and business strategies. Before joining public broadcasting, she developed a business plan for a web startup and worked for DFI International, a consulting firm in Washington, D.C. There she created strategies for high-tech companies.
She found her way to pubcasting while pursuing a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Chicago, where she began a group for students interested in media and entertainment careers. She met several UC alums who worked at Sesame Workshop, and she joined the company in 2000, working as assistant v.p. in strategic alliances and as director of web business development and strategy.
Public broadcasting’s mission attracted Miller, who has a master’s in public policy, but so did its need to compete in the for-profit arena. “I can understand both worlds, which I think is critical in this period of immense change,” she says.
She joined PRI in 2001 as senior v.p. of PRI Channels, its nonbroadcast distribution division. She oversaw Public Interactive, then an independent for-profit company, and led PRI’s entry into satellite radio. That led to the creation of American Public Radio LLC in April 2002, a partnership with Chicago Public Radio to program channels on Sirius Satellite Radio. WNYC and Boston’s WGBH have since joined.
Two years later, she led negotiations to put a PRI-programmed channel on XM Radio as well, while maintaining the relationship with Sirius. Competitor NPR supplies channels only to Sirius.
Miller’s securing of the XM agreement impressed Malatia. “Some might be cautious or say, ‘We can’t do that,’” he says. “She was able to do it.”
Also in 2004, Miller oversaw PRI’s absorption of Public Interactive as a nonprofit subsidiary. She became senior v.p. of PRI Content that year.
These efforts exemplify Miller’s experience in forging collaborations with producers and business partners, a trademark of PRI’s strategy that distinguishes it from competitors and stems from its founding in 1983 as an alternative distributor to NPR. That producer and American Public Media, in comparison, more often focus inwardly, making most of the programs that they distribute.
New tools, programs ahead
More recently, Miller created a partnership with the Public Radio Exchange and several stations to develop standards for the program-associated data that digital radios receive. CPB awarded PRI $284,380 to support the project.
PRI will soon release a service to help stations insert underwriting credits into web streams and to curate selections of on-demand content on their websites. And Miller and others are dropping hints about new, collaboratively produced programs in the pipeline. The new president worked to bring two recent PRI offerings, The Tavis Smiley Show and Christopher Lydon’s Open Source, to public radio.
The search for new programs comes after PRI lost several marquee offerings, including Marketplace and A Prairie Home Companion. Both are now distributed by American Public Media, the national distributor created two years ago by Minnesota Public Radio when it ended its long relationship with PRI.
The shows PRI lost to MPR accounted for 40 percent of its listener-hours. PHC airs on 590 stations and Marketplace on 316.
To keep stations as affiliates, PRI has trimmed affiliation and Public Interactive fees and given rebates to stations that add its programs. Its income from affiliation fees rose from fiscal year 2004 to fiscal year 2005, but program revenue dropped $1.7 million, to $9.6 million. The roster of affiliates shrank slightly, from 746 in fiscal year 2004 to 732 this month.
Losing most of the MPR shows gave Miller an opportunity to forge new production partnerships, says PRI Board member Stewart Vanderwilt, g.m. of KUT in Austin, Texas.
"Alisa didn’t waste a moment looking back, except to find clues as to how to craft future projects and services,” he says. “She really distinguished herself during what clearly was a challenging period.”
Web page
posted Jan. 22, 2006
Copyright 2006 by Current Publishing Committee
Miller brings experience in strategy and new media to PRI's top post.
EARLIER ARTICLES
Minnesota Public Radio pulls out its programs to rep them itself, taking two of PRI's strongest series, 2004.
Steve Salyer, Miller's predecessor left PRI to head an elite international conference center in Salzburg, Austria.
LINKS
PRI's website and news release on Miller's appointment.
At one recent count, PRI had 14 ongoing programs on XM Satellite Radio — a relationship Miller managed.
PRI officers
as of January 2006
Alisa Miller
President and Chief Executive Officer
Timothy J. Engel
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Eleanor Harris
Senior Vice President and Head, Marketing and Distribution
Lori Haskell
Vice President, Administration
Melinda Ward
Senior Vice President, PRI Productions
Elinor Gould Zimmerman
Vice President, PRI Resource Development
PRI Board of Directors 2005
Henry Becton Jr., President,
WGBH, Boston
Douglas Carlston,
San Rafael, Calif.
Michael V. Ciresi,
Chairman of the Executive Board,
Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, LLP,
Minneapolis
Peter Darrow,
Founding Partner
HMD Partners
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Philip G. Heasley,
President and CEO,
Transaction Systems, Architects,
Omaha, Neb.
Debbi Hinton,
Executive VP,
Operations, and CFO,
KCET-TV
Los Angeles
Kathryn P. Jensen,
COO,
ideastream™
90.3 WCPN® and WVIZ/PBS,
Cleveland
Linda Larson,
Of Counsel,
Sandler, Ahern & McConaughy,
Seattle
Charles R. Lawrence III,
Professor of Law,
Georgetown U. Law Center, Washington, D.C.
Kenneth Lehman, Managing Partner
KKP Group LLC,
Chicago
Deedie Rose,
Community Volunteer,
Dallas
Richard Sambrook,
Director, BBC World Service and Global News Division,
BBC,
London
Garrick Utley,
President,
The Levin Institute
State U. of New York,
New York
J. Stewart Vanderwilt,
Director and GM,
KUT-FM,
Austin, Texas
Laura Walker,
President and CEO,
WNYC Radio,
New York
Lawrence Wilkinson,
Chairman,
Heminge and Condell,
San Francisco
