Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org.

Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Nisswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at nisswatax.com.

Hello again friends.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation today and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public TV.

Today we're going to appear behind the curtain at our own station, Lakeland Public Broadcasting.

More specifically we're going to learn about the legacy and lessons learned of Bill Sanford, Lakeland's CEO and Director of Engineering.

After 35 years of service Bill will be retiring this year and I wanted to hear from him directly about his career and philosophy of public broadcasting.

Bill, welcome to the program and thanks for making time for our conversation.

Bill: Well thank you.

This, this will be a lot of fun.

Jason: Well first and foremost from all the people that you've impacted across the state and beyond, thank you for your service and congratulations on your return.

Bill: Well thank you very much.

You know, it's been a real privilege to be involved in public television all these years.

It's, it's something that I think you know, we're very fortunate here to have the tenure that we do with with all of our staff.

We've, we've got a very dedicated staff and they make my job easy, just like you.

Jason: Well I appreciate that.

Well you know, one of the first things I was curious about is did you choose public broadcasting or did it choose you?

Were you intentional when you started your career to find an opportunity in public broadcasting?

Bill: You know, my, my real desire was to work in technology.

I went to college and got a degree in industrial technology but had a lot of electronics and was interested in the broadcast side of electronics, had done some work for some radio stations prior to coming here.

I worked for the first low power television station in, in the country started by a guy named John Boler who was out of Fargo and if you've ever heard of the, the station KXJB in Fargo.

JB is John Boler and he owns several broadcast stations throughout North Dakota and he started the first low power station in the U.S. here in Bemidji.

I'm a Bemidji State grad so I, I love this area.

Growing up we used to vacation on Cass Lake.

I'm from East Grand Forks and and I really liked the Bemidji area, wanted to stick around here and, and was really interested in broadcasting and almost more in broadcast engineering and that's where I started at the station.

I was director of engineering when I was you know, I started back in '85.

Jason: Okay.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you there Bill.

You know, you just used a term that I actually have never heard myself, low powered, is that another term to describe smaller broadcasting stations?

Bill: Yeah, the FCC kind of did an experiment for awhile where they licensed low power stations.

The license process was a little easier and they had several around the country and, and that the goal with them was to provide really localized local service in different communities and so John, John Boler applied and got the first low power license in the country.

This is under a different set of rules than the traditional broadcasters and that started in Bemidji and we actually did subscription television service at night so it was pay TV at night.

You needed this set top box that sat on top of your TV and you'd pay to watch movies and during the day it was like a commercial station so really a different model and it really didn't end up panning out financially.

You know, it's a pretty, pretty sparse rural area up here and I don't think there was a population base to, to really make it work but it was an interesting experiment and it's where I learned a lot about, about television and the, the director of engineering or the chief engineer there ended up taking a job and I ended up kind of fortunately kind of sliding into that, that, that role and really got thrown to the fire so to speak and, and had to do pretty much everything and I was pretty young and, and without a lot of experience and but I learned an awful lot and then I had the opportunity to they wanted me to move to Fargo to work with Red River Television and I actually picked out their studio location that they have now in Fargo and, and did some microwave design work, but I was doing it out of Bemidji.

I really didn't want to move out of Bemidji and the director of engineering job opened up at KAWE, which was Channel 9 back then.

It was, it wasn't Lakeland PBS or Lakeland Public Television.

It was Northern Minnesota Public Television.

That's still our corporate name but I started in July of '85, so... Jason: Well you actually, that's a perfect segue because I wanted to ask you what was Lakeland Public TV, although it wasn't called that at the time?

What was it like when you first started?

Bill: It was really a totally different animal.

You know, there was a lot more focus on educational programming and we broadcast instructional television programming for a big chunk of the day, during the winter and in the summers we didn't actually even turn the transmitter on.

We turned it on in the morning for something called A.M.

Weather and it was on for I think half an hour and then we actually turned the transmitter off and we were off the air until like noon or 12 30 or 1:00, something like that, then we'd turn it back on and we would air you know, Sesame Street and some of that kind of stuff and yeah it was, it was completely different.

Jason: Well how has your vision for public broadcasting changed over the years?

I mean starting 35 years ago you've obviously seen quite the evolution.

Bill: You know, I think the thing that has changed but has remained the same is really public television and public radio.

Public media in general is based on service, you know, serving a community.

It isn't about how that we can extract the most money out of the community it's how can we provide good service to the community and I think that's something that us here at Lakeland PBS are very proud of.

You know, we've back in the day when instructional television was really important you know we focused on that a lot.

Now with you know media consolidation and local news really drying up in the commercial side of things you know, it's an area that we've focused on and it's something that's getting a lot more attention in public television.

You know, there's a lot of talk about providing more news and information but it's, it's a tough thing to do.

You know, it's we, we dedicate an awful lot of our staff to do Lakeland News and you know, that's certainly not our only program but, but a lot of our focus goes into local news programming.

Also, you know, we're fortunate to have some funding from the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund annually that allows us to do some arts and culture programming and it allows us to do Common Ground, which is really a neat program, it [inaudible] Scott and the crew go out and and talk to different artists and you know feature different art and culture events and look at history, you know the history of our region so it's fun to be able to do that as well.

You know, but again you know, the focus really is on serving the community.

That's that's the important thing with public television.

Jason: Mmhmm.

Well you brought up money and funding and that's certainly something that I wanted to explore with you, so I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how public broadcasting is funded generally and then of course Lakeland specifically?

Then I'm also curious do you have any concerns or trepidations about long-term funding for public broadcasting?

Bill: You know, the funding model is interesting and unique and challenging all at the same time.

You know, our funding we do get some state and federal funding and that's a significant portion, especially for smaller stations like ours but you know, that those funds are reliant upon local money that we raise.

You know, our, our state one of our state grants is a matching grant and it's based on dollar for dollar match.

We have to raise that much to be able to get that grant from the state.

Federal portion of the federal grant that we receive is matching as well but you know, small stations like ours really do rely on state and federal funding but you know, business support is important as well.

If you watch the station between programs you see support from various businesses throughout the region.

We really appreciate their help.

You know, things that we do just wouldn't be possible without them and then of course viewers like you.

You know, people that watch and become members of the station help support Lakeland PBS, help support the programs that they enjoy each and every day.

Jason: Do you think that public broadcasting will remain a priority for federal funding going forward?

Bill: I think if we stay true to our mission, the money will come.

You know, if, if we're providing important, relevant services to people, if it's important to them and the legislators see that the funding will come.

If we don't stay true to our mission, the funding will go away.

It's that simple.

Jason: So do you have to be in St. Paul for example in order to advocate for Lakeland in particular or does public broadcasting work together in order to do that advocacy?

How does that work?

Bill: We work together to do that.

You know, in Minnesota we have a state association called the Minnesota Public Television Association and we're a member of that.

There's 6 entities that belong to that around the state.

One thing that's unique about the state of Minnesota over other states is, is the fact that each station is independent.

We're not a state network.

We're not controlled out of one location, so Lakeland PBS, we have our own board of directors.

Decisions about what we do, the programs that we air, the local shows that we do are made locally here in Bemidji and Brainerd and you know, we have board members from, from around the region.

We've got board members from Park Rapids and you know, different communities around the area and they're volunteer board members and they provide the governance of the organization.

I work for the board.

The other thing that's interesting that some people don't understand is Lakeland PBS is something called a community licensee, which means that the the community is what owns the license and the community actually owns the organization.

It's not owned by anybody.

It's not owned by me.

It's not owned by the board.

It's owned by the community so we're just caretakers of this organization and hopefully when I leave I've left it in a better state than, than when I came and the same goes for the next person that comes along that, that will manage the organization.

You know, one thing though Jason, that the has helped an awful lot is we have a just a really good board as well.

The board has done a good job.

The board is self-appointing so they appoint new, new board members themselves and, and I've just been so blessed to work for a really great group of people.

Jason: So even though each station is independent, is there any collaboration in terms of content or cross-pollination or you know, even just a sense of camaraderie?

Bill: Absolutely, yeah, we share content.

We, we work on content together.

You know, we've done different projects, statewide projects.

We did a Vietnam War project a few years ago where each station did, did some different components of it, so we definitely work together and we share the local content that we, that we create.

Now you know, local news our Lakeland News really isn't of interest too much to other stations, although Almanac has grabbed the story from us once in a while, if it's something that's important but things like Common Ground or Backroads series are shared with other stations.

A channel that we air called the Minnesota Channel while that is put out by Twin Cities PBS the content that's on that channel is provided by all the, all the member stations of the Minnesota Public Television Association so it's a collaboration and it's, it's an interesting channel.

You know, it carries House and Senate coverage during legislative session but outside of that it's, it's mainly comprised of all programs from around the region.

Jason: So when you're kicking your feet up and enjoying retirement what will you look back upon and glow with pride?

Bill: You know, I was asked that question too and you know, one thing that popped in my mind initially was you know, some of the things that we've done in the building project and different things but then you know, when I really reflected on it more I think the thing that that I'll have the warmest memories about are the people.

You know, people are, are what really make any organization and I've been so fortunate like I said to have a really great board over the years.

We've had wonderful staff and I've met so many wonderful people in the business as well.

In addition to that you know, our members.

You know, we've done a lot of different events.

Unfortunately we can't do much right now due to covid but you know, we've done concerts and we've had people in and we've done open houses and different things and you know, the people that support public television are just wonderful people and, and it's, it's always a pleasure to visit with folks.

Jason: Indeed.

There's a real esprit de corps here.

So we often hear about the 80/20 rule in employment where if you're lucky you get to spend 80% of your time doing those things that you love, that you are really energized by and 20% is spent on the stuff that you just got to do.

So what was your ratio during your career and what's the most onerous aspect of your, of your job, Bill?

Bill: It's an interesting question.

You know, I, I think I'd have a hard time assigning percentages but you know, some of the things that, that I've loved to do is I've actually kind of enjoyed some of the advocacy things, you know, visiting with folks about.

Telling the story about Lakeland PBS and what we do and how we serve the region.

Some of the things that are a little more onerous and, and I think this is in any organization that receives some public funding is some of the reporting is getting more and more complicated and more and more burdensome and that gets a little old sometimes but other things that, that's really enjoyable, I've always enjoyed technology.

You know, that's what I got started in the business in and I'm still have the title of Director of Engineering and it's not just a title.

It's you know, we're a small shop so I, I get to go out and fix things once in awhile and, and earlier today I was working on a RFP for some antenna work and work at our Blackduck tower so I certainly have my hands in the technology as well and, and that's a lot of fun and then just, just working with the staff.

You know, we've got a great group of people and and really it's a family, it's a family organization and, and they're all friends and, and it's, it's fun so it's been difficult over covid to not, not be in the office all the time with, with that group and I'm looking forward to that.

Spending a little time before, before I'm done here with the, with, with the staff back in the office.

Jason: Well you're an exemplary servant [inaudible] without a doubt.

I'm curious, when you think back is there anything that was left undone that you wish you would have been able to accomplish?

Bill: You know, I feel a little bit guilty that we're not doing a little bit more on the education front.

You know, I think we have such limited resources and there are, there are a lot of ways people can get educational content now.

PBS has got some wonderful streaming resources and things that, that are being used in classrooms across the region but I would have enjoyed having a little bit more impact in that area.

As of late you know, I think the focus has kind of moved away from that a little bit in public television and when I talk education I, I mean you know K through 12 kinds of things but you know certainly all the programs that we air really do focus on education and you know, whether it's Nova, Nature, Frontline you know, the, the core primetime type of programs so but you know, I think, I think, I think it's an area that we're starting to focus a little more on again is education.

Jason: You know, since you've brought up those programs just there, I'm curious what's your favorite PBS program?

Bill: Well I'm kind of a science geek so I like Nova a lot.

Frontline is a great, great program too.

It's a little hard to watch sometimes.

You know, I mean because they really dig into some things that, that, that are difficult you know, but I'm glad that they do that but again if I had to rate one I'd say probably Nova.

Jason: Well speaking of difficult topics one of the things I was interested to learn from you is what role does public broadcasting have in addressing misinformation or disinformation?

Of course, no shortage of either today.

Bill: You know, I think that's one of the things I'm most proud about.

When I look at programs like the Newshour and Frontline I think they do a really good job of providing very factual information on, on what's going on and, and also our own local Lakeland News.

You know, I think Dennis and the crew do an awesome job of staying out of politics.

I, I would be surprised if anybody could pick Dennis's political affiliation you know, and or the way that we cover stories.

You know, we get beat up a little bit from both sides.

Which you know, if you're getting it kind of equally from both sides that feels about right you know, so yeah but anytime you're, you're, you're providing news coverage you know, you're going to get a few stones thrown at you but but I feel pretty good that, that for the most part people are very supportive of what we do locally.

You know, I, I do hear a little pushback sometimes too on some of the national news programming but as being one way or the other a little bit but I think overall public media does a pretty good job of trying to cover things from the center.

Jason: Well I wanted to bring up something I read in the national news this week about public broadcasting.

It wasn't terribly flattering.

There was a letter signed by filmmakers and producers around the country and sent to executives at PBS and it said it basically called out PBS for a systemic failure to fulfill its mandate for a diversity of voices and I was just curious what role do local PBS stations have in fostering diversity, equity and inclusion?

Bill: Well you know, I think it's something that's very important and it's something that we struggle with honestly.

You know, we've had lots of conversations about our staff.

You know, we've got a lot of white males on our staff and we would love to be more diverse.

We have a hard time getting minority applicants in our news department.

We've been fortunate to have had quite a few minority reporters that have joined us and and we appreciate that but you know, honestly one area that, that we, we need to do a better job is, it would be awesome to have a Native American reporter and we just can't seem to find anybody.

You know, we just don't get applicants along that line.

You know, I think Dennis and the crew work hard though as far as coverage of providing coverage for the tribes when they've got things going on and you know, especially in our northern service area, Native American populations, probably about 25% of the people we serve up with our our northern KAWE coverage area.

It's less in, in central Minnesota but, but still it's a significant number so you know, the Native American population is something that's very important to us and in fact one of the channels that we, that we air is First Nations Experience and that is a channel that focuses exclusively on indigenous populations.

Jason: So it sounds like locally we're doing a great deal to rectify that situation?

Bill: Well you know, I think we could always do better but it's certainly something we're aware of and, and it's something that, that we make a definite effort to get out and make sure that we're providing coverage to, to you know, that group of people as well.

Jason: What's something that most people don't know about public broadcasting?

Bill: Boy that's, that's an interesting question... that don't know about public broadcasting.

Jason: I think a lot of people have perceptions of public broadcasting and preconceived notions possibly and I'm just curious what's something that people don't realize?

Bill: You know, I, I wonder how many people realize what I'd talked about earlier, the fact that the station isn't, isn't really owned by anybody.

I think some people think that it's owned by the board or something.

It's not, it's, it's the property of the community.

[Sure] You know, there's, there's no assets that could be sold here that somebody's gonna get rich.

You know, when I leave I have no vested interest in the organization.

I'm just an employee.

The board are volunteers so, so I think the community can be proud of that.

It's something that they own so when they invest in it, they're investing in their community.

Jason: So you've been CEO since 2000 if I'm not mistaken and I'm curious tell us a couple stories of impact?

When did you realize the profound impact and the broad impact that public broadcasting was having in our region?

A couple stories of impact.

Bill: Yeah, you know, one thing that kind of came to mind is I remember if you remember back when there was the, this may be prior to your time even but a long time ago there was some, some major flooding going on in East Grand Forks and the whole town was burning and shut down and, and we ended up getting a hold of a VHS tape that somebody had shot where they I think it was the police had, had taken a boat and went up and down the streets and I remember airing that VHS tape one evening.

We, we've basically aired a couple tapes and it was two or three hours and people could actually see their homes and just things like that where you know, you're providing a service that, that is really important and our local news in general.

Some of the things that we do with that and, and and the program that you do, Currents you know, just covering events and things that are going on in the community and just getting us, shining a spotlight on some of these things.

You know, I think those kinds of things are really important and you know, we heard back you know, specifically on that that flood event.

We got such positive feedback on that and people just so appreciated having some outlet, some way to get that information out to people.

You know, so I think being a local broadcaster and really providing local content is, is really important and I think that's where you know, that's what will keep broadcast, whether it's commercial or non-commercial viable long-term is you know, there are so many ways to get the national content now and even national PBS type of programming but local programs like our Common Ground, Currents, Lakeland News, Backroads, different things, those, those kinds of things shine a light on our area and our region and I think that, that has impact.

Jason: Bill, I learned that you're also the principal at Sanford Communications and it raised the question of where does Sanford Communications end in public broadcasting, Lakeland public broadcasting.

begin?

Bill: Well, Sanford Communications is something that really is pretty much done at this point.

I did, did more back when I was not, not the CEO.

I wrote some software.

I designed some hardware for radio automation.

It's kind of, was a creative outlet for me I think and ended up coming up with a few products that people were interested in.

Jason: So I'm not sure if everyone realizes that originally, Lakeland was on the Bemidji State University campus and you led the charge on, on this station that we currently are in.

Can you tell us a little bit about that saga?

Bill: Yeah, you know, first I want to say that the partnership that we had with Bemidji State University and still have you know, we, we so appreciate Bemidji State.

They were our home for a lot of years.

The reason that we ended up looking at moving off campus, is we were just running out of space.

We had a, a small space in Deputy Hall.

We had a studio there.

We had some offices that were in Bangsberg Hall but we got to the point where we had people pretty much stacked on top of each other.

When we moved we were in the same amount of space that we had when we started.

We started, we had 8 people.

When we moved we had over 20 people on staff plus just a lot more technology.

As I mentioned when we talked earlier about you know, our broadcast we had one channel that was on for, for not, not 24 hours.

You know, when we moved we had 6 channels that were on the air 24/7.

We were doing local news.

We were you know, we were doing a lot of local content so we just really outgrew the space and there just wasn't additional space for us at Bemidji State so we needed to find a new home and you know, we were very fortunate.

We did receive some bonding funding.

We had great business support.

A lot of donors helped make this happen.

You know, the Nielsen Foundation was, was awesome.

They, they, they provided one of the initial gifts that helped get us started and they were very thoughtful in the way that they they provided that gift.

It was contingent upon us getting some bonding funding so we were able to go to the state and say, look you know, if we don't receive the funding we're going to lose this $400,000 from the Nielsen Foundation so it just all worked out really well.

It was really it was just a lot of fun.

It was tough.

It was a you know, a stretch to, to do that but Jason, you know, I can probably say that when we moved into this building we moved in with everything paid for and no debt, which is, which is pretty amazing.

[Yeah, indeed] Speaks to the generosity of people in the region.

Jason: Here, here, here, here.

Thirty-five years is a long term of service.

I'm curious how do you think that public broadcasting will change over the course of the next 35 years?

What are your hopes and fears for public broadcasting?

Bill: Well, I guess my hopes are that it, that it continues.

That they continue to provide relevant, relevant local and regional and national programming that, that people will support.

I don't see that as being a problem.

In fact you know, the direction that I see happening with commercial television and I'm not going to throw stones at commercial television.

I think there's some, some good things to watch.

I enjoy some things on commercial television but there's a lot of things that they just don't go into.

You know, their focus for kids programming is selling toys and cereal.

It isn't about educating kids so it's, it's just a different, it's a different focus.

You know, like I said you know, the the mission of public television is really to serve.

It isn't to, to, to, to generate a profit.

Where commercial, commercial entities, commercial radio and commercial television you know, they, they certainly provide some local service with their local news and things like that but their, their focus is to generate a profit for the owners.

That's the bottom line so it's completely different than public television.

Jason: Well, Bill I want to thank you for your years of leadership and service and of course thank you so much for taking time out of your day today to visit with you.

Bill: Well thank you Jason.

You do a great job with this program and we so appreciate you as well.

So thank you.

Jason: And thank all of you for joining me once again.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well.

We'll see you next week.