- PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.

(upbeat music) - Welcome to Business Forward, I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, a very special guest, WTVP's President and CEO, Lesley Matuszak.

Welcome, Lesley.

- Thank you, Matt and thanks for having me.

I'm not usually in this seat.

- You're not usually in this seat.

But we've gotten you some fun things that are happening, some big announcements, some change, which is all positive, but sometimes misinformation gets out there.

So I thought, you know what?

Why don't we get Lesley on here and just answer all the questions about what we're gonna talk about, it's gonna be great.

So to be clear, WTVP hosts many shows and broadcast, Business Forward being one of them, but you made a big announcement on November 10th.

So this is pretty cool, acquiring Peoria Magazines and everything else that falls underneath it.

And I'm gonna let you explain that, but what prompted something like this to happen?

- Oh boy, okay, so literally this happened from a Thursday to assigning a letter of intent on a Monday, actually getting the letter of intent, reviewing it and signing the next day, it was that fast.

- [Matt] That's a deal.

- It's a deal and it's right for the community, it's the right thing to do for the station.

There's a couple of things.

First of all, Jan Wright, who has been the publisher of Peoria Magazine for 32 years, she lost her husband, David, her co-founder, many, many years ago and the spirit of Jan just kept that magazine rolling forward.

Some other publications came from that, rolled into today's magazine as Peoria Magazine.

So Jan has a new husband and she... Janet and I are only 30, but she said, "You know what?

It's time for retirement."

So she decided to close the magazine.

And I being a friend with Jan, and I know you're friends with Jan and so many of us are here in Central Illinois.

I said, "Jan, how about we talk?"

So at the same time, I'm talking to Jan about that, and this is kind of cute, Wayne Baum called me from Core.

Retired from Core but ownership of Core.

Wayne called and said, "What are you doing?"

I said, "Working."

He said, "Let's go to lunch."

I said, "All right."

So we met over a time.

He said, "I've been talking to Jan. She truly is going to close the magazine."

Staff was given notice, Jan's ready to close.

And Wayne said, "You know, Lesley?"

I said, "Don't even say it, Wayne."

My mind is going there.

- You already knew.

You already knew it.

- Yeah, yeah.

(clearing throat) So that's how it happened and that's as quickly as it happened.

- It's amazing how fast three or four days.

But sometimes deals like that happen, you've seen it many times.

- Many times.

I've been involved in them over the years.

In the horse business, with Hartford's Matuszak watching, you have to seize an opportunity.

And I learned this a long time ago and never forgot it.

If you wait to see what your competition is doing, you're left in the dark.

So it was like, "Hey, we're going for it."

- That's cool, so when you were in those short few days, what were you thinking was the real goal of this acquisition?

- So everything I personally do here and our leadership team and our station manager, Bill Baker, who is an expert in production, everything we do here is for the viewers of WTVP.

It is to make this public television stations stronger.

We listened to our public, we wanna know what they want and we give them what they tell us they want.

What we've been hearing a lot of things about Business Forward.

Business Forward was born out of the fact that people wanted more business, this is an important point.

WTVP members, contributors and donors that give gifts of support to this public television station, we did not use those dollars to purchase this magazine.

We went out outside a couple of people that are on my exec committee and myself, as well as outside folks funded this.

We did not pay a lot of money for this but it was the right thing to do, it's the right thing to do for the community, it's the right thing to do for our viewers.

It will become a benefit of membership for the viewers.

It will be separate.

We have our program guide, which is- - [Matt] Which is popular.

- Which is popular.

In fact, due to postage rates, I think we're limited to nine ads.

We're not gonna give you any more ads in the program guide.

It's a program guide, so you can grab it and see what you wanna watch on five channels.

But Peoria Magazine will go back to the focus that it had before, which was business in Central Illinois.

So primarily that's what we're going to do.

- Okay, so that does align.

So the mission of WTVP is to enrich the community.

This aligns perfectly with enrich and to also to say something about Jan, she had a good run.

- [ Lesley] Yes, she did.

- And made a lot of great contacts and what better than WTVP to take on another venture?

- She's very excited, I'm very excited.

This was an easy deal to put together because Jan and I have collaborated, well, we've been friends for gosh, like 35 years.

- [Matt] Well, you just said you were 30.

- Yeah, okay, I kid a little.

- I'm joking.

(laughing) - So putting that together was really easy.

And we understand and particularly WTVP as well as Peoria Magazine understands the need in this community.

There's not a lot of print options.

We have Peoria Journal Star and we have Peoria Magazine.

We have small business publications and newsletters.

So this made sense.

- Yeah and it is the staple.

You know what's interesting, a little side note here is I never thought in doing the show because you know what I do in my profession is I meet a lot of people, see a lot of people, do a lot of events and so on.

But really I get more feedback from this show that they are clamoring for business.

And which is so positive because when you start thinking about growing, not just Peoria, not just East Peoria but Galesburg and Bloomington and all these- - [Lesley] Pekin.

- Pekin, all these great cities, because we're one region and we need people to move here.

So when you look at this magazine and it goes sometimes viral on some of the social media or whatever it may be, because we're gonna talk about some of the fun things that are gonna happen with the magazine in a second, but you're gonna get some pub and when people searched, do I really wanna move to Peoria?

- And I'm glad you said that because one of the goals that we have, first of all you communicated our mission.

That's exactly what we're going to do.

And since you've been involved with the show, everything we do here at WTVP is about moving the region forward.

The local shows were positive.

H Wayne Wilson on ad issue has two sides of the story, two sides of the issue multiple times.

But Business Forward, consider this a shot of ag and some of our other local content shows, we feel it's our duty and our responsibility to move our region forward.

So this magazine is going to be positive as the shows that we just talked about.

It's our goal to help move this community forward.

So the publication, if you're bringing somebody into interview for a job, I want you to be able to slide that magazine forward.

And for them to see what the heartbeat of this community is all about.

Why you wanna live here versus living somewhere else.

- Yeah and you talk about the positivity piece.

because you know this, there is sometimes a cloud that sits over certain communities where there's that negative tone that's like a thread throughout the community.

And we have it here.

I mean, let's not lie but it's our job, everybody's job to sit there and pull that thread out and give as much as we can to get people to move to our region.

- So when lots of realtors bring people by here to see the station, particularly the facility is beautiful, it's right here on the waterfront, it's a lovely part of town.

There's redevelopment, there's excitement.

Our restaurants, our pubs, you can find a place to park.

So why wouldn't we wanna take this publication and extend what we do here, moving the region forward?

- Yeah, so I guess we just talked about it, but I'm gonna say it a different way.

Maybe you'll know what I mean, but how do you continue the legacy, but at the same time grow it?

Because there's so many different avenues you could go with this.

- Well, it's a building block.

The foundation was set 32 years having a wonderful publication, that's a long time when you're 32 years.

- It was 32 years?

- Dave Wright and Jan started this as an eight page, like newsletter and grew it to inner business issues, arts and society, Peoria Magazine, they're a little publishing house.

- Right, yeah, they turned it into art and society, I forgot, that was a great make.

- So you'll see that in Peoria Magazines that the continuation of Peoria Magazine will serve all of Central Illinois, primarily this market.

You'll see the arts and society pages laced in.

We're not gonna forget about culture and entertainment, but this will be for the business folks.

And it'll be a publication that, it's a monthly, but we already have some great people that will be writing for us, Larry Weinzimer.

I mean, come on.

- [Matt] Author.

- Author.

- Strategic thinker.

- Yes, Larry is still on the bestseller list.

To even get there.

- Yes, you know I'm a reader.

And I told him, I had lunch with him recently and I told him, I said, "I'm not joking when I say this, I've read a lot of books in my life, leadership books."

But his book was very, very well written.

- His book, "The Fear of Failure" was amazing.

- [Matt] It's an amazing book.

- Well, you just had a guest on, I happened to be in the studio and able to watch that with Mr. D brown from P3.

Mr. Brown was here and as you know and he is going to be writing for us.

- Well, he's a brilliant man.

- He's brilliant, he writes for Forbes and he is so into taking communities and moving them forward 'cause I'm right there, "Hey, I'm not going to be able to pay you."

He doesn't want any.

- Right, well, he's on Forbes podcasts, he's on the Forbes Council, he's Yahoo Finance.

- He is a guy that started, for the folks that are just tuning in, he started redeveloping communities.

- [Matt] Yes, it's about community.

- It's all about communities and the partnership that he's been able to do and grow and he's the first person I know that's writing for Forbes and podcasting for Forbes.

- Well, that's actually true- - Yeah and now we have him- - Now we have him, that's awesome.

So with this acquisition like this, was there like a, I guess this is a loaded question because you said it was done so fast, but was there like an exec committee or did you just, how do you navigate something like this to do it the right way?

- Well, as you know, I took the program guide, our program guide used to be a little newspaper kind of thing and the print would come off in your hands.

We took that publication and made it into kind of a nicer magazine, 46, 48 pages, talking to people, knowing what people want, this is what we did.

And I thought, "How can I move the station forward?"

We have a lot of people in this community and surrounding areas that watch us.

If we have 200,000 eyeballs on us, we gotta keep growing.

Now we're in a region of 387,000 people but part of our mission is to move the region forward, which we are doing.

But at the same time, my responsibilities are to keep WTVP growing, to be able to give people who watch us, who care about us, who support us to grow, we have to grow.

And one of the reasons is if we bring this other media component, we open up a whole new world of local stories, local content that can develop into more content that's given to the folks that watch and love WTVP.

- And a whole different segment of viewers when you're looking at, okay, now you're adding this magazine and like we talk about our kids, they get on social media, they get on these things and they will Google or whatever, the different articles, it's gonna pop them to WTVP, that's a whole different segment that's a part of this.

So when you're... Like I was talking recently to somebody and I kind of personally, when I look at any type of acquisition or a program that's coming on, but whatever it may be, I always think about risk.

And when I was looking at this deal, there doesn't seem to be much risk here.

- I mitigated the risk as much as possible.

And I try to do that in everything we do here, every step forward and every time we take a break and take a look around, it's like, let's mitigate the risk.

So the magazine is popular.

When Jan sort of leaked out and she has had feelers out for a few years throwing it out there, everything's for sale for a price.

So I kind of watched to see what was going on.

It was the right thing for us to do, I don't see where I have a great risk.

I don't have a lot of investment in it, I have private investors.

Again, I did not use WTVP membership- - And that's key right there.

- Yeah, yeah, and we are not adding staff.

I do want an editor in all honesty, I do want an editor.

I'm talking to a few people, but there's a lot of people that want to step in and do something fun and different.

- That's right and they want to do something to put their name on something.

And so there's a lot of talent.

- [Lesley] There's a lot of talent.

- Yeah, so besides the magazine, what else falls under this brand?

And this is the piece that kind of, you know me, this is the piece that kind of excites me, but what else falls under the brand?

- So there's special events and technically what... Because the magazine Jan is closing the publication.

She is retiring and we have acquired the rights to the special events.

So we are going to keep the kind of format of November, the November issue is 40 Leaders Under 40, we're keeping that, December is Women of Influence.

In fact that across publishing communities, entrepreneurial magazine, same thing, Women of Influence.

January, we've moved into February, which we are not going to publish January and February.

I mean, I can't push my team any faster.

So our first publication is coming out March 1- - [Matt] Of '22.

- Of '22, but we are going to be having starting in January, email blast, Peoria Magazine does email blast.

And so does a lot of us do, WTVP we do a Tuesday email blast and a Friday email blast.

So you know what's going on, what to watch.

Legends will continue, which is a July focus on leaders from the community.

Usually we saw that with Jan's publications as being more of an older crowd.

I think there's a lot of legends that are kind of a younger group.

So we'll drop that age group down a little bit, that might be a little more relevant to all of our viewers and to all of our communities.

The May Community Impact Guide will still be bundled- - [Matt] That's huge.

- It's huge and for those that might not know what it is, it's a list of all the nonprofits and all those that care about the community and want to have a nice way to share what their mission is.

You use it for support, when you need to know where to go for mental health issues, it's all right there.

You need to know where to go for counseling, you need to go for food insensitive, it's there.

So that'll be out there.

The thing that we're doing different with those events is we have this beautiful studio, we are the largest studio South of Chicago.

Why wouldn't I add a digital or a television component?

So 40 Leaders, we're just not gonna see them in Peoria Magazine in the November issue, which people are enjoying right now.

We're going to see them with some television video that lets them tell their story.

It could be interstitials, it could be its own half-hour show.

Legends will do right here in the studio as well, which is also a party atmosphere.

And then the other thing that's really cool about this, it gives us an opportunity to have live audiences and not necessarily live to tape but a live audience and people can be here as we award the legends.

- Yeah and let's think about this too.

And I know you obviously know this, but you're talking about branding.

- Oh yeah.

- I mean, this is branding 101.

(clearing throat) You're gonna have many, many opportunities but you're telling me this right now and I'm sitting here thinking how fun would it be to have three or four on the 40 under 40, as a panel and do a Business Forward show.

And that would be a month worth of shows in November.

So what's the exact date that WTVP is taking over the magazines?

- We have a letter of intent and the letter of intent, as you know, is a solid binding agreement.

December 15th or yes, December 15 or before.

But Jan and her team have, their magazine goes to print next week.

Their staff is, many have been picked up and going to go work at other places.

We are not taking any of the good staff at Peoria Magazines.

We have an in-house team.

- We have a great team here.

- We have a great team here, so yeah.

- And Jan's team is great.

- Sure they are.

- And very talented.

So they're gonna be taken care of and they're marketable.

- Yeah, I wanted to do this without putting burden and extra expense on WTVP.

- It's WTVP's business now and it's the brand, I love it.

Are there like other PBS stations in the country that are doing similar things like this?

- This is really kinda neat.

I always talk to the folks at PBS, WTVP plays on the national stage and we have a great working relationship with the folks at PBS.

So there's been a trend everybody thought, "Oh, print's going away."

Well, we're finding that print is coming back.

People wanna feel a newspaper.

We're all in our computers all day long.

So you wanna watch television, you wanna feel a magazine, you wanna read a book.

I mean, wasn't it Kindles and now it's like, people wanna feel that- - [Matt] I love a book.

- Yeah, I love a book too.

I always have television on but I love a book.

So talking to PBS, others are doing this.

It's the same way when we did remote, we were one of the first to go, California had it, some others had it, WTVP, we're on the cutting edge of everything we do.

Sometimes we just don't get the credit because we're a smaller station and we're right here in the Midwest.

- Well, they take it for granted.

- They take it for granted but Chicago NPR Station is buying the Chicago Sun-Times and this has been going on and I'm in Chicago a lot, I visit a lot of the stations.

- [Matt] I do not know that.

- Aha, so I thought, "What can we do?"

And I have a very active executive committee that I communicate well with.

Some live on my street, which we're always talking business, you can't take the dog out without talking business.

So visiting in Chicago at commercial, as well as public stations up there, you get a little inkling, you hear about things.

And I thought, "Well, if Chicago can do that, huh?"

I was looking for a print opportunity.

And it just kind of the stars and the moon, collided and all was good because I had already been in contact with Chicago Sun-Times to find out, even for here for our television shows, how can I get their content here?

So I'm not having to really hire more staff to go out and pay for it.

- [Matt] Right, you're business planning.

- You betcha.

We have a long range plan, a strategic plan.

And I also would like instead, we don't do daily news.

We do nationally, we have our business block, 5:00 to 7:00 but I don't want to be chasing ambulances.

I don't wanna be ripping and reading, but I want that content that would fit maybe a weekly broadcast of what's going to come ahead for the week and take a little look back at what's happened in the week.

And I thought, "Huh, Chicago Sun-Times could be my feeder."

- [Matt] That's cool.

- So, yeah, so we're working with those folks.

- That's cool.

So funny story about the events, the Women of Influence event.

So when it first started, I was just, I support a lot of different events.

So I bought a ticket and I went there with another guy and we were the only two guys in the whole room.

- I think, was that the year I was a woman of influence?

Yeah, I was glad you came, thank you, my friend.

- I was there and I'm sitting and then I go, "I am not supposed to be here."

I stayed, I mean, what are you gonna do?

Kick me out, kick me out but- - So Women of Influence comes out in December of this year.

And that again is Jan's last issue.

We'll keep that and again, we have five channels, the remote channel which is 24/7 learning, those women and those folks that we have throughout the year, that's knowledge that can be on remote.

- [Matt] Yeah, that is so cool.

- I mean, it's a great collaboration.

- It's a great thing and the events are all so diverse.

I mean, I go back to Bob Gilmore being hired and all these legends.

But so anyway, so your team at WTVP, they're gonna be very instrumental in this growth.

And so I want to thank them ahead of time, because I know they're scrambling right now, but they are a very strong team, so we love that.

And I wanna also say that when it comes down to it, WTVP is taking care of this community.

And that's what's really fun about this acquisition.

So Lesley, you do great things for our community, you and your husband Mark, keep it up.

- Thank you, Matt.

- [Matt] Keep caring.

- You too, you too.

- This wraps another show, I appreciate it.

I'm Matt George and this is Business Forward.

(upbeat music) - PNC is proud to support Business Forward, where community leaders discuss the issues confronting business in Central Illinois.

(upbeat music)