- [Announcer] WVIA presents "Conversations for the Common Good: The Future of Public Media," featuring PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger and WVIA President and CEO Carla McCabe.

And now your moderator, journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anna Quindlen.

- Welcome to "Conversations for the Common Good."

I'm Anna Quindlen, a longtime consumer and supporter of public broadcasting.

Public media through its programming has stood for the common good since it was founded by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967.

But today in a changing technological environment, it faces unique questions and challenges.

That's why I'm so delighted to spend the next hour talking with two distinguished leaders who have thought deeply about those challenges.

Paula Kerger has been president and CEO of PBS for 20 years, and is the network's longest serving chief executive.

Carla McCabe is the president and CEO of WVIA, the provider of both PBS and NPR programming in 22 counties in Northeast Pennsylvania.

She also serves on the PBS Board of Directors.

So good to have you at WVIA, the both of you to talk about- - It's great to be here.

- Good.

Paula, at the annual PBS meeting, you acknowledged that because of the end of federal funding, this has been the most challenging year in the system's 60 year history, but you went on to deliver an overwhelmingly optimistic address about the devotion of viewers and listeners, the strengths of programming, and the possibilities for the future.

Could you bring some of that optimism to our viewers tonight?

- Yeah, I mean, look, this has been a complicated and difficult year for many reasons.

The federal funding piece, of course, but also, you know, we're living in the middle of a tremendous change in the way that people consume media.

And so both of those happening at the same time has made this a particularly interesting period for us to be walking through.

But what I reminded our colleagues when we were together for our annual meeting is that actually parallel to our country, we had a rather improbable beginning.

And I'm thinking a lot about this.

You know, as we're on the cusp of celebrating the 250th anniversary of our country, it shouldn't have worked.

There was, for every reason, if you watch Ken Burns' film on the American Revolution, I was struck by the fact that until the last minutes, it seemed like the whole thing was gonna fall apart.

But somehow it worked.

And if you go back and look at public broadcasting and our history, it also was somewhat improbable.

You know, in this country, commercial television came first, public television came second.

This is different than almost any other country in the world where public television was first and then commercialization came later.

And it was the first woman FCC Commissioner, woman by the name of Frida Henick, who was watching this burgeoning industry and thought, "This has the potential to be extraordinary, extraordinarily powerful, extraordinarily impactful."

But if it's left just to the commercial marketplace, it's never gonna fully realize the potential of what it could be in terms of in the public good.

And so she lobbied to have spectrum put aside for public purposes, then flash forward, she lobbies, spectrum is put aside, people could begin to apply for license.

There was no money attached.

That came much later after LBJ signed the Public Broadcasting Act, because again, he looked across the pond at the BBC and thought we need that.

And his idea was rather than have something that was fully government funded, which is how the BBC was done, that it would be a public private partnership, that in communities where we could raise more money, we would do that, maybe there'd be a little federal money.

But in communities across this country, particularly rural and small towns, they had a right to have public media.

He was aware of that from his days back as a teacher in a small town in Texas, he knew that town would never have a television station unless there was some government support.

Again, an improbable moment.

Flash forward, the whole idea of carrying the Watergate hearings on public broadcasting, that was hugely controversial.

My predecessor, the very first president of PBS, was lobbied by a gentleman who ran programming who thought that it would be really important for the public to see those hearings and he thought it should be carried live and should be rebroadcast in prime time.

And there was a lot of debate, actually at that point, our stations voted on what ended up on the air or not.

And it was, I think only 51% agreed that yeah, they should do that.

It changed everything.

That was the beginning of the news hour, came out of those Watergate hearings.

But you know what also happened?

Contributions started coming in from people across the country who were so deeply appreciative of the fact that they could actually see for themselves and not be told what to think, but to give them the information so they can make their own decision.

And then time and time again, there have been these times where the fortitude of public broadcasting has been tested.

The rise of cable television, everyone said, "We have the History Channel, we have Bravo, we have Arts and Entertainment, we have The Learning Channel."

And still PBS persevered.

In fact, I think we got even stronger.

Then we've gone through this sea change in digital, we've lost our federal funding.

I believe that it's these moments when we've had to look very carefully at who we are and what we do.

And out of that, we make the decision that we are here for the public interest.

And you know what?

The public is behind us.

We lost our funding on July 17th of last year.

Since that time to now, we have 1 million new donors to public media, 1 million.

And of those, 60% are people that are giving every month as sustainers.

They understand, as I know everyone in this audience and people watching, what viewers like you really means.

That's why I'm so optimistic and so bullish.

- Do you think that up until that point, not enough people had understood that we needed their money?

- I think people are confused and we didn't do such a great job of helping people understand it in part because I think we are confusing.

We used to run the spots on our air all the time recognizing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the investment by the federal government.

And I think for a lot of people, they thought that meant, "Well, that must be where the money comes from."

You know, by the way, we're asking people to give for something they get for free.

So that also feels a little weird, you know, I'm getting it for free.

Why should I be writing a check?

Or maybe it's our cable bill that's paying for it, or maybe if I subscribe to a streamer and I'm seeing it, it's coming through that, it's just people didn't understand, even though we said time and time again, "Thanks to viewers like you."

After the defunding, people were like, "Oh, that means me."

And those are the people that are beginning to step up.

- I was struck in your comments at the annual meeting too how you talked over and over again about public broadcasting stations being the backbone of communities.

And Carla, you and I have had many conversations where you've talked about that at WVIA.

Can you tell us what that means here in your viewing and listening area in terms of programming and initiatives?

- I would say for us, Anna, we are a reflection of the community we serve.

And we want to understand this community.

So we need to embed ourselves within the community to really understand what the issues are.

And every community is so different, but at the same time, so many communities have the same issues.

So we can tackle them as a system, but localize, which is the key for us, local content is our number one priority.

We want to ensure that we are telling stories that reflect every, you know, community member here.

And it's interesting you mentioned BBC, I started my career at BBC, and I didn't think I wanted to be a fundraiser, didn't think I wanted to get into politics because the money was all there with BBC, you know, and then you come to public media, you start to run a station like this, and all of a sudden I'm a fundraiser and all of a sudden we're fighting a very different battle.

But the community in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania, the 22 counties that we serve, are so supportive.

And that is what really gives us the motivation to produce high quality content.

Just this past year, we received an Emmy for overall station excellence, which is outstanding for our market.

We often say that we love to be underestimated, and I think we often are, but it just pushes us harder because we want to ensure that we are a reflection of this community and this public.

And we talked just recently this week about public, the public, the communities are at the center of everything that we do.

And that has to always be our mentality.

- But you know that the first time I came to your office and saw the map on your wall, I was astonished at how much area you cover.

Is there a way that you've found to serve, not only a community, but many somewhat different communities in terms of your news gathering?

- I think that's the biggest challenge we have.

Having 22 very different communities and counties, many, we often say have more deer than people, which can be a challenge.

- Deer don't watch very much.

- Well, thank goodness.

Nor do they give money.

(group laughing) But it's certainly the biggest challenge for us.

We do the best with the resources we have.

We started very small, we listened, we went out on a tour of those 22 counties.

We have a very ambitious team who want to really understand and listen to the issues that matter most to those communities.

And then we reverse engineered to ensure that we are telling those stories that are important.

We also do a lot of work with the Institute for Public Policy, and we use their research because a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done.

The data is there and we can ensure then that we can, you know, tell these stories.

And you know, I think the human component is how storytelling really brings it.

You know, that's how we get those stories out there.

And it brings things to life.

- What are you doing differently than when you started in this job?

What do you look at when you sat before a search committee and said, "This is what I'd like to do," and looking at what you're doing today and saying, "My goodness, I had no idea."

- How long have we got?

We did not have any journalists six years ago, and we now have a newsroom of 10 people.

So that is one of our biggest achievements so far.

One that I'm very proud of because I had been in Kansas City beforehand and just looking around the country and understanding the fact that a lot of newspapers were folding and they were being bought out by hedge funds.

There was a pattern, it was quite obvious.

We were very fortunate to have a locally run newspaper here, but the writing was on the wall.

So we started very, very slow.

And we started with a team of four people.

And that was when you just came to visit.

We were still very, you know, it was early.

We had a lot to learn.

We were on NPR Radio trying to do a lot, again, serve 22 counties, tell stories of those counties with four people, two of whom are hosts, one was the manager.

So it was quite a lot.

We continued then to use the opportunity, once the newspaper was sold, we used that as an opportunity to scoop up top talent.

So we were very fortunate.

We have wonderful, wonderful team of reporters.

And what's so enlightening for me is the fact that you're seeing this reverse mentorship with the newer reporters and those more seasoned reporters.

And they're excited because they may have come from a newspaper background, but now they're learning all new skills.

They're on television, they're on, you know, radio.

They're doing everything.

They're out there and ensuring that the community is being served.

I'll also say that I would love to do more in the education space.

We had been doing a little bit more, but again, funding impacts and we have to make tough decisions.

I think that is our growth area for the future most definitely.

And maybe that will come with some more collaboration across the state with other stations as well.

And we're fortunate as well to have the PBS national content.

"Carl the Collector" is a wonderful series that we try to find ways to localize and work with local libraries, for example, we have sensory corners in three or four spaces already.

We're gonna continue to find ways to do that special work.

- Paula, I'd like you to think back to when you took this job 20 years ago, - 20 years ago.

- Walking in, what did you think the job would consist of, and what did you think PBS would consist of that is somewhat or utterly different today?

- Yeah, I mean, look, when I took the job, I remember one of my first speeches, and I was commenting on the fact that iTunes was gonna sell episodes of "Desperate Housewives" for $1.99.

And I thought it was just the weirdest thing.

And I mean, so much of now what surrounds us did not exist.

Social media, you know, Facebook, all of it.

And I had come from a station, my predecessor had not, and I was actually hesitant to take the job because I knew, one, I know how complicated it is to run a job like this, which is a federated organization.

The stations do not report to me, I report to them.

But I at the time felt very strongly.

In fact, my interview with the search committee, thinking about how you framed the question for Carla, I actually went in front of the search committee, not with the idea that I actually wanted the job, what I wanted to do was to tell them what I thought they needed to think about in recruiting a new CEO and what I thought PBS should be.

And by the time I got to the end of the interview, and I was the first person they interviewed, by the way, by the time I got to the end of the interview, I was thinking to myself, "Oh, maybe I actually really do want this job."

What I didn't know until afterwards when I walked out of the room, the search committee looked at each other and said, "We're done."

Now they did move forward and interview some other people.

But I felt that it was really important, PBS had drifted a little bit away from the stations.

And so you and I have been talking about that.

I spend, not so much time right now because I've had other things on my plate, but I have spent a significant part of my life in this job on the road, you know, being in communities, I love the opportunity to talk to everyone at the station, not just the CEO, I love Carla, she's hugely talented, but her perspective is here, and I really wanna understand what everyone else is doing, what they're worrying about, what they're thinking about.

But I also wanna meet the people in the community.

I wanna understand firsthand what people hope we'll be doing.

Because that's the only way that you can really, I think do this job is really understanding what the need is, what the expectations of the public, you wouldn't ask someone, "What shows do you wanna see?"

Because people can't necessarily imagine.

It's like you wouldn't walk around and say, "What book do you want me to write?"

But what I do care about is what is on people's minds and what they're worrying about and what inspires them and what we've done that has really resonated and maybe not so much.

You can't just base that on like a Nielsen rating.

It's much deeper for us.

You know, ultimately we're not trying to sell you anything.

And ultimately, our success is not judged by the size of our audience.

It's really judged by the impact of the work we do.

And you can only gauge that when you're out in the public.

So that was actually the biggest thing that I really wanted to focus on.

What obviously has changed over 20 years has just been extraordinary.

I mean, to have been in this job and in this moment in our country's history to be in this job in this moment as media has just become more challenging, but offered so many possibilities.

I mean, for anyone that's a member of the station, I'm sure you're all members of Passport.

Anytime you've missed something, you can watch it anytime you want.

And a lot of times, I'm not always in the place that I wanna be when we have a premiere.

And a lot of times, I try to watch things the way the rest of the public does.

I wanna feel it the way that the public is feeling it.

But, you know, more and more I'm also, you know, come home and it's like, oh yeah, I'd like to see the last episode of whatever.

And I will say, for Ken's work in particular, it is nice to be able to space that out a little bit and watch it over a period of time.

Though I can tell you a funny story.

The first time I saw "American Revolution," I've seen it twice.

- I won't tell Ken.

- First time I saw it was in a screening room of his sitting at a table with about a dozen people that he convenes, towards the end of his process, the way that he does his work is he brings historians, he brings some of the people he's worked with on other projects.

And at this point, he's going through a film and he is looking for mistakes.

He's looking for things that, you know, because he's made edits, don't have continuity and so forth.

And I literally sat closer to him than I'm sitting to Carla right now with a big stack which was the script.

And we sat in the room for three days and we watched it all.

I couldn't move, I didn't even wanna cross my legs.

And on the other side of me was Chris Brown, who's the great historian from Columbia who's featured in the film.

And what I had been told before we sat down is that Ken always does the same thing, which he calls on people and he asks their opinion after each episode, and he always does it in the same order.

So half of the first episode, I'm sweating trying to remember what Dr.

Drum had told me about the American Revolution, he was my high school history teacher, because I don't wanna look like an idiot because I'm sitting with historians and all these other things.

And I was the second person he called on.

And as I started to answer, it just hit me, I'm actually a proxy for everybody in this room.

I'm a proxy for the public.

And then I could talk about what it was, but it was extraordinary.

And what I realized, and the only reason I'm telling this story besides it's kind of a funny story, is that we don't watch things like this anymore.

We're distracted, we sit in a room, the phone's ringing, people are talking to us, we look down on our tablet.

And it was such a gift.

And I realize that so much of the work that we do really does merit being able to do that deep dive.

And so by being able to offer programs and broadcasts, but also that people can watch whenever they want to watch it, you can actually immerse yourself in that experience if you choose to do so.

And that series is very layered.

I've now seen it twice.

Second time I watch it with my husband the way that most people watch it.

We talked a little bit in the middle, but early on in the series, my husband said, "I think I just actually really wanna focus on this."

And he did what I had done in the room.

It's just, we wouldn't have been able to do that before.

We also wouldn't be able to play around with content, you know, and deliver shorter pieces.

I love, I love, I love, I love short stories, I love documentary shorts, but it was always hard for us to schedule those because they don't really fit together.

But to be able to watch them on their own merit, which we can do now in the way that we're distributing, that's really powerful.

- Let me pivot back to Ken for a minute, because you've been very outspoken about the fact that PBS has Ken Burns and it's going to keep him.

- We are.

- But it's been 35 years since "The Civil War," which really was the breakout for many Americans.

And the viewers now understand that you two are in a marriage that was felicitous for everybody.

But since we're talking about the future, who's Ken Burns 8.0?

What programming is on the horizon that will be Ken Burns?

- Yeah, I mean, I feel very privileged that we have been his exclusive home for his entire career and will now continue to be, and we just made a deal with him to have his entire library for the next 10 years and offering on all the platforms.

So a lot of people have never seen the jazz series.

A lot of people have never seen, you know, his documentary on the Statue of Liberty, which we're actually getting ready to rebroadcast again leading up to 250.

So his contributions are significant, but you are absolutely correct that for us to thrive in the future, we need to find and we need to keep nurturing the next generation of great filmmakers.

Both those that are doing documentaries as well as in sort of the sweeping historical sense.

We've been working with a lot of new and up and coming filmmakers on some of our science, which I'm especially proud of.

I'm a science geek in addition to caring about the arts.

And science to me in this moment is profoundly important for public broadcasting to be focused on.

And we have some really extraordinary young storytellers.

Plus we have extraordinary scientists that we have brought in that I wanna encourage the next generation of filmmakers, I wanna encourage the next generation of people who wanna dedicate themselves to science.

And I want people to see that they come in all shapes and sizes and sexes and backgrounds, and the work they're doing is really profoundly important and way cool.

And so I think for us, yeah, I'm proud of Ken and I make a big deal of it, but I think for us, the full range of programming that we're bringing forward is really important to keep finding those new filmmakers.

We just did a new children's series called "Phoebe and Jay" and the two filmmakers that we worked with had not only never produced a kid's series before, but they had never really produced anything before.

But they were awesome.

They're young and they're talented and they just needed some mentoring and some help to get this series done.

And out of the gate, we did two programs this year, I realize this is gonna be broadcast, I have to be careful how I say this.

We did two programs this year.

One we did with Al Roker.

He had had this like dream project to do a program really about his family called "Weather Hunters."

And again, this is a series to encourage especially young girls to get interested in science.

So it's a great series, it's done extremely well.

A few people have heard of Al Roker and so, you know, he's talked about it on "The Today Show," that helps.

"Phoebe and Jay" has actually had a larger audience and it has just really resonated.

It's authentic, it's powerful, it's great.

And so to your point, it's wonderful that we have people that are more experienced, but it is really extraordinary when we can find that next generation.

- Let's talk about platform too, as well as programming.

You said at that meeting that "Frontline," which is one of the starriest and most successful of your programs, has more than 3 million YouTube subscribers.

I'm pretty well versed in this area and that came as a surprise to me.

Did that require a mental leap for you to make that leap to YouTube?

- I will give credit where it's due.

Raney Aronson is one of the most amazing people that I work with in public broadcasting, and she is executive producer of "Frontline."

And so her vision has been to make a long form documentary series that appears on television as great as it can be.

But she also recognized that that alone was not going to carry the day and that she needed to think very carefully about different forms and platforms and places to put the series.

She was early in experimenting with short term video.

She was early in experimenting with how to actually create experiential experiences around "Frontline," which I can talk about later if you want.

But what she also recognized is where you put the programming matters, and that there are people that don't necessarily come to WVIA.

And so if we can put programming where they might see it, which is in places like YouTube, and particularly if we can remind them in the broadcast that they can see all this on their local PBS station, that has definitely been a way that we've moved people in.

So the average audience for "Frontline" on broadcast television is over 65.

The average audience for "Frontline" on YouTube, and by the way, these are full episodes.

We're not talking about short clips and people are coming and they're watching the entire thing is under 35.

And so I think we have to really think about all of these elements as we think about who are the storytellers, what are the stories that we're doing, where are we putting them, how do we promote them, how do we make sure that we're constantly pointing back to the local stations?

Because that is our superpower.

The fact is this station is in this community.

It is owned by this community, it is run by people who live here.

It is governed by people who are involved in this community.

And in this day and age, that is profound.

And it is absolutely fundamental to why people trust us, because they believe that this station exists because it is here to serve the community.

And this is what we have to make sure that we're supporting more than anything else.

- How do you respond to that issue of platform, Carla?

How has that changed your thinking about what you do and how you do it?

- I don't think it's either or.

I think it is all of the above.

And it's content at the end of the day.

So it's just how you consume that content.

And many people will use their phones, many people will use their televisions.

I think we need to continue to nurture the television audience and not switch so far away from that audience that we're making so many changes and feeding them what we think they want to be fed.

We still have a very substantial television audience, and we're gonna continue to build upon that.

We find ways though to then ensure that we are catering to each audience is different, obviously for each social media platform, each, you know, for the YouTube audience.

So obviously it's gonna be shorter for the majority of our digital first content, say for YouTube would be shorter content.

But we always find ways that we are sort of drip feeding to then build towards a larger, you know, one arm maybe, or whether it's a series that's longer form.

We do as much upfront promotion and really try to tease.

And then weekly usually for the short form content.

And then we like to bring the audience in as well and have some form of a community event so that we can celebrate it with the community, especially if it's something that matters locally to this community.

So we have the opportunity then to discuss and have that conversation and convene.

We see ourselves as real conveners of the community here.

So it's something that I think a lot of stations really started to jump onto TikTok and try to be everywhere.

I don't think we can be everywhere and do it really well with the limited staff and resources.

So I'd rather excel in certain spaces that we know we can and just capture that audience, speak to that audience.

And I think a key component as well is a lot of the films that we do, the longer form documentaries, we always try to tie education to it as well.

And we have curriculum tied to it.

So we work with 44 school districts, so we are speaking to those educators.

We have an educational advisory board who helps us understand their needs.

Again, we're not feeding them what we think they need.

We wanna understand what is beneficial to them in the classroom.

So whether it is Ken Burns, which as you mentioned before, it won't be, they can't watch 18 hours of programming in a school day.

We can condense some of our local history and some of the civics programming and then create that curriculum.

And I think that's really, really important to have that engagement for the youth coming up.

And then hopefully we'll convert that audience eventually.

- So here's the other thing, and I don't want you to think we're sneaky, but we are.

And so, you know, there are a lot of people that are on YouTube, and so one of the things that we have been experimenting is what if we put just one episode up and then point people back to the station?

So it's a nice way to use a platform for people to experience something, but then send them to WVIA because I think that people just get out of habit, right?

And everyone has warm feelings about the station because they grew up on it.

And I think we just need to remind them that it's there and it has this extraordinary wealth of content, and we can get you to go there.

Just we have to remind you and grab you where you are and then point them in the right direction.

- So is destination television over?

- [Carla] Appointment viewing I would say is over.

- Appointment viewing maybe.

But you know, there are moments when everyone wants to watch something more or less at the same time.

For me, this is my big frustration.

- Like the Knicks game.

- Yes, there are definitely live events that you wanna be part of.

The Knicks game would probably fit into that.

But also, I mean I do miss a little bit and maybe it will never come back, but I miss when like something big happens that we're not all watching it together.

And so then we do this little dance.

Are you watching this series?

What episode are you on?

And I loved after watching something really powerful to be able to talk to people about it.

And so I would hope it's not completely gone, but definitely it's a little different than it was.

- Well you identified one of the moments though that I think if it occurred today would still have everybody in appointment television.

And that's the Watergate hearings.

You would've had everybody glued to their television.

Even sometimes with the congressional hearings today, some of my friends are watching it at the same time, albeit on C-SPAN or on, sometimes, YouTube, it's different, but in some communitarian level, the same.

- Yeah, yeah, I absolutely agree.

I mean, the things that you know, sports, I think breaking news events, I mean, I think there are moments when people do come together, I think, you know, sometimes if there's a big event like, you know, there was a lot of news coverage around the eclipse.

I mean, these momentous things where people do feel like we're having a collective experience.

But I don't know, maybe I'm just really old fashioned, but I would hope that we might come back to at least some things like that, which is people will feel, you have it a little bit with the Olympics.

I mean, again, but the Olympics is interesting.

I've tried to, you know, I try to look at what other people are doing and learn from it.

You could watch the regular feed in prime time, but you had like a gazillion ways that you could have watched it, including, some of this was dizzying.

You know, if you went on Peacock, you could watch like multiple screens happening at the same time.

My head was gonna explode, but I did look at it for a few minutes because I wanted to see it.

And then what happened after the last Olympics is that everyone is talking about curling.

I mean, what is that?

You know?

So anyway, but I just think that there is something in there for us to continue to think about and play with, you know?

- And hopefully we'll have that with the proper football coming up with the World Cup as well.

We'll have that moment where.

(hosts speaking indistinctly) It's interesting though, I think the younger demographic is impatient when it comes to having to wait a week for an episode to come out.

My own nephew, he gets very frustrated.

He's paying a subscription and he has to wait each week for a new episode, that I do think is, you know, we expect everything right now.

We get our Amazon packages within the day.

It's just, everything is just so fast right now, but hopefully it will come full circle.

Young people don't speak to communicate to each other as well as they used to.

I'm hopeful that in the future, that might change as well.

- Well, may I suggest to any of your viewers that if you donate, you get invited to join Passport, and that way you don't have to wait for any of- - Absolutely, exactly.

Straight through.

- And my nephew is 19 and he is a donor.

He's no choice in the matter.

- I'd like to ask each of you about a sentence I pulled.

There's a couple of sentences I pulled from an editorial that I read responding to your remarks at the annual meeting.

And for Paula, it reads in part, "What does public media provide that YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, Substack or Spotify cannot?

The answer cannot simply be trusted content, every platform claims trust."

What are your thoughts on that comment?

- Oh, anybody can say we're trusted, but is that real?

I mean, come on.

But I mean, you know, you're talking about, look, again, I feel like I'm back in the battle with the cable channels.

I mean, I think we all contribute something a little different, right?

And I do, like I read Substack, I don't know how you compare what Substack is doing to what we're doing in public broadcasting.

That seems profoundly different.

And I'm not suggesting we have the corner on like the best or so forth, but we do have a certain perspective because what we're doing is different than almost all those platforms because what we're doing is not trying to sell you a subscription or a membership or whatever.

What we're trying to do is just give you the information.

We would love for you to be supporters, but you know what?

We're gonna give it to you whether you subscribe or not.

We want to make sure that we have an informed citizenry.

We want to create content that would be hopefully entertaining, but educational, inspirational.

That was the whole vision of it.

And there are a lot of media organizations, including some of the ones that you mentioned.

A lot of that is user generated content by way.

So that's kind of a crazy quote, but I hadn't heard it before, so thank you for sharing it with me, but I do think that what we do is different.

The work that we do.

A lot of, if you look at our kids' content for example, it's all created working with experts, childcare experts, there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of kids' content on YouTube that's not that.

And so I really do, I mean, and it's not to say that there isn't some good things there, there is, but it's not why they exist.

It's not their business.

And you know, we start every day just really thinking about how can we serve the public?

None of the platforms you talked about, you know, believe me, spend a moment thinking about what will make this country our communities better.

And I think it just takes you in different directions.

I used to, you know, really talk about, you know, some of the channels that looked like us that may do natural history programming, but you know, how many shark shows do you really need to see?

I mean these are good shows, they're engaging shows.

I watch them.

But it is a little different if ultimately your goal is I just wanna see how many eyeballs I can get rather than how can I put some interesting ideas forward that actually may change the way that you think about our role in stewarding this planet.

It's just different, that's all.

- And access, we are in every single home.

- For free, for free.

- For free.

Okay.

So for Carla, another point in this piece is about the need for local stations to change.

And it says shared services, regional alliances, centralized back office operations, and national technology infrastructure are no longer efficiencies, they are survival strategies.

Do you agree with that?

- I do.

- And what are we doing to make that happen?

- We are, I will start with Pennsylvania, obviously, we have seven PBS stations in Pennsylvania.

We have much more, you know, radio stations.

We're all very different.

There's a lot of crossover.

So we are tripping over each other in some cases.

I think there's opportunity, and this should have happened a long time ago, Corporation for Public Broadcasting offered this up, and not enough stations took them up on the offer for that thought process to be, what about more, not necessarily consolidation or mergers per se.

- A back office?

- Absolutely.

Do we need seven CFOs in the state of Pennsylvania to do the same accounting?

You know, there's opportunity now in this moment of, might it be a crisis for us to think differently and it is something that maybe we should have been doing all along, but now is the time and there's opportunity out there to do it.

I think a lot of the time when it comes to stations, it's leaders and they hold it back because of ego and they don't wanna let go.

I think it's an opportunity now for us to really come together and rethink what public media can look like and how do we serve Pennsylvania.

We have 22 counties in the state of Pennsylvania and we're only one of seven stations.

So you can imagine that crossover.

We do partner very well with the other six stations.

I think there's more opportunity for that.

But it's certainly, I'm a firm believer and I always have been that there is opportunity.

It's not that we would be doing less, we can do more if we're doing it together.

Partnerships are key.

And at the local level as well, not just with other public media entities, we're partnering with so many other media entities, whether it's Discover NEPA or Fox 56, they're the experts in sports, for example.

Why do we need to get into that business?

We don't.

We bring them in and they're on our podcasts and we just need to get creative and thinking about, we don't need to do it all ourselves.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

We just need to work together and be open-minded and partnering.

- So the critical question, not just in Pennsylvania, but across the country, is the system going to shrink?

- Yes, I think it will.

I mean since we were defunded, we've lost four stations.

And to Carla's point, the stations that we have lost were all in markets where there were multiple stations.

I care about serving our stations.

I also care deeply about serving the public.

And I wanna make sure ultimately that the public has access to content and they have access to a local station.

And so, you know, I'm sad that we have lost some stations, but I am heartened that that did not represent a loss of any audience for public broadcasting content.

And I think that as we look forward, what Carla described, those conversations are happening, and there are parts of the country where stations are coming together, either on a regional basis or in some cases on a state basis.

And they're looking at how can we better collaborate and how can we be more effective and efficient.

And then there are aspects of our operation that really can be consolidated.

Look, when we lost the funding, we laid off a hundred people.

Because the first thing that we did is we cut our station dues by 15% because that represented roughly the percentage of the money that was coming into the system.

We also lost some direct money that came into us that went to fund some of the programs that we're producing.

So we did it recognizing it was gonna be painful, and we stopped doing some things that were not adding value.

We've taken a very hard look at our operations.

We let go of a floor and a half of our building that we leased.

We were fortunate to be able to sublease it because there was someone else in the building that would take the space.

And so we just took a very hard look at where are we spending money and how can we do it more effectively?

We're watching carefully what our stations are doing and trying to support them.

I wanna make sure that the PBS in the future is supporting the system of the future, which is gonna look different.

I am guessing that more radio and television stations will come together.

There are a number of radio stations that are part of universities.

This is a complicated time for universities for a lot of reasons, including economics.

And some of our stations may end up being, you know, deemed as not essential to their core work.

And so we're watching, actually, you and I talked about that a little bit.

So I think some radio stations may come together, but I think it is just as likely, perhaps even more likely that television and radio would come together.

I think it's magical that in this building, you have so much journalism, in part because you have the radio, and so that's just a natural platform for that.

That would be a good thing.

In some cases, stations are coming together to produce programming together.

And which I think again, it's local, it's a different understanding of local.

Some stations are doing fundraising together, So I think there're just lots of opportunities for collaboration, which by the way are not just saving money, but I think really give us the opportunity to do even better work.

And I think that is good.

So it's a well coined phrase is, you know, a crisis is a horrible thing to waste.

But I believe it, I mean, I think this is a moment that it's hard to change things when things are going pretty well.

It's like, oh yeah, it's working.

We don't really wanna let that go.

But when things are tough, everything gets put on the table.

And I think people understand if you have to make really hard decisions.

- Well, let me ask you if you think that's going to continue, you know, you used that phrase, which we've all heard, viewers like you, and those of us who are involved in nonprofits have talked often about how in the last year we've had what we call the Trump bump.

And that at a certain point, it will inevitably dissipate.

Is that true or do you think we've sounded the alarm so loudly that people will continue to give?

- I think a couple things.

One, you know, I really did think that after the initial, you know, month or two that the funding would drop, you know, that people were just rushing in because they heard about the problem and then they would go away and people have consistently given, and those numbers have stayed pretty steady.

I think the trajectory of it is certainly gonna slow down.

I think it's gonna be up to our stations across the country to really think about how do we keep those people engaged?

How do we continue to look to reach out further?

I think there are some areas where, you know, again, I've talked a lot in the last weeks about my deep concern about children's media.

I think there are a lot of parents, you know, who are concerned about, you know, what their children are seeing and experiencing.

It would be great to be building those relationships with some of our families, younger families, and really cultivating that and getting people engaged.

I think there's a lot that we can and should be doing that we perhaps have not focused on as deeply as we could have in the past.

And it's gonna be up to us to try to keep that going.

But I think what's going on in media is not changing.

And I think people have deep concerns about the information that they're seeing and the accuracy and so forth.

And so I really am hoping that people recognize that, you know, their public media organizations are really here to serve.

And this is a place where you can get information that you can trust at a time when I think we need it more than ever.

And so we just have to be better at communicating that.

- So the administration changes let's say in Washington.

Does the federal funding come back?

- I think we're on a path where federal funding could begin to come back out of this legislature in a bipartisan way, legislation was put in place to reinstate funding that had traditionally flowed into public broadcasting to pay for infrastructure costs.

All of our stations have fairly significant costs for things like cameras.

Actually the chief technology officer today said, "Can you lobby heavily for that because we need new cameras."

They need new cameras.

And so I think that, you know, government funds infrastructure.

And so I think that may be the easiest path or the most rational path to begin.

So I think there is a path forward.

I don't think it's gonna look the same.

And I don't know exactly what that will be.

I do feel pretty good about the fact that I think we can make an effective case for equipment.

I also think as some of the stations in rural parts of the country, smaller stations are really struggling to survive.

I think that has gotten the attention of legislators.

It was really interesting after we were defunded the number of people that said, "Wait, what, you mean this is my local station?"

I don't know what they thought they were defunding, but I think they thought they were defunding some organizations in Washington rather than something that was in their own backyard.

- And they provided voters with information about them.

- And where they usually would appear for debates.

- Exactly.

- So there was a lot in there that was a little oops.

So I do think that there is a path forward, potentially even before, you know, the next election that we can begin to make some progress.

And again, it's gonna be a journey.

And I worry a little bit because like stations weren't like falling off the cliff immediately.

Some people have said, "Well, see, we told you they're not all gonna go away."

You know, this station has worked really hard to try to figure it out.

As I said, I was just in Kansas City and Norfolk, those stations have figured it out.

There are some stations that, I think without some intervention, are gonna go off the air.

And so I hope that some monies can begin to flow before that happens because they do beautiful work.

- Carla, you were at the tail end of what has been a successful capital campaign.

Talk about the case you made to the community about why they should support you.

- When we're doing tours of the building, we always bring individuals public in.

And again, our chief technical officer will say, "This isn't mine, it's yours."

This is your building and this is the community's building.

And when it comes to the support from our Board of Directors, the fact that we can go out to the community and say, "Each one of our board members are supporters and have invested in this building and we're asking for your support," there's a wonderful creative philanthropy when it comes to our local foundations, they're stepping up, they're finding ways to really help support us.

And the building is, yes, we're coming to an end, we'll have to switch gears though, and it's gonna be solely focused on the operating budget obviously to ensure my number one priority is that we can keep the team, we've done a really good job over the last number of years to ensure that we build and have the right team in place for local productions, for local journalism, for education, and for arts and culture.

And I don't want to lose that.

We have so much momentum right now and I want to ensure that we can continue to build upon that.

We're gonna lose the local if we lose our people.

And the number one priority has to be just ensuring that we can sustain ourselves from a financial standpoint.

And again, I'm just so, so grateful that the public are, we're at an all time high and I know many stations are, but we're now over 17,000 members.

And I think sometimes you hear it, you know, ask one friend, ask one family member, someone in work, membership at all levels, whatever it might be, it makes a difference.

And we need the masses.

And we've talked a lot about wouldn't it be wonderful we hear, wouldn't it be great if you just had an angel investor and you just got, you know, someone come in and give you a million dollars.

And hope is not a strategy, but I just think we need to have the masses, we need to let the community know that we won't exist without their support.

We need to do a better job at communicating that constantly so that the public understands, I think it was a wake up call that we exist because of the community.

We are a community licensee.

We don't receive state funding now.

We don't receive federal funding.

The community is why we are here.

- Did people understand that, when you went out to talk to people, what was the biggest misconception they had about WVIA?

- They definitely didn't understand it.

The assumption was that we were funded by the government.

And again, even with the state funding, we've been very fortunate in working directly with different state departments such as the Department of Aging.

And we're doing a phenomenal job with them.

I just think the public here, the community here didn't fully understand how we're made up.

The fact that it is a mix of membership and corporations and philanthropists, and it's a complicated model, but it works for us at this local level.

And we're very fortunate in that we are a community licensee.

I wouldn't want to be a university licensee right now because they don't necessarily prioritize, you know, when it comes to public media.

So I think we're in a fortunate position.

We just need to ensure that we sustain and continue to build and grow upon that.

- Paula, what's the biggest misconception about PBS?

- Well, I think one that we're a network, they don't fully understand that the thing that is the power of this is it's all individual stations and it's all this, we're a bottom up organization.

And that I think is unique and particularly in era of so much consolidation, the fact that this is local.

I think the other is just the confusion.

I'm still, you know, and people, actually, when I checked into my hotel, I didn't tell you the story.

I checked into the hotel and the woman said, "What do you do, where do you work?"

I don't know why she asked me, but anyway, because I was I guess in a suit.

So I guess she assumed and I said, "Oh, I work at PBS" and she said, "Oh, it's so sad that you're gone away."

And so they're confusing us with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

And so I think that we're still hearing from people that heard that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is going away and- - Wait, I want to hear what you said to her.

I said, it was the theme of my speech.

"No, we're still here.

(group laughing) And thanks to viewers like you, we will be for the future."

So there's a woman at the desk of the Hotel Lacawana, that if you go down, I bet you could get her membership because she talked about growing up on PBS Kids.

And she said, "When I was a kid, I loved that show with the dog."

Now I think she was talking about "Wishbone."

It could have been "Clifford."

But anyway, it's just, yeah, yeah.

- Well I'll be at the hotel first thing tomorrow morning.

- What about the perception that you are biased?

- Yeah, I mean, I think particularly in this moment, it is hard to be in the news business for sure.

But I also think that, you know, that we have gotten unfortunately I think into a path where people wanna hear their own opinions reflected back.

And if they don't see that, then well clearly there has to be some bias.

We work really hard, particularly in News, one, to differentiate the news piece of what we do with opinion and fact, I mean, with opinion, you can do both things, you just can't do it at the same time.

And I just see lots of organizations sort of waffle between the two.

The second is, I am interested in hearing, we do mess up sometimes, you know, we do in an effort to try to get multiple perspectives, we don't always hit the mark.

And I want people to let us know.

And believe me, we still have an ombudsman, a public editor, no one even knows what that means.

But this is a journalist whose job is to be a connection with the public.

And if people see things that they don't agree with or they don't they think is problematic, they have someone to talk to who actually goes out then and investigates it and talks to people and then responds.

- I'm astonished that you still have an ombudsman because The Times had one for years, which I thought was a very valuable asset and decided to retire them.

- Because they said that social media was gonna solve the problem.

How did that work out, right?

And then I think the other thing is whenever people say that to me, I wanna have a conversation and I always say, if you believe we're biased, we take this really seriously.

Tell me what you're seeing.

And oftentimes they can't, you know?

I had a woman who actually was a member of the Florida State legislature who asked me that question, and I put Judy Woodruff on the phone with her.

I thought she was gonna have a heart attack, but she actually couldn't answer, you know, because it was, again, you know.

But I do think that, you know, it's something that we do pay attention to, and as I said, when we stumble, we fix it.

- Okay, softball for you, Carla, what have you watched on PBS in the last month that you've loved and why?

- "The Forscythes."

- "The Forscythes?"

- Yes, and it's new, and it's an escapism for me, to be honest.

There's so much intense content out there right now.

And I would say yes, apart from all of the WVIA programs of course, but yeah, it's nice, because we know that it's just the beginning of a drama that I obviously love dramas that are from home as well.

So, yeah, I would say that would be one of my favorites.

- And Paula?

- Actually I'm gonna pick a drama as well, except it's not a drama, it's a comedy, and it's called "Happiness."

And it was just a fluke program that we happened to pick up from New Zealand.

And it's about, it is like the most improbable thing.

It's about a theater troupe, a community theater in a small town in New Zealand.

And it is just so much fun.

And we picked it up at the last minute.

It's coming back for a second season - Now I have to watch it.

- "Happiness."

- I have to thank Paula Kerger, President and CEO of PBS and Carla McCabe, President and CEO of WVIA for sharing their insights on the important role public media plays in informing, educating, and connecting our communities and also telling us what to watch next.

Thank you to both of you.

(audience applauding) (upbeat music)