PBS Chief Paula Kerger Makes the Case for Public Broadcasting Amid Peak TV1

Neil Saban, vice chairman of Chicago based Wigel Broadcasting, explains how a family run company with a handful of stations wound up being a pioneer in the multicast network arena. With channels like me TV, Wigel has proven that reruns of Bonanza and Perry Mason can still pack him in. Welcome back to Strictly Business. Paula Kurder, President and CEO of PBS, Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you for being with me. Paula, you've been the head of PBS for going on fifteen years now, and I can imagine that that's never been a cushy gig. It's PBS is always in in terms of its funding and the and the support that it receives from the federal government and from the public. There have been, you know, many ups and downs. I'm sure you knew going into the job that that would that that was going to

be part of it. I also have to believe that the last twelve months or so have been probably among the most some of the most challenging that you've faced in running the nation's non commercial public broadcasting network. Let me just start by asking you, how has PBS at the national level and what are you seeing from the grassroots of the affiliates. How has PBS fared in the COVID crisis. Yeah, it's uh, look, a lot has changed in the fifteen years that I've been in this job,

you know, as you look across the media landscape. But this last year has been extraordinary. I guess that's the best way to describe it. And everyone I think you talked to would probably say the same thing. But in a very odd way, I feel like this has been probably the most important year for PBS, and that's because I think so much of what we've been able to do this this last year has been built on what has been a fifty year history of work that we've

done across the country. So this past year we had actually planned to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. We were going to do the usual things one does, pull out old um you know, clips of people that have appeared on public television. We were signed on by Julia Child, so we had great clips and so forth. But um, but I think that you know, it started actually pretty fast.

So last February I got a call from Austin Bututner, who you know, the superintendent of l A Unified and he actually have a public television station and he was anticipating that kids were gonna be home, and he was particularly worried about kids that weren't going to have access to broadband, and he wondered if there was anything that

we could do to help. They have a station with just a few employees, and so we got our l A station engaged and some of the stations came together and we run a service called Learning Media, which is a broadband service that delivers K twelve content directly UH to UM two computers. And we looked at how we could build something for broadcast as well as well as amping up the service we provided through broadband, and we were often running. You know, actually the l A model

was uncopied around the country. I think almost every state now has picked up some version of that. We were reaching about a million teachers a month before COVID, and we went up. I think initially we went up to like three or four million, and now it's stabilized. It's it's about three million UH users a month. So I think the educational work has been significant, and because we have relationships in school systems across the country. Remember we

started as educational television. It was there was that. Obviously the news, this has been an important news year and people I think have hungered to look for places where they could find information they could trust. And so um, you know, Judy Woodruff started doing the news out of her house and in front of that beauti case, as others did. And we had amazing team Michel Cinder at the White House and Amina Novaz and Lisa de Jardin who did amazing reporting on January six. So there was that.

And then can I ask you, Paula about on the education initiative we did that? Was that something that cost you resources with it? Was that something that you had to to put some put funding into to make happen or did were you able to do it with existing existing infrastructure? We had a lot of the infrastructure already built. So my point of being sort of ready, Um, we

didn't have to suddenly create a whole new business. We had it and so um, you know, we did spend some additional money to you know, embellish the work that we already had underway, but we had a lot of it already done. And uh and so that you know, that end has ended up being you know, I think,

tremendously important across across the country. And then you know, obviously in the new space, we also have invested a little bit more in some of that news coverage because there was just so much that was happening and and just being able to pivot from working out of a studio to working in all these remote locations and so forth. And then you know, the the other thing is we thought a lot about you know, people at home and

what are you what are people looking for? They're looking they're looking to be entertained, they are looking to be reminded of, uh, perhaps aspects of our better selves. We we brought some of ken Burns work back beginning of

baseball when they delayed last year's baseball season. We we rolled out a lot of Broadway and theater and other stuff, and then George Floyd was murdered and so we then quickly pivoted and there our work over frankly decades really came to the four because we had a lot of content that we had produced around race in America that we were able to bring forward, including Skip Gates recent

project on reconstruction. So UM, you know, so I feel like every step of the way we've moved, but look, we we made a lot of stuff up on the fly. We went from an organization that worked in a largely office space two largely working remote. Even some of our technical crew who keep the entire interconnection going for the whole country. UM, some of those UM staff members also

started working remotely. So it wasn't just the UM the content that we continued to explore, you know, new opportunities, but we also looked very hard at the technology itself and how we will be able to support it working at a distance. How have the events and all this activity and people you know, spending more time with PBS and really recognizing has that translated into a boost in fundraising? At either institutional level or at the or at the

individual donor level. I'll particularly comment on you know, because you asked me a few minutes ago about our stations, which I realized I didn't fully answer, and uh, so I can tell you a bit about you know, I described what happened in l A and obviously that's through our local stations and that we helped to enable that

work across the country. But I think for for our stations being able to um benefit from the fact that people were watching a lot of PBS over the course of this last year, so many of them actually have seen an increase in the number of people who become members of the of their stations. Corporate money, uh, sponsorship money has has been harder, and for any station that has been raising money around events and so forth, that also has been harder. So I would say it's a

it's a little bit of a mixed story. But I look a year ago, I was really prepared that things were just going to go off the cliff and that because I mean, who knew where all of this was was heading, and um, we were very much focused on a few things. Is just making sure that we were delivering all the core activities that stations really needed. We obviously we're looking very carefully at our pipeline and we

do work well in advance. So we were in again in a different position than some of the networks who got caught scrambling a bit to phil broadcast. But we had a pretty rich pipeline. It's not to say we weren't impacted, and we were in some of our programs like Called the Midwife, which is um a drama presentation, has gotten pushed out, and Road Show did not take this past year because they you know, they couldn't, and so um and so there were There are definitely series

that have been impacted. But I think for the most part, we've had a pretty strong season of fresh content and the stations I think part of it is because of all the education work they were doing. Part of it because people were watching and we had really strong content. Um knock on wood. It's been a it's been a reasonably good year. Not for all stations. Some really have have had a deeper impact. Some areas that were affected

deeper than others clearly have. But I think for the most part, you know, sort of fingers across we've never been a watching and funding it public products. Right, it's the only one anyone to think the dollars just pouring right in. But right, But it's very different than I thought it was going to be the case that we were going to look at stations who were going to

face existential, you know, crises moving forward. I think we're I think we're you know, reasonably good place now, but obviously they're gonna be looking carefully as we look ahead. What is your total affiliate base right now? Is it about two stations or so? You know, we have three thirty five stations, so it's a lot. It's a lot. And you know, they serve everything from you know, New York City to the MIDGI Minnesota. And by the way, the MIDGI station actually does a light a nightly newscast.

So it's been they have a big share. They do, actually, they have a very big share. And it's uh, and I haven't visited every station, but I've visited most. I've been. Right before the lockdown, I visited my fiftieth state and uh, you know, it's uh, it's amazing when you see some of these operations. You know, again I point to the news hour, I mean the coverage they were able to do with the very small staff. Is uh is truly extraordinary. But it's um so I always say, we punch well

above our weight. Let me ask you, has it you know, at a time of of you know, incredible growth of programming platforms and competition for content costs rising, has that programming pipeline that that PBS has always been so good at planning and planning far out with co productions and things you know, coming from all sorts of all sorts of sources, not just in the US. But is that programming pipe pipeline squeezed now because there is so much demand for global content there um In some areas it

is tougher. Drama is tougher, but we seem to find drama that you know, that people really love and you know, all creatures great and small. This um this winter which turned out to be I watched it like a regular viewer, you know. I I watched it on Sundays and just it just carried me through the long dark winter. Um And and it was cold in here unlike l A. But you wouldn't have had the same significance for you, but here in Virginia. Yeah, I'm in Virginia. So Yeah,

it was called Winner. We had a lot of snow and so and so I'll creatures a great song. But so I think I would say that the drama pipeline was a little harder to create an opportunity. So we had a couple of things fallout. We just picked up a series called Atlantic Crossing, which which actually started running last week and has done has done reasonably, has done very well. Actually it's uh, um, it's a it's an unknown, untold story of um. UM, you know, a World War

two story UM with Churchill and um. You know, so I think that um, there is a you know there there is there is complications there. I think in the in the documentary space, it's interesting because you know, I read article after article about this is really the golden age of documentaries in any way, It's true, a lot of great documentaries. We all watched the record number of

documentaries that were submitted for Oscar consideration this year. UM and a lot of streamers in particular picking up documentary. But a lot of them, you know, are now moving towards more you know, sort of the programming that that drives off of current events, like the HBO series UM on Q and on too, the to crime and so forth, and so you know, again we kind of sit by

ourselves over here. So you know, I'm just really interested in looking at ways that you know, we can continue to expand stories, particularly stories that aren't that aren't often told, are often well told because ultimately I don't have to um adhere to the same pressures that commercial organization will in terms of audience size. I can take a little bit more risk and bring stories forward that you know,

just important stories. So you know, I would say that, um, you know, for us, the interesting question is is all the platforms and which ones we should pursue. We did a deal last year with YouTube TV, which has turned out to be good brand matters and so um and as you said a little while ago, people are you know, people understand the PBS brand, They understand what it means. And uh, a lot of our stations have more aggressively adopted either the PBS logo or the PBS name is

part of their their station itself. And so I think that um that is all, you know, really redound to the good, particularly as you're looking at distributing a multiple platforms broadcast obviously cable, satellite, but also um digital streamed um, you know, places like YouTube. It's a it's a constant question for us of where our viewers, where would they expect to see our content? How do we put it there?

But more importantly, how do we put our stations there with content branded for them so that it's clear that not only are you getting great work by ken Burns, but if there's companion pieces that the stations have also produced, it's all there, you know, for you to see and appreciate. Do you get any have you seen any benefit in terms of the rise of the digital m v p d s, the YouTube TVs, the Roku's, the Hulu Live do those? Do you get any kind of fees for

carriage when you're on those platforms? I know in the traditional world it's often governed by what is known by the wonky term of must carry in FCC parlance, and you get carriage but not fees. Is that the same in the digital world? We get carriage and nut fees.

We have on some of the some of our part partners have helped us to phrase some of our costs of getting our stuff up, but we're really it's not it's not a revenue stream for us in the same way that it would be you know, for commercial organization. And we're also careful around the advertising part for you know, some of the streamers that are ad supported, although we have experimented, we have started experimenting with some older content

just as a way to push our material out. Um, we have rights for some older content and not for others. And we're just I'm just really interested in trying to hit people wherever they may be watching, to just remind them of all the great content within PBS. UM. So like everyone else, Um, you know, we're just we're just I don't think anyone's really figured this out. I think everyone is just trying a lot of different opportunities and

that's certainly what we're doing. And I'm I'm grateful to our stations because, um, you know, you know, at the beginning of of this really interesting media period that we're in, you know, I know that there were some that were very nervous about you know, moving beyond the realm that they completely controlled, which is what you had when you

had a broadcast stick. But you know, they, you know, the stations really understand that for us to be in multiple places and to have our brand out there, if we're if we're purposeful about it and and try to connect the dots back everyone everyone benefits. So so we've

been spending a lot of time thinking through all of that. Yeah, as you know, as I think I said in the beginning, it's leading this organization has never been, never been a cushy job, and probably never been more more challenging than it has been in the last in the last bunch of months. Um, Paula, what would you say in your background You've been CEO of PBS now for fifteen years. What would you say in your background, your work experience, or your life experience that best prepared you for the

challenges that you have now as CEO. Yeah, it's a it's a it's a good question. I think I'm going to answer it in a funny way. I think in some ways, Um, some of the things that the best prepared me to manage this organization have been frankly working for people who weren't such great managers, because you do learn more. I mean, I've had great mentors. So I

don't mean to sounds so flip about it. And I fishure that I've continued to talk to over the years because we all keep running up against things we've never experienced before. Lord knows, this year has been filled with those experiences. But UM, but I think that you know, clear communication, UM, frequent communication, which is certainly been important this year. UM is being able to listen well, but

to make decisions and move um. You know. I mean, these are all aspects of leadership that I've not always found in people that I've worked for, And I know the impact that it had on me, and so I think that you know that's prepared me, uh pretty well, I'm I'm. I guess the other thing is, you know, just just on a personal basis, I'm interested in a lot of things. I started out in college in pre

med um because I was always interested in science. I failed organic chemistry, I took a lot of liberal arts classes, panicked i'd never graduate, got a degree in business. But I always carried forward to all these different interests. And I think that also is I think, I think in a funny way, that's helped me because I just had a lot of cure curiosity about a lot of things. So I know to ask a lot of questions. I also understand the scientific method, and I know that you

can actually land decisions and without full information. And so I think all of those things actually, you know, came to came to the four when I hit the job. It's interesting you've mentioned it now twice about when I, you know, this has never been an easy job. I remember when I was doing the first round of interviews when I was first announced that I had been appointed to this job, that somebody I interviewed with it was a radio interview. I just can't remember what it was.

It's like sort of likened it to walking into the gates of Hell, which I thought was so bizarre, and I said, well, I I'm not exactly sure that's what you know, we'll feel like. But anyway, I appreciate the

you know, the the the question. But um, what I um have thought about actually as I have, you know, have been in this job, is that my speech I gave was right around the time that that Apple announced they were going to sell episodes of Desperate Housewives for a dollar ninety nine, right, that that was a groundbreaking thing, and it just sounded so weird, like who would spend a dollar ninety nine on an episode of Desperate Housewives

to watch on a tiny screen? Watch on a little screen, Right, But it was the signal of how everything was going to change. And I think that, um, you know, if you just look at the arc of everything. I mean, someone gave me a Netflix subscription as I was moving from New York to Washington. It was it was the you know, the DVDs. You know, So just in the arc of time that I've been in this job, it's the entire world is shifted. And I think that you know, the the for me, you know, the other things sort

of in life experiences. You've got to be willing to take risk and know that you know, even if you can't ultimately predict what the outcome is going to be, that um, you're gonna go on some path and you know, chances are you won't get killed in the process, and

that you're gonna learn something. This is what we learned from all the digital people, right, is that the Internet way of iteration rather than building perfection, and which is the I think the biggest sea change in again, in in our business is that, um, you know, you just have to keep you know, trying different things, but you can't be afraid. And I think that's the That's the other I think really important theme and everything that we've tried to do is just let's take some let's let's

take some risk. It's very hard for nonprofits to do that, by the way, because you're always worried that, you know, someone's going to accuse you of wasting their money. But organizations don't grow unless you unless you fail some of the time. And I think most people understand that. Do you have a wish list or any any anything on your wish list for PBS or for that your kind of your cousin the corporational public broadcasting from the new

Biden administration? Oh yeah, I mean, I you know, I think the thing that's um it for me is is very exciting. It's that we have a teacher in the White House, and uh, you know, Jill Biden has been a big proponent of public broadcasting and and I think that you know, again, if you understand that we're built on this idea of educational television that was the original concept, a lot of what we do still ties into that, and so to have someone that is passionate about education

is hugely important. So, um, you know, we're a public private partnership. That's what LBJ envisioned when he created PBS and so to have a white house that really understands what that means. And and you know, I'm optimistic that, you know, we're on a stronger path right now. We'll take a short break now and be back with why Gold broadcastings Neil Saban, And we're back with Weigel Broadcasting

is Neil Saban. Neil has shepherded the growth of multicast networks that are now competing for ad dollars and eyeballs in the big leagues of broadcast TV. Neil, I'd love to start by asking you, you know, more than a decade ago, what was it about the opportunity that you saw? What was it that made Wigel such a pioneer in this space. I think part of that is that Wigel is a family owned entrepreneurial company that can move very quickly on ideas, whether those ideas are technology based or

programming content based. We don't have a lot of people involved in the decision making process, um, so we can move quickly and we are, you know, a business that looks for ways where we can exploit opportunities. Being small, we can't do a lot of the things that bigger companies can do when they have the massive scale of you know, covering seventy of the country, six of the country.

But what we can do is look for areas of expansion that maybe those people haven't looked at yet, which is why I think we were one of the first to jump on this uh sub channel bandwidth opportunity. The chairman president of our company, Norm Shapiro, came into my office one day and I could still see him sitting on my couch saying, Neil, what if what would you do if you had five television stations here in Chicago,

how would you program them? And he explained to me what the digital transition is going to mean for television stations. And I think, to also answer your question, Cynthia, it is that in Chicago we had more than one station. We have a very powerful low power that is, the transmitter and antenna are on top of Sears Tower along with our main channel in Chicago and covers the market beautifully.

And we were doing at one point ethnic programming on that second channel, and then UM started me TV on that second channel as a Chicago only entity and it was doing well. So we were already kind of in

the multicast business before multicast came along. UH. And then when the technology allowed us to put both of those signals on one channel, it was kind of a natural and the you know, the first thing we really wanted to do was me TV, a classic TV channel, But many of the distributors when I went to see them, they were they were not enthusiastic because that they didn't

really understand what this was. And and some of the initial first first people in of the business, um, I think we're not really professional broadcasters or people that had track records and credibility. So it took us a while, and I went to see all the syndicators and it took place at a napty and I finally UH had a meeting with John uh J B John Bryan at UH MGM and said, hey, I want to buy some

of your classic shows to do this. And he said, you know, Neil, everybody is coming to me talking about this, why don't we just do it ourselves? And he's a was an entrepreneurial kind of guy too, because and it's literally in that meeting at napty when he said why don't we do this ourselves? That's how this TV was was formed, which was the first one because MGM doesn't have a big classic TV show library, they have movie library.

So this TV was the first major, uh, major league distributed dijonette to come out, and it was mostly movies because that's mood MGM had. But by doing that, it gave our company some more comfort and experience in making the huge financial commitment that met V was because I will tell you that when we started me TV, we we did it that in a way. We said we were always going to be very credible and what we actually did and and Norm Shapiro likes to say, we

really threw the dice on this one. We went and acquired all the programming on a national basis to start me TV with the only affiliates being our own stations. Can you talk about the pacing of like the growth of these as businesses as as the growth of viewership, the growth of advertising dollars? Was it? Was it fast? Was it an uphill climb? Um? Well, for us, it was pretty rapid in that um. It started with direct response advertising, which is still so many things do in

TV right and it's still a big core. And more and more advertisers are using DR as it's called or hybrid DR which which needs ratings. And you know, you can't even tell when you see the commercials that it's really brought as DR because it looks like regular spot advertising. But they are buying it on a kind of a DR hybrid basis where you've got to have some ratings

for them to be able to track it. That so, but but it was almost like they were looking for a place to go and and it was very opportunistic for the advertisers and for us, I mean we were welcomed in part the advertisers used us I'm sure as leverage with the cable networks and syndication to say, look, I can get this for a lot less money than than that. And our rates, you know, they've gone up substantially. Obviously MeTV and our other networks, um, you know are

quite successful. And you see all these other companies, like you mentioned Cynthia, the big boys getting into this business, and they don't get into businesses that that they think aren't going to grow or aren't going to be successful.

And um, what's happened of late and what was especially for me TV, which has significant ratings, is that as cable and broadcast ratings have come down, the need to buy impressions and to get down what the agencies need to get down in terms of audience reach has gotten to the point where they need networks like me TV to make their campaign successful because they can't get all of those rating points and impressions on cable anymore. It

really is a patchwork quilt these days and everything. And again so interesting because if you look just on the surface, you would think, you know, all the projections for digital advertising, you know, double high, single digit digits going out into

the going out into the future. You would think in that environment it would be really hard to start a TV channel, a linear essentially, won't say analog, but a linear channel that is you know, AD supported, and is you know, inevitably going to start small and and have to grow grow a viewer base. You would think in that environment that there wouldn't be left over advertising dollars

for digenets. But I think that that it just underscores the power of TV that you can when you turn on your set, you can basically find it that the power of that is still pretty pretty strong. It is not a science project to watch. You do not need a password to watch, You do not get a bill

to watch me TV. And and as you say, you know, people a lot smarter than me are starting digenets left and right, so there must be something there that their analysts and their stock people are saying that they should be doing this. So, um yeah, it's and you know, sometimes we all get caught up in the I call it the Emperor's New close and close, and we have to get on the bandwagon a three point on. We have to get on the bandwagon of streaming services and

all that, because that's what everybody's doing. But you know, man Pa whoever in Dayton, Ohio, they're still watching traditional TV for most of the time that they're spending with their media. So there's a business there and it may not be the sexiest newest thing, but it works. Me TV is not it is not it is not available for streaming or it is um not now, No, it's it's not. It's not streamed in the future. That could happen, but right now, our ratings, our success, our business comes

all off of traditional viewing. Does that you know? Um, I guess it's hard. It's a little bit apples and oranges in terms of me TVs. National rating versus. Like you know, you're the ratings for your your broadcast stations in Chicago, Milwaukee. Is it I mean, is me TV? Is that? Is it getting that competitive to being like competitive with something distributed by a full, full blown you

know podcast? Well in Milwaukee, are me TV? Affiliate beats are independent the c W, the mind net uh and some day's ion every day every day in sign on the sign off numbers, I mean, me TV has about twenty six million viewers a week, different viewers a week. We came about twenty six million in daytime. Ah. If you compar us against all cable networks from nine eight two, I think it is six p in all viewers. You know two plus viewers were the number one entertainment choice.

We beat every cable network but the newscast, the news networks. What are your work horse shows right now? I know, I know you you change up the lineup, but right now, what are your courses? Yeah, some of our some of our Facebook critics want us to change up things a whole lot more, but you know you don't. You don't fix what isn't broken. So things like Andy Griffith, Mash, Harry Mason, Andanza guns Smoke, they stay right where they are because they're they're doing so well. Thanks for listening.

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