knell

Another Shake-Up at NPR as Chief Steps Down

August 19, 2013 by NewsMaker

Gary E. Knell, the public radio organization’s chief for the last 20 months, announced on Monday that he would be leaving to run the National Geographic Society. It came as an unwelcome surprise to NPR staff members, given that Mr. Knell brought some desperately needed stability to the executive ranks when he was hired in late 2011.

Conflicts between past chief executives and the NPR board resulted in repeated shake-ups in the years leading to his arrival. On Monday, though, Mr. Knell and the board hurried to reassure public radio fans that his exit was because of something more mundane: a better job offer.

In an e-mail to the NPR staff, Mr. Knell said he had been approached by the National Geographic Society and “offered an opportunity that, after discussions with my family, I could not turn down.”

In a subsequent telephone interview, Mr. Knell said he had been prepared to renew his NPR contract, which expires in November. But then National Geographic called, and it was enticing for a number of reasons. One that was immediately suggested by observers on Monday was money: he will earn a significantly higher salary at the society. While that is true, he said his decision “wasn’t really driven by a financial equation.” What was most appealing about National Geographic, he said, was its size, its educational efforts and international scope.

At National Geographic, he will succeed John M. Fahey Jr., who has served as the society’s chief executive since 1998 (and who will remain its chairman). Mr. Knell became a trustee in June of the nonprofit organization, which publishes National Geographic and other magazines, supports scientific research and expeditions and owns part of the commercial National Geographic Channel.

“The perfect person for this crucial role was right in our own backyard,” Jean N. Case, the co-chairwoman of the committee that searched for a new chief executive, said in a statement.

The society had about $600 million in income in 2011, according to tax filings, making it far bigger than NPR, which has a budget of about $180 million this year and is running a small deficit. The society also has twice as many employees.

While Mr. Knell’s departure from NPR is amicable by all accounts, it is disappointing to that organization’s board, which must once again search for a leader. Ken Stern, who was named chief executive in 2006, stepped down less than two years later; an interim head took over until NPR hired Vivian Schiller away from The New York Times to run the organization in 2009. She resigned two years after that, after back-to-back controversies involving the political views of an NPR analyst, Juan Williams, and two NPR fund-raising executives. Another interim head was appointed until Mr. Knell’s arrival in 2011 from the nonprofit Sesame Workshop.

Analysts have suggested that the revolving door has hindered NPR, which has had to delicately maintain relationships with its member stations across the country while expanding its presence on the Web. “NPR’s a vital journalism organization that seems to have more problems with its business side than its journalism side, and that hurts its reputation, because people don’t make that distinction,” said Alicia Shepard, who was NPR’s ombudsman between 2007 and 2011.

Over all, the organization has shown that it is adjusting to changes in consumer behavior; just last week it introduced a redesigned home page that looked a lot like a mobile app. The new home page also included a big new space for messages from sponsors, public media’s version of advertisers.

It may need more of those in the future. The organization has a $6 million deficit in the fiscal year that ends on Sept. 30, and it is forecast to run a deficit again next year. Mr. Knell has been working on a plan to help NPR achieve a balanced budget in 2015. “We hope to present a strategic plan to the board soon, before my departure,” he said on Monday, declining to comment further.

Mr. Knell said that among his proudest achievements at NPR were “bringing institutional donors back” and “helping calm some of the waters on Capitol Hill.” (Calls for cuts to government subsidies for NPR and PBS have quieted in the last year.) By other measures — like NPR’s relations with member stations and its reputation for innovation — the organization has made steady improvement under Mr. Knell. “We’ve made a lot of progress in a short amount of time,” he said, suggesting that he felt as if he had fit four years of work into his two years.

He managed to irritate some public radio supporters during his tenure by ending “Talk of the Nation,” the midday call-in show, and throwing NPR’s weight behind a news broadcast called “Here and Now” instead. The change took effect this summer, and more than 300 stations now carry “Here and Now,” about 100 fewer than the number that carried “Talk.”

Kit Jensen, the chairwoman of the NPR board, said she expected a “fairly quick” succession process.

Ms. Jensen called Mr. Knell a “stellar C.E.O.” in a telephone interview, saying, “Certainly, we wish his decision had been otherwise, but we respect what that decision is.”

The board could turn to one of Mr. Knell’s top lieutenants, like Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s executive vice president and chief content officer, or Margaret Low Smith, the senior vice president for news. Or it could look outside the organization — the same thing it has done the last two times.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/business/media/knell-nprs-chief-to-leave-for-national-geographic-society.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

NPR’s Generation Listen Seeks Audiences in Their 20s

So NPR chose a bar hovering above Sixth Street here to kick off Generation Listen, a campaign to make public radio cool in the minds and ears of young people. The party was, like every party here, packed. But the goal was to convince 20-something listeners that NPR is something that they can belong to — and may be even worth their donations.

NPR has set up Facebook and Twitter pages for the campaign and invited people to sign up for a mailing list with the promise of special events in the future. “It’s time for us to get better at finding you where you are and what is most relevant to your lives,” declares the manifesto for Generation Listen on NPR.org, echoing what so many other media companies are thinking.

A dozen television channels had a presence at the festivals last weekend, with elaborate stunts and parties for forthcoming shows like Syfy’s “Defiance” and AE’s “Bates Motel.” So did news organizations like The New York Times that are eager to entice new paying subscribers. Executives at The Times said last month that they were considering an “entry-level” subscription product for young people, presumably at a lower price than existing plans.

For NPR, the campaign that was celebrated at the Sunday night event here didn’t come from the top, but rather from the middle — from a manager, Danielle Deabler, who enlisted a few friends to help her.

After about two years of pitching — “I had to ‘sell’ it inside NPR,” she said — Ms. Deabler won the financial and logistical backing of the chief executive of the organization, Gary Knell, and his colleagues. Ms. Deabler calls it “a conscious movement to connect NPR with younger audiences and connect these fans to one another.”

By “younger,” she means listeners under 30, though she is happy to sign up people closer to her own age as well. (She gave her age as “Generation X.”) The age of the typical NPR listener falls somewhere between that of the network personalities Peter Sagal, 48, and Carl Kassel, 78; a 2009 study of public radio found that the median age for an NPR News listener was 52, up from 47 in 1999. The median age for a classical radio listener was 65, up from 58. For NPR’s Web site, the median age is lower. And for podcasts, it’s lower still — about 36.

NPR’s music arm has had success in recruiting fans at the festivals, known as SXSW, in the past. But in general, younger NPR listeners tend not to have as strong a sense of belonging as older listeners do. (They also don’t donate to their local radio stations as much.) Ms. Deabler’s “aha moment,” she said, was meeting a 28-year-old entrepreneur who told her: “I ride my bike every day from Brooklyn into Manhattan and listen to NPR podcasts every day. What can I do to help NPR?”

Ms. Deabler worked in media relations at NPR at the time. She had noticed that when NPR hit “rough patches” — say, the firing of the news analyst Juan Williams and failed attempts by Republicans to bar federal funding to the organization — “there was no efficient way to activate our most loyal fans.” Nor was there a way to attract new fans. “We had not spent time studying the psychology of it all,” she said.

She found a kindred spirit in Eric Kuhn, a former CNN producer who had recently become the first “social media agent” at United Talent Agency. He and his colleagues started working with NPR on a pro bono basis to, he said, “inspire a new generation of listeners.”

Generation Listen emanated from their discussions with NPR. They started the campaign quietly last November by inviting two dozen young people to “Weekend in Washington,” a private event held each year for NPR trustees, donors and supporters that typically skews much older. The first-time attendees tweeted and blogged the whole time.

The campaign organizers hope to hold events for young listeners to meet one another, reinforcing the notion that NPR fandom is a community of sorts. Ms. Deabler’s new title is director of audience engagement and new ventures — which in itself is a sign of changing attitudes within media companies.

The initial goal, she said, is to help NPR’s young audience grow. “Perhaps someday,” she added, “they will keep NPR going through pledging to their local member stations and through philanthropy.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/arts/nprs-generation-listen-seeks-audiences-in-their-20s.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Another Shake-Up at NPR as Chief Steps Down

NPR’s Generation Listen Seeks Audiences in Their 20s

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