GPB’s New Board Member and WABE’s New Schedule
Gov. Brian Kemp has made a new appointment to the Georgia Public Telecommunications Commission, the board that governs Georgia Public Broadcasting, to complete the term of Brian Dill who has resigned. Dill had been serving as Chair of the Commission.
According to a state press release the new appointee, Amanda Shailendra, “is an economic and community development specialist whose experience includes corporate recruitment, expansion strategy, and leading negotiations between corporations and communities. She is a partner with Pendleton Consulting Group and consults with both public and private organizations throughout the southeast.”
This makes her a successor of sorts to Craig Lesser who served on GPB’s board and briefly as Chairman during the Nathan Deal administration. Lesser is Chairman of Pendleton.
In a 2016 meeting after a second year of financial losses, Lesser mentioned a “succession plan” seeming to hint that then CEO Teya Ryan should consider stepping down. Instead, Lesser left the Commission and briefly served on WABE’s board.
Ryan remained another 8 years.
At GPB’s most recent board meeting this past May, new CEO Bert Wesley Huffman stated it was Dill’s last as Chair but it was unclear if he was stepping down from that position or from the Commission entirely.
Dill was chair throughout last year’s tumultuous events including a dramatic cut to GPB’s state funding, the actual retirement of Ryan, the search for her replacement, and the cancellation of Political Rewind with Bill Nigut, the daily political discussion show heavily featuring journalists and editors from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The AJC hired Nigut directly soon after the show’s cancellation and GPB’s Atlanta rival WABE began airing a similar show now named The AJC’s Politically Georgia.
In the GPB CEO search, which ultimately went to Huffman, Dill frequently consulted with the Governor’s office on the selection.
In an e-mail to donors and a press release, WABE elaborated on its new PBS schedule and some programming changes on radio. As announced at its own last board meeting in May, WABE’s TV station moved from a full-service PBS station to a secondary one beginning in July, ceding the primary PBS status in Atlanta to GPB.
But there are also some upcoming changes to its radio schedule beginning July 29th.
A Closer Look moves up an hour to noon and City Lights moves to 1 p.m. The Lois Reitzes hosted arts show will now only air Monday through Thursday with the Friday hour given to a program produced by Emory University’s School of Public Health.
Reitzes seems to be cutting back with her long-running Second Cup concert already no longer airing on WABE’s HD2 and Classical stream. She continues to host the ASO Symphony broadcasts Sunday nights on the main radio signal and Tuesdays on the Classical stream.
In airing an Emory Public Health radio show, WABE is following a strategy CEO Jennifer Dorian laid out to use other Atlanta institutions as content partners, saving money on production costs but allowing the station, TV and radio, to fill its schedule with more local programming.
It makes practical sense but risks making WABE seem less like an independent media organization that covers Atlanta journalistically. Akin to GPB being state media, complete with programming produced for and sponsored by other state agencies, WABE could become the media arm of “The Atlanta Way.”
Similarly, the AJC-produced Politically Georgia continues at 10 a.m. and, Dorian said at the May meeting, has been signed up for the next two years.
Public radio stations in large markets have faced budget shortfalls and layoffs this past year. In Feb., WAMU in Washington, the highest rated NPR affiliate, laid off journalists and closed the digital local news site DCist. A press release announcing the changes echoed WABE’s use of “amplify” and that it would be leaning on “content partners.”
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — WAMU 88.5 American University Radio today announced a new strategy to deepen engagement with Washingtonians. The strategy is centered around audio and live experiences — providing rich programming on-air, online, and on-site. A cornerstone of the strategy will be the development of a new local show, for-, by-, and about Washingtonians. The show will be designed to reflect and represent what makes the DMV area unique and will be designed for broadcast and on-demand audiences. WAMU will also partner with local content providers to amplify their stories and connect audiences with a variety of rich experiences.
(WABE’s new head of radio came from WAMU but before its layoffs. Interestingly, WABE’s new schedule drops the WAMU-produced 1A and adds two shows produced by competing Boston stations: WBUR’s On Point and WGBH’s The World.)
WABE faced its own slight budget challenges this past year but made no layoffs and maintains its largest newsroom ever.
But if the issues facing public broadcasters continue, declining broadcast listenership, increased competition for attention from other podcasts and social media, and general news fatigue, they’ll present a severe test of how committed WABE and/or GPB are to independent news gathering and to their ongoing competition.
Last week NPR announced another expansion of its Regional Collaborative newsrooms.
Meanwhile, laid-off DC-ist journalists have started their own independent worker-led collaborative newsroom called 51st.
Then there’s the open question of this fall’s election.
The media is again a target of criticism from Trump supporters and now also from Biden supporters and large swaths of the public across a spectrum of ideologies.
In the past President Trump has called for defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Project 25 has extensive policy proposals for media agencies and the Federal Communications Commission.
Even if not fully implemented, a second Trump term will likely reshape public radio. While facing cuts to federal funding from the right, any sense that NPR is caving to MAGA pressure will alienate liberal supporters and donors who may also seek independent alternatives.
