Ryan Retiring from GPB
Georgia Public Broadcasting CEO Teya Ryan will retire effective May 15th. President and Chief Revenue Officer Bert Wesley Huffman will be interim head of the state-run network.
A copy of Ryan’s retirement email was obtained through an Open Records Request last Friday.
News of Ryan’s retirement was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a story posted online Monday April 24th ahead of GPB’s rescheduled board meeting Wednesday the 26th.
Ryan did not attend the public portion of the Wednesday meeting. An executive session followed.
In a March 30th email to board members about the state legislature’s final budget which included a cut to GPB, Ryan said “At the April board meeting, we will discuss what these changes mean for GPB.”
The April meeting was long scheduled for the 12th but was postponed two weeks.
Whether related or not, the meeting was initially pushed back after this blog inquired the Monday before about whether board members would take questions about the cut.
Ryan’s absence from Wednesday’s public portion of the meeting wasn’t addressed by board members.
Ahead of discussion on how it would implement the cut, GPB President Huffman opened his report to the board with a discussion of the culture at GPB:
Obviously, we had the added challenge of planning a budget when we do have 1.4 million dollars cut in our state funding. So, we’re going to be presenting a plan to you around some of that as well. But before we get into that, we really just want to talk a little bit about culture internally at GPB and externally, because as the board I assume you would want to ensure that … as a company that we not only had a good plan together to navigate a downturn and something in a situation like this but also, we have the confidence of the people working here and they’re willingness to go along with us on this plan.
One is a culture of accountability. You can see their firm understanding of the individual tasks that were responsible for, but beyond that a shared understanding of our overall mission, how every one of us is crucial in achieving it. That is incredibly important as we move into the next year because in a time like this it’s not as simple as just adding to the bottom line on the revenue side from other funds, it’s also going back to the people who work here and ensuring that they’re accountable for budgets that they manage.
…
Also, a culture of philanthropy. We talk a lot about fundraising on this board but it’s more than fundraising. You know, we have to remember that everything we do here is because other people give us the money to do it and they do it so that we can be a service to the state.
And so, it goes beyond just realizing that we have donors, but also seeing the state of Georgia, as our largest individual donor, they are the largest major gift provider.
Foundations, corporations, sponsorships, all that comes together. The more everyone in this building recognizes that the more we realize that what we’re doing is because of the goodness of someone else and to the good of the state of Georgia.
So, it’s almost, as we talked about last time, a little bit of a cultural shift away from focusing as a media company and more toward a service organization for the state of Georgia that uses media as a platform to serve.
…
And then externally… You may notice, if you watch GPB TV, we do have a lot of seasonal spots that are produced year-round, not only focusing on fundraising, but also reminding the people who use our products that we’re also here for education, a sense of community, belonging, and we try to educate them on the role of public media.
…
We talked last time about our enhanced community engagement efforts, GPB in your community.
I firmly believe that’s the future of this organization. And all of us do. It is the differentiator between us and commercial media.
As to employee morale, Huffman says he and VP for Human Resources Veronica Pemberton-Daniels started intentionally engaging staff at the start of the pandemic to ensure “good organizational culture.”
Huffman was named President in 2021 while Ryan retained the CEO role.
In financial presentations, fundraising and other revenues for the current fiscal year were all on track. The biggest challenge will be navigating the $1.4 million cut of its state funding for the fiscal year beginning July 1st.
CFO Elizabeth Laprade spent some time going over the different funding sources for GPB, a source of controversy in the state budget battle, but noted that the cut will be spread throughout the organization.
Details of their plan to implement the cut were handed out to board members but not shared with me.
Huffman later told me no layoffs were planned though some retirements are expected.
In the meeting he stated he’d push to step up fundraising:
Any time you’re taking a cut like this, it’s on the fundraising operation to overproduce. So, we are going to push for an additional 500,000 dollars next year. Hopefully more than that.
We all had a lot of conversations about those programmatic cuts that we’re talking about, and I feel very confident that it will not affect anything you see on air or listen to on GPB.
We really just took a look at indulgences and things that, you know, don’t have to be there.
…
And the personnel services piece is, we’re fortunate in that we do have a number of retirements that are coming online, so that’s very helpful.
There was no mention of ending GPB’s presence on WRAS. The only publicly stated reason for the legislature’s cut was GPB’s direct competition with other broadcasters, most likely a reference to its ongoing competition with WABE in Atlanta.
WABE is licensed to the Atlanta Public Schools but receives no state funding.
Ryan, in her retirement letter, mentioned 88.5 specifically as part of her legacy:
Additionally, we have added four radio stations, with 88.5 FM being the most influential.
Influential, perhaps, thanks mainly to its heavy dose of AJC reporters and other “political insiders” as daily guests.
But the station has never seriously challenged WABE in audience size and may have been a financial drain on GPB if the radio losses found on the CPB portion of its annual state audits are an accurate reflection.
