August 20, 2014

Public Radio in Mid America
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
August 20, 2014

Called to Order: 2:30PM

Board Members Present: Dan Skinner, Mike Savage, Steve Schram, Tim Eby, Regina Dean, Karen Olstad, Paul Maason.

Guest: Tom Hunt

  1. New NPR Board Members from PRIMA – Mike Crane and Mike Savage. Congratulations!
  2. New Voice of NPR Credits – Letter was drafted expressing concerns with new underwriting credit announcer following discussion at previous board meetings. Dan asked whether board still feels that issue warrants sending letter. Since there is a range of opinions about this issue amongst board members, we surmise there is also a range amongst PRIMA member stations. It was decided that we should poll PRIMA members to gauge the level of concern from the membership and that the question should be worded in the context of the clock changes as to whether stations “plan to use NPR’s announcer or record their own announcer” once the credits are no longer allowed to be read live. Dan will survey the membership and share the results informally with Gemma next time he is in D.C.
  3. Spring 2015 PRIMA Conference—May 6-8 in St Louis (Tim and Paul) Hotel – Hotel Ignatio, a boutique hotel about 2 blocks away from station where meetings will be held has been reserved.Rate will be around $150 per night. The new media plaza space between St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU-FM) and Nine Network (KETC-TV) will be open for a possible reception. We have reserved 35 rooms, but we need to finalize that number by Friday realizing that PRIMA will be required to guarantee 70% of the rooms. Board approved unanimously.
  4. Suggested Guests for 2015 PRIMA Conference (open for other suggestions)
      1. Jarl Mohn – NPR (requested, waiting for confirmation
      2. Digital Media – (other than NPR Digital)
      3. CDP – What is it, how is it working at radio stations, etc.
      4. Panel from St. Louis Public Radio– how did experience reporting on events in Ferguson work, what should stations know to prepare for something similar in their community, how did it work in reality working with NPR on breaking national news story.
      5. PRIMA Annual Meeting-timing doesn’t work well with calendar year and by-laws.
      6. Discussion amongst ourselves, facilitated session on burning issues on people’s minds.
      7. Big Station / Small Station dichotomy with conflicting interests on issues.
  5. Super Regional Conference – Attendance appears to be strong based on fact that 60% of rooms are booked.
  6. Clock Project (Tim) Many of the issues that stations have been concerned about have been resolved, there will be a formal communication from NPR coming in next few days. Implementation date has been pushed back to November.
  7. USA (Tom) — Economic Survey results are out. It shows that a notable number of stations are contemplating mergers. Also, a large number of station managers (30%) are planning to retire/change jobs within the next 6 years.

Adjourned at 3:37 PM.

Next meeting will be September 17th at 2:30 PM EDT.

Respectfully submitted,
Karen Olstad
Secretary

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