PRIMA BOARD MEETING
December 18, 2019
CALLED TO ORDER AT 2:30 PM
Paul Maassen
Regina Dean
Richard Miles
Neenah Ellis
Myrna Johnson
Dan Skinner
Nico Leone
missing
Steve Schramm
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- Minutes of the November meeting approved unanimously.
- Discussion about carriage of impeachment hearings.
- Treasurers report by Regina Dean: PRIMA is $39,000 + in the black.
Review of paid and unpaid members. Some board members agreed to contact members who have not renewed to urge them to do so.
- Discussion about possibly hiring a bookkeeper to work with Regina to take over reports, collecting dues, preparing audit/990 every year. Concensus is that we go ahead and hire a bookkeeper. Will get a couple of prices and compare at January meeting.
- NPR fees discussion: Questions about what the data shows is on individual stations impact. Nico says his observations as a board member: there are always fluctuations when you make a systemic change. We all felt it was the right thing to do even though it would cause pain to individual stations. There is a widely held perspective that NPR could do something to help those stations who are adversely impacted and we may hear more about that in months to come. Bottom line: The large stations are paying more and the small stations are paying less – but not as much as was proposed in V.1. In aggregate it looks pretty good.
The new compact solved a major issue in terms of equity between similar sized stations in similar markets.
Nico: the data from NPR shows that those whose fees will drop are not heard from. When you dig into the data there are lot more stations that are level or dropped. If you do a survey, see who’s up and who’s down but more importantly, engage with NPR around the the question of what do we do next that can help the stations that are absorbing fee increases?
Let’s try to be helpful as we track this over time. PRIMA can provide feedback to NPR.
We could ask these questions: What’s the positive impact, what’s the negative impact and if it’s negarive what would mitigate that?
Do this for a couple of years in a row and track the changes that people think they will have to make.
President will put together a survey and circulate the proposed questions to the board.
Nico leaves the meeting.
PRIMA spring conference.
Talked to Murfreesboro TN station. She’s checking on facilities. She is willing to help us leverage resources.
Milwaukee is a possibility. John Hess is there now. Looking at 27-30 April or second week in May.
Suggestion to invite John Lansing
Suggestion to minimize NPR’s participation at the next conference.
Potential topics for PRIMA conference:
- growing a newsroom and exploration of collaboration opportunities
- interpreting ratings
- podcasting: how to incorporate it into a station workflow, look at other models
- digital culture accelerator takeaways
Advertise the date and place for the PRIMA conference in January 2020.
January 15, 2020 is the next PRIMA board meeting.