Public Radio in Mid America
Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
August 13, 2013
Called to Order: 11:00 AM EDT
Board Members Present: Tom Hunt, Christina Kuzmych, Karen Olstad, Regina Dean, Dan Skinner, Paul Maassen, Tim Eby
- Update on Super Regional — (Christina)
- Registration is open. Agenda hasn’t yet been finalized; the template is based on what was done last year. There doesn’t appear to be any place on schedule for regionals to meet. Board feels that we need 90-120 minutes. Christina will discuss with Georgette.
- Question was also raised about agenda for the AREPs meeting. Attendees would like to know more details about content and timing in order to make their travel plans. Christina will ask Joyce for clarification.
- Tom moved, Regina seconded a motion to extend scholarships to retired PRIMA members to apply for a $500 scholarship to attend the Super Regional conference. Priority would be to make awards to currently employed station managers out of the $4,000 scholarship fund. The motion did not pass.
- Eby, Hunt and Skinner volunteered to serve on the scholarship committee.
- PRIMA Meeting in February — If Super Regional becomes an annual event, should we have our own PRIMA conference in late winter/early spring? A survey was developed. The board reviewed, discussed and revised. It will go out to PRIMA members in September. Tim Eby offered to host the meeting at Saint Louis Public Radio if one is held.
- NPR Program Dues –
- Christina asked with TOTN off the air, she thought that NPR said that Here &Now would be bundled with Science Friday for the same cost. Karen Olstad said that H&N was pro-rated for WOSU based upon carrying it M-Th and she thinks that is what they meant. Tim Eby stated that he was more concerned with the increase in BBC costs. All agreed that we need to have a conversation about the business model needing to change because national distributors are distributing their product by other means than just broadcast radio. We hope that will be a topic at the Super Regional conference.
- Tim Eby wanted PRIMA members to be aware of “Infinite Player,” an online mix of music and spoken word. NPR has been working with a small group of stations to develop the equivalent for public radio content. Tim encouraged PRIMA managers to download an app called “Swell.” NPR and large stations have cut a deal w/ them to become the spoken word version of Pandora. This raises a lot of questions about how NPR will work with stations. The service would be geo-located, pulling content from stations based on the user’s location. Users have to register, so one question is who owns that data (users likes, dislikes, etc.), NPR or stations? This data will be very valuable. Another question is how will the revenue be split? Also, how will it be branded (cobranded w/ NPR & stations)? This topic was discussed at SRG meeting, needs to be discussed more broadly either on the next PRIMA Board Conference call and/or at the Super Regional meeting.
- Next meeting will be September 10 at 11:30 AM EDT. It was decided that the calls will be at 11:30 from now on.
Meeting adjourned at 12:32 PM EDT
Respectfully submitted,
Karen Olstad
Secretary