Approximately
sixty percent of CPB-qualified radio stations are licensed to schools or
universities. The relationship between station management and university leaders
ranges from sweet harmony to jolting disharmony depending on the situation. The
facts of life for many station managers are the difficulties between operating a
public media organization that serves a city or region and the partisan self-interest
of the institution.
 |
| Craig Beeby |
Craig
Beeby, formerly the GM at KOSU in Stillwater, Oklahoma was a big part of the effort to found
the University Station Alliance (USA) [link] in 2000. The member-based
organization’s mission is to be a national resource that will build and
strengthen relationships between stations and their institutional licensees.
We
spoke with Beeby, now Executive Director of USA, at the recent Super Regional
conference in St. Paul. We asked him about what he sees as the greatest need
for managers of university licensees. Without hesitation, Beeby replied:
“Training, mentoring and perspective.”
According
to Beeby, managers at even the biggest stations and universities often feel they
are on their own. Other than friends, they sometimes feel they have
no one to turn for perspective and advice.
Beeby
and USA responded with a series of short training and advice videos that
provide basic solutions to common problems managers encounter at institutional
licensees. There are now 31 videos in the series [link] with more being added
each month.
Video
topics range from Navigating Your Licensee
Maze to Managing Stress to How to Avoid Being the Target of Budget Cuts.
Two
of my favorite videos are When the
Licensee Says You Cannot Raise Donor Money [link] and The Trouble Employee in the Public Media Workplace [link].
DOES STATION FUNDRAISING
HURT THE UNIVERSITY?
Licensee’s
sometimes restrict or ban public radio and TV stations from contacting
potential donors because they feel it might interfere with university
fundraising campaigns. Sometimes this happens when a university has changes in
leadership. In the video, managers get tips about ways to respond to this
challenge. The answers are truthful ways to inform the licensee about the
differences in motivation between public media donors and traditional higher
education donors.
The
video also deals with the personal aspect, that sometimes institutional leaders
are jealous of the relative independence of public media stations. Stations are
often one of biggest fundraising entities on campus. The video suggests
replying by saying If the station is
successful in it’s fundraising, they will need less support from the university.
“MY
FULL TIME JOB IS KEEPING MY FULL TIME JOB”
Another
valuable video deals with a common problem, managing a troubling employee.
Institutional licensees are occasionally treated as “jobs for life” no matter how
inept the employee performs. Not dealing with a troubling employee hurts workplace
productivity of the entire staff.
In
response the video cautions managers to be in sync with the institution’s human
resources and employment procedures. Regardless of the difficulty, USA advises
firm action, not sweeping the situation under rug.
The
USA website [link] is filled with helpful suggestions. Some are available to
anyone and others require USA membership.
There
is a resource I found on the site that I wish I would have had when I managed
stations. The Cost of Doing Business in
Public Radio [link] has templates, worksheets, formulas and examples of how
to compute a cost/benefit analysis, creating a governance report and how to
calculate the “value” of the station to the licensee.
For
more information contact:
Craig
Beeby
craig.usa@att.net
(405)
624-1192
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