ABBY GOLDSTEIN CHOSEN AS NEW PRPD PRESIDENT

Abby Goldstein

After a national search, the Public Radio Program Directors, Inc. (PRPD) announced last week that Abby Goldstein has been chosen to be new President and Executive Director. She will begin the job on June 17, 2019. She is currently the GM of AAA WYEP in Pittsburgh.

Goldstein said in a PRPD press release [link]: 

“I am honored that the PRPD Board has placed their confidence in me. I have deep respect for the mission and goals of PRPD to nurture, promote and support the public media programming community so we can serve our audiences with distinction.”

Goldstein is well known in public radio circles and at PRPD.  She served on the PRPD Board of Directors from 2008 – 2016. PRPD’s national headquarters will move to Pittsburgh after the PRPD conference in late August.

She told Current’s Tyler Faulk [link], that PRPD will continue to be “the central place for the conversations around audience development.”

Goldstein says she wants to increase PRPD’s year-round activity, including webinars, strategic gatherings, research projects and partnerships with other organizations.

GOLDSTEIN: “I AM A HARDCORE RADIO PERSON”

Abby Goldstein wrote those works for her bio on the WYEP website [link]. She has perhaps the widest radio background of any PRPD President.

Her passion for radio started early when her family grew up in northern New Jersey where her mother and father were enthusiastic radio listeners. She wrote in her bio:

“As a kid my mother had us listening to Jean Shepherd and Bob & Ray and I eventually found WPLJ where I soaked up the music in the early days of free form album rock.”

By the 1970s her family moved to Texas. NPR was beginning to have an impact and she says “my mother had become helplessly addicted to NPR and she began volunteering at the local public radio station.”

Abby Goldstein at KLVU

The station was KVLU in Beaumont, Texas. Goldstein was a board operator and late night jazz host.

In 2018, Goldstein told the online radio and records ‘zine All Access [link] about her move to Dallas, a place that was very important for her: 

“I moved to Dallas in 1989 and spent six years on the air at KERA when it was a dual format NPR news/Triple A station, followed by several years in commercial radio at 93.3 The Zone, 99.5 The Wolf and 95.3 The Range, doing fun things like producing street festivals and booking local bands. In 2000, I went back to KERA and spent five years as PD.

Her experience at KERA led her to become VP/Programming at New Hampshire Public Radio. In 2012, she became GM of 91.3 WYEP in Pittsburgh.

In the All Access interview, Goldstein described why she loves public radio:

The air staff at WYEP

This is a mission-focused enterprise and that's what inspires us to do what we do every day. We like to say that content generates audience and engagement, audience generates revenue and revenue drives mission. The end goal here is to do something extraordinary and meaningful for the community. It's the most rewarding work I've ever done.

Perhaps most important, Goldstein is a kind and loyal friend of many folks in public media who enjoys the simple things in life. She told All Access that all she needs to make a day worthwhile is “a piece of chocolate and a good, hard laugh.”

KEN SAYS: Congratulations to Abby and PRPD. The Board made an excellent choice when they chose her to be the sixth leader of the organization.