Community Advisory Board Meeting Tuesday, April 11, 2017 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Ron and Linda Yanke Family Research Park 220 E. Parkcenter Boulevard, Room 700 Board Members in Attendance: Shelby Zepeda, Vice Chair (via phone) Maria Trebby Kristin Mathews Shikhar Sarin Mark Wheeler Mitzi Jensen
David Lombardi Dede Ryan Leta Neustaedter Laurie Ahern (via phone) Dave Fotsch
Corey Cook Paul Ries Stacy Madsen Vicki Lawson Teresa Yragui
Board Members Not in Attendance: Emily Walton, Board President Kay Alspaugh
Cornelia Sprung
David Lombardi
Katie John, Recorder Kelly Palmer, Development
Matt Guilhem, Morning Edition Host Paul Stribling, Programming
Staff in Attendance: Tom Michael, General Manager Cindy Hall, Business Manager
***************** Call to Order – Shelby Zepeda Vice Chair, Shelby Zepeda, called the Boise State Public Radio (BSPR) Community Advisory Board (CAB) meeting to order at 12:08 p.m. Approval of January 19, 2017 Meeting Minutes – Shelby Zepeda Dede Ryan made a motion to approve the minutes; seconded by Kristin Mathews. The motion was passed unanimously. Introduction of New Staff & Board Members – Tom Michael Tom introduced new CAB members Teresa Yragui and Mitzi Jensen, who were present at the meeting, as well as Laurie Ahern who attended via conference call. Tom also introduced recently hired staff, including Business Manager Cindy Hall, and Morning Edition Host/Reporter Matt Guilhem. Cindy began working at BSPR in March after moving over from the VP of Finance and Administration’s office on campus, and Matt arrived at BSPR in September from KVCR in the San Bernardino area of California. General Manager Update – Tom Michael • Federal funding update: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) provides ~10-15% of our annual budget, making them the largest donor year-after-year. Beyond that simple percentage, there are advantages to bulkrate programming costs, music royalties, and digital services. There is also the reality of the internal costs of raising a new dollar from a new source, rather than from this recurring source. Therefore, the impact of a loss of federal funding is huge. However, we remain optimistic that the suggested White House budget (which lists $0 1|Page
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for CPB) will not pass Congress in its current form. We are in contact with NPR lobbyist Mike Riksen in Washington, D.C., who advocates for public media funding. One major way that public radio listeners can help spread awareness and encourage involvement is through protectmypublicmedia.org. Tom and the engineering staff are working on an outage recap after a tough winter. There are plans – from the Murdock grant and the Wood River Technology Fund – to replace copper T1 lines, which are some of the most vulnerable links in our network transmission system. The fall ratings book from Nielsen was excellent and we anticipate spring ratings in June or July 2017. Two interns are nearly complete with the first semester of the Newsroom Intern program. Two more will start in the summer session, and we’ve also had help on the air with newscasts from local media veteran Norm Gunning. Four full-time positions are currently open: Senior Broadcast Engineer, News Director, Local Show Host and Local Show Producer. We anticipate filling the first two soon, and will then turn our attention to the forthcoming local daily show. During the membership pledge drive in March we raised $10,000 more than goal. We met our goals of reaching 40% of donors as new members and 30% as new sustainers. The “new” members don’t mean they just became listeners. Nationally, one of every ten listeners donates to public radio, so the “new” members are often transitioning longtime listeners into donors who support our service. News coverage: Adam Cotterell’s podcast “Some of the Parts” recently made its debut and it showcases storytelling in Idaho. The series will feature 8 episodes capturing unique populations with which many Idahoans may not be familiar. The newsroom wrapped up coverage of the legislative session. We shared our statehouse content with other radio stations in in the state. Other items to note are the partnership with Idaho Ed. News on school bond coverage. Both Matt Guilhem and Frankie Barnhill appeared on the national airwaves recently, on top-of-the-hour newscasts. Lizzie O’Leary of Marketplace Weekend from American Public Media had a successful trip to Boise and she appeared on our behalf at a speaking event at Treefort/Storyfort. The BBC will be in Boise during the week of April 17, with a public event on Wednesday, April 19 in the BSPR Community Room. Other upcoming events include an evening at the Ketchum Library on April 13. Two major milestones are approaching this summer and fall: Reader’s Corner will celebrate its 500th unique episode, and KBSU will celebrate its 40th anniversary (more on this below). Lastly, we are still keeping our eyes on the local show. As Kelly reported, national content has a cost of about $200/hour to produce, but a local show will cost 5-10 times as much. The university has given some seed money to start the project ($112,000), and our fundraising teams are pitching the local show to underwriters and major donors. We intend to start this show in the second half of 2017. Our goal is to raise $500,000-750,000 over 5-7 years for the show.
Discussion about KBSU’s 40th Anniversary • The CAB would like to discuss this topic more at the July meeting, and showed interest in helping with a fall event. • Ideas suggested include searching through library archives for KBSU over the years, and using social media to make a call for historic KBSU recordings, photos, etc. • Leta is particularly interested in helping to coordinate this event, and suggested perhaps a committee be created to work specifically on this project. Paul Ries suggested bringing back previous hosts, and another CAB member suggested that perhaps the event take place on the evening of the fall CAB meeting (Tuesday, October 24, 2017). • Lastly, is there a way to tie in the 40th anniversary of KBSU to the fall pledge drive? Staff at the meeting will ensure this idea makes it to the Membership department. Meeting Times & Dates – Katie John Katie proposed the following meeting dates and times, based on the positive feedback regarding the noon meeting time: 2|Page
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• Tuesday, July 25, 2017 • Tuesday, October 24, 2017 • Tuesday, January 23, 2018 All meetings will be held at the Boise State Public Radio offices, and will go from 12 pm until 1:30 pm. Good of the Order – Tom Michael and Shelby Zepeda • Major discussion items summarized above, regarding celebrating the 40th Anniversary of KBSU. Adjourn Dave Fotsch moved to dismiss the meeting at 1:15 pm, Dede provided the second, and the motion passed unanimously.
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