WFIU Community Advisory Board Meeting

Indiana University Radio & Television Center, Faculty and Staff Lounge

October 8 at 4 p.m.

Prepared by Mia Partlow

Attending: John Bailey, Carolyn Calloway-Thomas, Becky Cape, Laura Ginger, Peter Jacobi, Nancy Krueger, Nan McEntire, Mike McGregor, Ellen Sedlack, Janis Starcs, Janet Stavropoulos, Marianne Woodruff, Charlotte Zietlow

Absent: David Bowden, Jane Clay, Pamela Davidson, Marty Donnelly, Mary Hall, Lewis Ricci, Lynn Schwartzberg, Judy Witt, Lorinda Youngcourt

Janis called the meeting to order at 4:00pm. Minutes approved.

Meeting Schedule

• The board approved a new meeting schedule:

o Meetings will be held the First Monday of each quarter (business Monday) at 4pm

o Upcoming meetings: January 7, April 1, July 1, October 7

• The fund drive volunteer shift will no longer be considered a meeting.

• Additional “emergency” board meetings will be called if there is something pressing the board should discuss.

• Due to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) new transparency guidelines, the meeting schedule must be announced online and on air three days per quarter, at least twice a day. These announcements will be scheduled the three days prior to each board meeting.

Diversity Statement

• The board was asked to sign CPB’s new transparency statement, which includes information about open meetings and a statement on diversity.

• The IU Board of Trustees has signed this statement.

• The Diversity Policy was approved.

Major Giving Report

• The StateImpact project is now in its second year. The NPR team in DC came to Indiana for a meeting in Indianapolis at the office of George Plewes, who is on the NPR Foundation board. The meeting included prospective donors and representatives from other foundations.

• Perry Metz, Lloyd Wright of WFYI, and Margaret Low Smith from NPR met with the Lilly Foundation. Lilly requested more information, which is positive but guarantees nothing.

• Radio & TV Services will be creating an endowment in honor of Mr. Kroll, which will fund equipment upgrades for both WFIU and WTIU. The Kroll family has committed to bringing the endowment up to its $10,000 minimum over the next five years. To date approximately $4,600 has been raised.

• One CAB member, Laura Ginger, has made the lead gift to create a News Fund, for both radio and TV. This fund is intended to alleviate the cost of national programming, and for special News projects. The fund is to created to have multiple donors, and after it is set up we will begin actively marketing it.

• LG: I was surprised to learn there were classical and jazz funds, but no news fund.

• The cost of national news programming, for those who are curious: Morning Edition costs $85,000 per year, All Things Considered costs $42,000 per year.

Programming

• Car Talk is in permanent reruns beginning this month (October), for up to 8 years.

o John Bailey reports we will be watching the audience numbers and response closely.

o CCT: I’ll still listen.

o PJ: How much do we get from Car Talk?

o JB: $6,000-$8,000 during Fund Drive, underwriting, the branded vehicle donation program, and it is a gateway program for new listeners.

o NM: I donated my Volvo; it was simple.

o JB: We’d like to invest in high quality new programming, audition it in other spots. We’ll be aware of listenership and keep reevaluating the program.

• StateImpact produced an hour-long special called Progress Report, accompanied by an online post, about how people in Indiana have been affected by education reform. John Bailey reports that he cannot think of a more sound-rich, robust hour of news programming we’ve made in recent years.

• JB: Reporter Julie Rawe also produced a series called Walk Behind the Wire: Women in Indiana’s Prisons, a three-part radio series, with accompanying web presence and a special Noon Edition taped on location at an alternative sentencing house in Indianapolis.

o CZ: That was really interesting—it’s a hugely growing population.

o ES: I talked to Julia at the Open House, and made a copy of a photo for her.

• Jazz Crossroads of America, a 4-part series on jazz in Indiana funded by the NEA, aired during September and is now available online.

o Many board members chimed in that they enjoyed the series.

o LG suggested it could be a fund drive premium.

o There is currently a plan to give it to Cobine Fund donors.

o The program is being promoted nationally on NPR.org and through Current, a public media trade paper.

• The newsroom also produced live Ask the Mayor shows in Terre Haute and Greencastle.

• Thank you to Ellen Sedlack, who helped promote the Greencastle program.

• Thanks to the Classical Music Endowment, the radio station was able to purchase new equipment for the studios, enabling us to have live in-studio performances. We kicked it off with Nigel North and a concert preview.

• Announcer Schedule: WFIU is working to create more consistency throughout the day:

o Morning Edition will be hosted regularly by Annie Corrigan, and All Things Considered will be hosted by David Brent Johnson.

• NM: I’ve noticed they stopped announcing Writer’s Almanac—they used to say “coming up next,” and now they don’t. I thought it had gone off the air!

• JB: There’s no mandate not to mention it, but it is an interstitial, rather than a full program.

• Elections:

o WFIU will air national, regional, and statewide debates. Some of the state debates are during our Fund Drive, so we’ll move them to 11pm, but air them live on our HD2 station. WTIU is doing something similar, airing them live on their World channel, and then later live on the main channel.

o WFIU’s website will reflect this schedule.

o Election night: we’ll have reporters in key locations, including the Democratic and Republican Headquarters.

o The online election presence will be very robust. There will be real-time election results presented in maps, and charts.

o CZ: It was difficult last year; WFHB was the only place you could get it.

o MW: It’s important to remember that our audience is not only Bloomington, it’s the whole region. And that goes for our online presence too—we created a website that is available to the entire state, and will be used by all IPBS stations.

• The WFIU/WTIU newsroom is producing a documentary called Shadows of Innocence: Sexual Assault Among Indiana’s Youth. The statistics are astonishingly high in Indiana, and the documentary will take an educational look at the problem.

o BC: I heard Sara Wittmeyer talk about it at the TV board meeting, and I’m really looking forward to it.

o NK: These are the kinds of projects our news fund can help with.

• WTIU is producing a documentary called Bloomington Remember When, and is now doing a call-out for people who have stories about Bloomington.

o CCT: they should talk to LaVerta Terry. She has a lot of stories she can share. And Clarence and Frances Gilliam as well.

• Radio Netherlands sustained a 70% decrease in public funding. Two programs WFIU carries are going out of production: Concertgebouw and The State We’re In (TSWI).

• Concertgebouw will be replaced with Deutsche Welle. We still aren’t sure what to do with the 4pm Sunday hour—perhaps anthologize a series of specials.

• The last day of TSWI is October 28, the last day of our fund drive. We’ll be using the first Sunday as a teachable moment—this is what happens when public broadcasting doesn’t have support.

Meeting Adjourned