These are miserable tough times in every business … and public broadcasting is far from being immune to the economic pain. Every day, it seems, brings news of small and large stations that are laying off staff. These are real human tragedies. We all know people who are affected.

With so much anguish around, it is hard to stay focused on strategic thinking. But we must or everything we have fought for and cared about in public broadcasting will vanish. The jungle will quickly grow back and it will be all-Rush Limbaugh-all-the-time. Continue reading →

Susan Stamberg needed a housekeeper.

“Oh, God, do I have to make a budget?”

“I didn’t get into this business to make budgets.”

“I want to make programs, not budgets!”

These producer questions remind me of the child’s question to her mother: “Do I have to brush all my teeth?” The mother gently responds, “No, honey, only the ones you want to keep.”

Producers always imagine that making budgets is some onerous bureaucratic task invented by management to torture creative minds. But, I have a different explanation. The reason for doing a budget is to avoid forgetting costs that will later rise up and bite you, the producer, in the ass. If somebody is paying to finance your program, you know he/she isn’t going to give you more money when you suddenly “remember” a cost you’d forgotten about in the beginning. When this results in your going over budget, you’re going to be forced to eat the cost, which of course is also true if you’re financing a program yourself. A budget, therefore, is a giant and crucial producer “reminder” device. Continue reading →

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”
— Edward R. Murrow, See It Now, CBS Broadcast, March 9, 1954

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsFbcKlc26c

Over the past 5 years Jim has been presenting the Jim Russell “Intensive” workshop to stations and program directors across the country with great success.

He has recently added a new opportunity for producers and station managers to work with him at a more affordable price, in a collaborative environment. His hope is that this new approach will enable producers and station managers who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford the full “Intensive” workshop the ability to benefit from his experience.

Twice a year, Jim plans to conduct his Intensives in his home town, Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Attendees will travel to North Carolina, only 40 minutes by air from Washington, D.C. Up to two participants (Producer and PD or Producer and Host?) will come from each station or production company. They’ll spend the 2½ days in fast-moving workshops learning the process Jim uses and applying it to their programs. They’ll learn from Jim but also from their fellow producers who have probably faced the same challenges  – in formal workshops and free-wheeling evening get-togethers. The attendees will have the opportunity to create common solutions to common problems. At the conclusion of the workshop, they’ll take the program development process home with them, to lead their own staffs in analyzing and creating a solid plan to improve or create a new program.Following the Intensive, Jim will provide additional follow-up consulting with the producers, by conference call. And, of course, each of the participants will have their own consulting team in the future – their fellow participants at the Intensive. Continue reading →