Category Archives: Articles & Musings

Plain Talk on a Lousy Economy

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 →

Hosts walk high wires, producers hold nets

Susan Stamberg needed a housekeeper.

When I was a first-time producer of NPR’s All Things Considered in the 1970s, Susan was hosting. She—and therefore I—had a weird problem. She needed to pretape the show’s third half-hour (6-6:30) so she could get home to prepare dinner for her young son and husband. And the show needed for Susan to stay and host it live.

I proposed a solution to Susan: “You need a housekeeper.” Susan thought that was interesting, but had no idea where to find one. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’ll find one for you.”

I tell this story because it illustrates a radio producer’s job in the delicate and crucially important relationship with the host or star of the show. I’ve often joked that while all of us have job descriptions that end with “all other duties as assigned,” a producer’s job description is made up entirely and solely of that single phrase! Continue reading →

A Word on Budgeting

“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 →

A Favorite Quote

Edward R. Murrow
Listen“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

A New Approach

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 →

Risk Aversion

I’ve been fretting lately about risk aversion. At the station level, especially, there seems to be fear of shaky audience growth, stagnation or even decline. This is not the kind of environment that feeds risk-taking. Yet, ironically, it is the very environment that needs risk-taking to break out of stagnation or decline. I spent a day recently with Doug Hall, the inventor and entrepreneur, at his Cincinnati Eureka! Ranch. He pointed out that public radio seems very reluctant to break out of its mold and seek new audiences, and that in the new product world, that kind of thinking is very, very dangerous.

Not all risk-taking turns out well. Isn’t that the point? In order to take risks, you have to be prepared for failure. In fact, my test of whether you’ve truly taken a risk is: point to your last failure. Be proud of it. It means you’re stretching the envelope. On the other hand, don’t deny it, and don’t try to put a favorable spin on bad results. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try something else.

The Value of Failure

“We’re not talking entitlements here – just about investing, failure, success”

Are we failing regularly enough? If we don’t make room for failures, there is no risk-taking. Making room for failures means allowing for failure as an essential part of the warmup period of any new series. It means that we expect and even relish these failures, because they mean we’re testing and finding the right mix through trial and error. Heat was sometimes downright awful, but it had a quirky spirit and it would have found itself. But not overnight! The same with Good Evening, a gentle and literate program that tried desperately to survive, all the while being tormented by constant comparison to public radio’s most successful variety show ever, A Prairie Home Companion.

The head of a major investment firm here in Los Angeles says that we Americans suffer from an instant gratification mentality – we expect to see a good “return on our investment,” immediately, in the same year we make the initial investment. But, in the real world, nobody “scores” every night. Unless we have the guts to welcome failure into our program offices and budgets, we might as well produce sure-fire hits like A Current Affair and Entertainment Tonight and stop jiving about quality and risk-taking, Continue reading →

Free Agent

You guys made my 2007 a very happy and productive one. The year marked an important personal turning point, from my previous 38 years in the business as an employee to a free agent. Some might think I was crazy to launch my own business at my tender age.

I have loved every minute of the past year, because of you and your talented and ambitious staffs. I love working with young people (and some of you oldsters as well). I love teaching in a Socratic style where self- discovery is the mode of learning. And, I love helping organize the creative process so it bears and sustains fruit. I’ve learned, the hard way, that anyone can have an idea. But few know what to do with that idea to make it work and make it last. Continue reading →

Production: A Real Risky Business

There is a real risk in producing programs, local and national – the risk of losing one’s shirt! When stations embark upon production, the stakes are high. They need to get it right. The cost of failure is steep.

The Catch 22 we’re in is that stations are creating more and more local programming, spending more and more budget on it, in the belief that it is such programming that will distinguish them locally. At the same time, that relatively expensive local programming is either marginally successful or failing with audiences who clearly prefer the imported national programs. How to reconcile these two? Continue reading →