Todd Mundt

Mark Ramsey says when you’re launching a new program, you have two options to minimize the risk: low-cost experiments or a big budget launch with a proven star. (Looks like BPP got caught in the deadly middle)
Ramsey delivered Saturday’s keynote at the PRPD Conference last Saturday - the audio is now available. Ramsey is the [...]

At the Public Radio Program Director’s conference this morning, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has announced a big initiative to find the best independent producers, support them, and encourage them to reinvent public radio’s sound. CPB Senior Vice President for Radio Bruce Theriault made the announcement during his address to the conference.
CPB and the Association [...]

Live, or nearly live from the Public Radio Program Director’s Conference, a first look at the winners of the 2008 ACE Awards (the Award for Creative Excellence in public radio), presented this morning by Kai Ryssdal of APM’s Marketplace:
Promotions
Michigan Radio, Ann Arbor
runner-ups: Oregon Public Broadcasting and WUNC, Chapel Hill
Classical Programming
Classical Minnesota Public Radio (for the [...]

Bill Kling of Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media gave an inspiring (and rather tepidly received, in my opinion) closing address at the PRPD conference. He spoke about public media’s growing role in maintaining a democratic society, and the growing civic illiteracy that makes public media more essential than ever. He also emphasized the role we [...]

I moderated a really fascinating session today - “Building Audience Beyond Broadcast” - which, despite the title, looked at the new broadcast technology, HD Radio, as well as the strategic assessments that stations are making as they consider an array of non-broadcast channels to reach their audiences.
Robin Gehl of Cincinnati Public Radio, talked about the [...]

This year’s PRPD conference is taking a couple whacks at the not-so-great performance of local talk on public radio. This afternoon at the pre-conference News/Talk group, Leslie Peters of ARA talked about some CPB-funded research looking at the performance of local talk shows.
The news isn’t new; and it’s not very good. Broadly, listening to local [...]

The Public Radio Program Directors (PRPD) conference begins Wednesday, September 26, in Minneapolis. This will be the 20th annual conference, if you count 2001, which never really got started because of 9/11.
I think these conferences get better every year, and while I should use this opportunity to disclose that I’m on the board of the [...]