It is a privilege working together with Paula, Pat and Vivian. As many of you know, we have been meeting as a foursome with the Administration and key members of the House and Senate to obtain additional federal funds. It is quite a scene. Three remarkably poised, elegant and articulate women and the short, aging white guy recovering from a heart attack. Importantly, however, we are working together, speaking with one voice, united in our collective purpose to assist your stations in weathering this economic storm and emerging more vibrant and focused than ever.
Today is my 100th day as President and CEO of APTS. I assure you that I did not wake up this morning expecting to see wall to wall coverage by our nation’s media of my first 100 days. I was not disappointed. But this GM Planning Meeting preceding PBS Showcase is a wonderful opportunity to summarize the initiatives we have commenced and the progress we have made.
On my very first day on the job, I received an interview request from the San Francisco Chronicle to comment on KQED’s announcement of a ten percent work force reduction. Since that moment, the financial peril confronting public television stations around the country has vaulted to first, second and third place in APTS’ priorities.
We have surveyed our membership, seeking hard data that could serve as the foundation of our request for increased federal funding. With approximately sixty percent of our member stations responding, 59 percent have reduced workforce by layoff, on average by 11 percent. 26 percent have reduced salaries and/or benefits. 63 percent have cut programming and/or services to their local communities. Every source of non-federal support is declining and projected to drop further in FY 2010. You know the story all too well. State and university funding is projected to decline by 30 percent over the FY 2007 baseline. Ditto for membership revenues. Corporate underwriting, foundation grants and endorsements all are projected to fall in the 20 to 30 percent range.
In response to this economic crisis, one in which public broadcasting is very much an innocent victim, we have launched a three prong initiative to increase our stations’ access to federal funds. As you know, working collaboratively with CPB, PBS and NPR, we are requesting an additional $307 million in federal funds for emergency reinvestment in public broadcasting for FY 2010 in addition to the $420 million for FY 2010 previously appropriated. We also are requesting that the FY 2012 advance appropriation be increased to $542 million. Finally, we have initiated a program to enhance APTS’ member stations ability to secure individual grants available from the Departments of Commerce, Agriculture, Education, Health, and Human Services and Labor under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, better known as the “Economic Stimulus legislation.” Through memoranda to APTS members, a series of webinars and our planned hiring of a grants expert writer, we are committed to assisting APTS member stations in securing grants funding.
To borrow words from President Obama, these efforts are audacious. When I called one of my close friends on Capitol Hill to obtain an initial reaction, I received a succinct response, “What, in this budget environment. Are you sure that you haven’t suffered neurological damage?” But, just like President Obama, we must make this effort precisely because the times demand it, and we have no choice. This is our time
We are making progress although it is not easily visible in the Administration’s detailed budget proposal submitted to the Congress last Thursday, It reminds me of a recent experience on the golf course.
I was beginning my pre-shot routine, visualizing my upcoming shot, when a voice came over the clubhouse loudspeaker.
“Would the gentleman on the woman’s tee back up to the men’s tee please!”
I was still deep in my routine, seemingly impervious to the interruption. Again the announcement, “Would the MAN on the WOMAN’S tee kindly back up to the men’s tee.”
I simply ignored the guy and kept concentrating, when once more, the man yelled: “Would the man on the woman’s tee back up to the men’s tee, PLEASE!
I finally stopped, turned, looked through the clubhouse window directly at the person with the mic and shouted back, “Would the person in the clubhouse kindly shut up and let me play my second shot?”
What are the lessons from this first shot? For the first time in eight years, we are largely playing offense, not defense. The Administration’s budget did embody two years advance funding and contained a $10 million proposed increase for CPB. On the other hand, it contained no emergency funding for FY 2010 and proposed to zero out PTFP funding, as had the previous Administration. In our interactions with the Administration we are told repeatedly that it is supportive of public broadcasting. Thus, the melodies are enchanting; the lyrics need work.
The most important lesson, however is that the submission of the President’s Budget marks the formal beginning of the appropriations process, not the end of it. The Obama Administration is extraordinarily smart, both substantively and politically. It knows that public broadcasting has strong, talented champions on the Hill, The key for all of us in this room is not to be discouraged by the first shot but to focus with renewed vigor and intensity on the final score.
We have laid a solid foundation, looking toward the end game. For the first time ever, the heads of public broadcasting’s national organizations met directly with the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. We intend to engage in a continuing dialogue with the Administration throughout the appropriations process to persuade it that public broadcasting needs and merits increased federal support.
We have obtained the enthusiastic support for our emergency funding request from the leadership of the House and Senate Commerce Committees - - Full Committee Chairmen Waxman and Rockefeller and Subcommittee Chairmen Boucher and Kerry - - in a remarkable joint letter to the OMB Director.
We are rallying the membership of the Public Broadcasting Caucus to our cause. We are cultivating new champions, like Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen, successor to Rahm Emmanuel as Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who also wrote a strong letter to the OMB Director in support of our emergency funding request.
Just last week, we had positive and productive meetings with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senators Inouye and Cochran, and we will be meeting with other key appropriators in the House and the Senate as well as Congressional leadership in the weeks ahead.
The national organizations’ advocacy alone, however, is not enough. In order to have a realistic hope of achieving our legislative goals, we need the active involvement of every general manager in a sustained grasstops and grassroots campaign that involves your boards, your key donors and elites within your communities. Tip O’Neill, former Speaker of the House, famously observed that all politics is local. There is no greater proponent of localism than public broadcasting. I implore each and every one of you to treat our effort to secure increased federal funding as a development campaign. If we succeed, every station will be a winner.
Our strongest argument for increased federal funding of public broadcasting is the remarkable video programming and on-line content that your stations distribute, and on-the-ground outreach to the communities you serve. Our public broadcasting system already plays in integral role in preschool education and is moving ahead ambitiously in the K-12 space. Your stations are working on ways in which public broadcasting can fill the growing vacuum in journalism resulting from the weakening of business models for print and commercial broadcast media.
Permit me to devote the remainder of these remarks to an area of programming where a great deal already is taking place within the system but where the potential for more is enormous, namely healthcare education.
As important as education and climate change is to the Administration, healthcare reform is the big enchilada in the domestic policy agenda. As I speak, an unprecedented coalition of healthcare companies and organizations are declaring at the White House that the time for healthcare reform has come.
Policy-makers know that we can’t reform our health care system by focusing only on how to pay to treat existing illnesses. We can save tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars annually by preventing debilitating conditions from developing in the first place.
As educators and trusted sources of information to communities and families, public television is uniquely situated to play an indispensable role in health care education, promoting healthy lifestyles and disease prevention. Many of our stations already are working with their local officials, hospitals and community institutions to address health issues in innovative ways through broadcast, the Internet, and on the ground outreach. At APTS, we are telling your stories and generating significant interest in some critically important quarters of Congress about the real, central role that public television can play in the comprehensive national health care reform debate.
When I look at projects like Kentucky Educational Television’s Be Well Kentucky, New Hampshire Public Television’s Live Fit NH, Wisconsin Public Television’s Creating Health, WUSF’s Heartbeat and KVIE’s Focus on Health, I appreciate just how much can be done. That potential is reflected in multi-platform digital initiatives that Twin Cities Public Television and KCET are endeavoring to launch focusing on healthcare for seniors and their health care providers.
Inspired by these stations’ initiatives, APTS is actively trying to assemble the requisite resources to develop a strategy and to move a public television health care agenda forward. We are forming a new APTS Healthcare Coalition that will be replacing the successful Homeland Security Coalition to enable us to devote more resources to health care education and disease prevention. We understand that many stations are under tremendous financial strains, but we also know that this is a unique time-sensitive and time-urgent opportunity.
Healthcare education is a great and vital area in which public broadcasting can play an essential role in improving the quality of life in our great nation. PBS and NPR recently demonstrated that public broadcasting is able to respond to public health crises such as the swine flu epidemic with outstanding information, enabling me to respond effectively to congressional inquiries.
A Washington Post article last Friday made clear that many organizations and causes near and dear to Congressional Democrats did not receive the funding in the Administration’s budget that they had hoped for. Amidst the clamor of so many people looking for additional federal dollars, public television will have to prove once again that we matter. We can and must distinguish ourselves in the healthcare and education fields and through our commitment to mobilize grassroots and grasstops support in the communities you serve.
Thank you.
