YouSaid · the spoken record

Paula Kerger

lines on the record: 81
first: 2019-04-15
most recent: 2019-04-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“But the other thing I'll say about broadcast is, you know, so part of the work we do is broadcast as a media organization. The other thing that we do is that we use our spectrum for first alerts. I mean, people don't know that, but we're the backup redundancy for the first alert system for the country. And the reason the broadcast is important is because digital overloads. And so if you've ever been anywhere like New York after 9-11 or after the power outage, you know that you couldn't call anyone because everything just melted down because of the demand. And so being able to have a one-to-many infrastructure, I think still matters.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Signals. Well, everybody has phones, but not everybody has access to broadband. Right. And that's the, you know, and let's, and I'm a big advocate for broadband for a lot of reasons because I just think access is such an important in the digital divide. We're at third world content. Which we just continue to talk about doesn't get bridged in the way that it needs to. And I mean, it has such huge implications both from a moral standpoint as well as an economic standpoint. And so I think that, you know, there was that article in the Times, I think it was last year that had that great photograph of the two kids that were standing outside their school trying to do their homework, tapping into the broadband from the school on their phones. So one of the things that we've done in the kit space is that we also are building games that parents can download, but kids don't have to be online to play.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If our core business is to reach people and change lives, obviously we have the biggest possibility of impact with those who have less choices. So the broadcast piece has to be a focus. But at the same time, really thinking about technology as it evolves and figuring out how to push the envelope.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I wasn't convinced that we were making a big bet on something that maybe would become of less importance as we move forward. But the reality is that the broadcast audience is big and is an important piece of how we're distributing. So here is a project we did just a few years ago, which is broadcast, which is as legacy a business as we can be in, is streamed. And then through the streaming, we've been working on embedding games into the live streams so that kids can watch a live stream, pause, play the game. Because then it becomes even more interactive. And it just increases the educational value of the work. And so I think that, you know, it's a really great example of this just schizophrenic world that you have to live in where you really have to pay attention, particularly for the core business.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Proportionately broadcast only homes, and we will have done an important thing and so forth. So I was all on board with that. But I was”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We launched PBS Kids as a channel. When our content came and initially talked to me about it, they said, you know, look, we want to launch a broadcast channel. It's like, oh, come on, you've got to be kidding. A broadcast channel? And they said, no, no, no, there's all these kids that are in homes that don't have cable. And that don't have access to broadband. And we think that it's a big enough market. pushed on it because our stations actually have the capacity to take another broadcast channel. A lot of them were multi-channeling, but they've already filled up capacity-wise. And I was convinced to do it. And I will admit, part of what convinced me is that we were also going to stream the channel. And I thought, okay, I'll agree. We'll do the broadcast channel. I know that'll reach kids that need us, particularly kids that are in low-income homes or kids or kids that may be in homes where English is not spoken. A lot of those are.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It actually on a faster trajectory with Netflix and Amazon. There's a wash of content there. But where the priorities are, they're not in the same business as we are. We just happen to use the same tools. And so for us, it's a really interesting balance of understanding our North Star, of the kind of content that we produce, not being stuck in the mud and that we're only doing the stuff that we did 30 years ago because that's who we are. But also really paying attention to the fact that, you know, even with this wash of material out there, there's a lot of stories that aren't told. There are a lot of storytellers that don't have profile. And we're in every home. Right. We are seen in every home across the country. And so for kids in particular, it's huge. So I'll tell you a story. A couple years ago.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And stuff like that. So, you know, I, you know, look, this is not a time for the faint of heart. And I think it would also be, you know, you could easily be distracted by the fact that there's a lot of people playing in a lot of space. But look at Netflix, for example. You know, Netflix a couple years ago, was at all the festivals and it bought everything. And then two years ago, your Sunday example bought nothing. And then this year is now back and buying and so forth. So I think it's cyclical. It's not that different than what happened on cable. So you have all these cable channels that cropped up that in their first incarnation were supposed to be PBS, but the commercial version, A&E, nobody remembers that was arts and entertainment. Abby Raven's a great person, but I don't think she thinks she's trying to do great art on A&E. She's doing interest in engaging programs, but it's different. And, you know, you could go down the line and look at a whole series of cable channels. And we're watching.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's where we went. So there are a lot of people like the Greens that are doing great work. You know, they did crash course and so forth. They're doing, you know, and they think of the medium differently than a television producer would making it for that platform. So that's what we're teaching our stations how to do. And I think one of the big sea changes is getting past this idea that being a producer on YouTube is not a first step to doing something on television. It is an important platform in its own right. And every once in a while, we'll do something on YouTube that might become a television series, but that should never be the intent. We did a series, a kids television series called Word Girl, and it started out as little shorts on YouTube and then became a series. But most of the stuff we're doing, it's okay to be smart. You know, a lot of science, it's a perfect platform for all of that. And so to get stations excited about the fact that for”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They watched a lot of PBS. Yeah, when they were little, but not so much now, probably. And they might watch Nova Nature. Yeah, they watched some of it, well-brought-up kids. They watched it all.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. And in fact, when we started it, the idea was not to take television producers and throw them onto the YouTube space, which I know some media companies did. We recognize that, you know, because look, the throughline through all our stuff's education. I mean, that's why we were creative. The E in a lot of station call letters, that's what it stands for. And so we thought a lot about, you know, particularly kids, you know, how old are your kids?”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Free broadcast. You can watch everything for free streamed for some period of time if you want to see a larger library. If you are a member, then you have access to.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're on Amazon. We have channels there for some of our content, which is, you know, for years we used to sell DVDs and now in the streaming business, part of the way, part of our economic model is that we have distributed, we were distributing on Netflix. We've been distributing on Amazon. We have a little bit on Netflix, but they're not as interested in, you know, they won originals or they want to own outright. And I can't, you know, I want to have stuff that's available free, right? So that's what public means. And so for Amazon, for example, we have a drama channel. We have the masterpiece channel. We have a kids channel and we have a lifestyle channel we just launched. And we do that. It's helping us clear the rights for streaming that we can offer up first stations. We built a service first stations that is a library of content. So if you're a member of your local station, you can watch everything for...”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But even we've got great shows that come from small stations. Look, I talk about Cookville. Cookville is in Appalachia. They are the only television station in the community, and they have an amazing cultural archive. They do a lot of work in bluegrass. And, I mean, the stuff is fantastic. It's not just of interest to Tennessee. And to be able to elevate that up so that it has access to a much larger audience around community of interest, not just physical community, I think is pretty powerful.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Our location, right? Right Just snatch that. Because I think it can work just to have the PBS. You just want a national feed, but I mean, I talked about some of your shows are from those stations, right?”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have to localize. Usually you pick the station that is in the market you live. But look, I spend a lot of time in Maine and I'm interested in what's going on in the state of Maine, I localize to Maine public broadcast. Right. So what we've tried to build is to create an experience in the digital realm that looks like what you would experience if you were watching your station. It would be easier for us to just think about nationalize everything as we make all of our deals just to create a national. We've been talking to some of the proverbial skinny bundles and they're not so excited about all these local stations and we're really trying to help them see actually there's a lot of interest in local content and if we can figure out how to make it not as painful for you and do a lot of the back end work. Is it for just to have the PBS? You just want a national feed, but they're missing out on a lot of great stuff. I mean, I talked about...”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“These donations. It's like one of those things you do. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, so a whole series of things. One is we've tried to help them build their own infrastructure so they can be in the digital space. So to begin with, we have pbs.org, which in its earlier days was really one of the most visited.org, not only in the United States and the world, because we were there early. It was mostly text. And then we evolved into video. And more stations utilized that. We build the player that enables video to be carried, and most stations use that. But then, you know, so all that seems pretty straightforward. PBS app, being on places like Roku and Apple TV and so forth and building those platforms. At first, people were like, well, that means they're not coming through our local station. So we built the platform so that if you have Roku and you wanted, or Apple TV, you wanted to watch your PBS app.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, and then they get in the practice of thinking of you like that, like not like a subscription service, but by these donations. It's like one of those things you do. Yeah, exactly. So your president over these and you're trying to bring them all together, you're saying into the digital age. Talk a little bit more about that. How do you, what were some of the, give me some of the things that were critical, I think, for you to try to do that?”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And most of it, small contributions, which has made us, I think, more secure during these funding issues. Because if you, it's like a political campaign. If you have a lot of people that are giving small before Beta, we were beta before beta, baby. If you have a lot of people that give small contributions.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cities like Cookville, Tennessee, or Juneau, Alaska are not going to make it in funding immediate organization, a television station unless there is some federal support. And so for those two stations that I happen to mention, it's closer to 50% of their funding is government. So that's existential. So if you ask me where the money come from, it depends. It depends. And some of our stations are part of state governments in the south, for example, public television stations came together because the states thought this is a way of getting classroom education across the state. We'll use television. And so their state licensees, some of our stations are part of universities. So some of the infrastructure, a lot of public radio, by the way, are part of universities. So some of the infrastructure is funded by the university. But for the most part, you can pretty much say more than half of the money for every station comes more or less from the public.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In agri, if you take all our stations about 15% of their funding comes from the federal government. And the lion's share of the federal appropriation actually goes directly to them. That was the whole idea when Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act and had this idea, this public-private partnership. And what he was really thinking about was the fact that a city like Washington, a city like New York, a city like LA, some government funding would help, but”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Depends on how they're organized. So, some of them, like my old station in New York or the station here in Washington, WETA, have their own boards. The lion's share of their money comes from viewers like you, thank you. And then they get some corporate money. And then they get some government money because you're dying to ask me the government. I don't get government. We'll get there. Well, how can we avoid the backstory first and then you can ask me the deep questions.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really are willing to take some leaps together, you know, we can do some interesting work because they're also in kind of the same bind that TV stations or local newspapers have been in, which is the declining amount of, first of all, television watching or how people get things. And then also the declining ability to fund those things. And so that's where our funky business model sort of helped. I mean, a lot of media organizations are now trying to fund themselves in the way that we have, which is, you know, appealing to people to give you money for something you actually could get for free.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is the way to understand this job as you spend time on the road. And so, and in many of the communities I visit, we're the last remaining local broadcaster. You know, there are television stations there, but they're being controlled by someone far away. And a lot of times even their weather is done by four states away. And you see the consequence in print journalism when you don't have reporters in a community covering a story. And you see that play out in public. So coming into this role really working with our stations to help them see that, you know, if we”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But being able to get everybody on the same page, we've got to really try to do things in different ways. And look, guys, we're going to do this together. We're going to figure this out together. So we're not a network. We're not navigating all of these new platforms just to put Ken Burns up. We want to get your local content there too, but we're going to have to do some things that are going to put people way out of their comfort zone. Right. And so because I came from a station, even though it was New York, which doesn't really count, that's an island off of the coast of the United States. But still, I'd come from within, right? Yeah. And, you know, I went on the road and I'm still on a road trip. I've been to every state except Hawaii. How many people is that? There's 335 stations. I'm going at the end of June, as a matter of fact. I've been to Scranton three times, not to Hawaii once. I like so sorry. I'm going there this weekend. Three times I've been. You have a nice station there.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Federated organization, right? Surving in a San Francisco co-op. I don't know. I might give you a run for it. So, you know, it's just, you have a lot of responsibility, but not a lot of absolute authority. So you end up doing a lot of work by sense of common purpose. And so in the period that I've been at PBS, when I first came, we understood what our business was. We had broadcast towers. We reached a certain geographic area. We were on cable and satellite. And we did all this great work for little kids and for adults and felt great about it. And in these last 13 years, everything, well, everybody in media has gone through the same thing, but for a public media system, again, this federated system federation. There are stations. I'm sure there's still a couple general managers out there that think that we're going to go back to those good old days when it was just a handful of stations and you had to stand up to change the channel on your television set.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To WNET, which is the public television station in New York. And I thought it would be an interesting gig for a few years. I went there to actually help them put together an endowment and to raise some money. And I then became the station manager. Crazy. And COO. And I was in that job when I got tapped to do this. And so what did you think? I mean, where was PBS at this point often rides high during different things that would go on? What period of time was this for PBS? So when I came to PBS 13 years ago, I remember my first speech, iTunes was announcing the sale of desperate housewives episodes for $1.99. It just sounded like such a crazy thing. PBS itself had gone through some rocky years. You know, our stations are all independent. And so they're locally owned, locally operated, locally governed. I run, in essence, a co-op. So I have, you know, if you want to lessen humility from it.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it all began in a small town outside of Baltimore. Actually, when I was in college, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. I'm really interested in science. And then I flunked organic chemistry. Yes, that's a key one. Yep, that's the great separator I've come to find. And then I took a lot of humanities classes because I was just interested and thought I would never be gainfully employed and would never be able to leave home. And so I got a business degree with no real fix on what I was going to do with it. Graduated from school started looking for a job in the want ads, which is where you looked at the time. I remember that. Found a job working here in Washington for UNICEF. And so I started in the nonprofit sector and at one point in my career I worked at the Met Opera, not in a singing capacity, believe me. But on the business side, and I got a call one day asking me if I'd consider going.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talk about. I like to get people's history. And then I do want to talk about where we are with these budget cuts, which has been a feature of life for you for many years, I'm guessing. So let's talk about how you got to run PBS.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Cookville, Tennessee, or Juneau, Alaska are not going to make it unless there is some federal support. She'll tell a story about one of the first public TV stations she visited as CEO, Nebraska Educational Television, at a reception held for her there. She was approached by a farmer who told her, you cannot screw this up. He says, no, no. He said, I want you to hear my story. He said, I am raising my children on the farm I grew up on. And I worry a lot, and my children are going to have disadvantages because we're in a remote part in Nebraska. But you're in our lives. And you make the difference to my kids. And if you mess this up, you were putting my kids at risk. And I just want you to remember that Paula, welcome to Rico Dico. Thank you, Carol. There's so much to talk about. You've been there 13 years. That's astonishing. I'm the longest standing president PBS history. I think I'm actually one of the longest-serving media executives right now. Right. Yeah, yeah. They're going like flies. They're dropping like flies. Kepler's gone. They're all out. I don't know whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm still here. So why don't we talk about how you got here? I like.”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as the new host of the Antiques Roadshow spin-off where we appraise the value of old internet memes, but in my spare time I talk tech and you're listening to Reco Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today in the red chair is Paula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS. She's been in that role for more than 13 years, but recently PBS has been in the news a lot more than usual. We're recording this in mid-March, shortly after President Trump proposed a federal budget that would close down the corporation for public broadcasting. Paula defines the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a quasi-governmental organization that gets federal funding to the $335 PBS stations across the country, but that money is not distributed equally. That was the whole idea when Linda Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act and had this idea, this public-private partnership. You know, a city like Washington, a city like New York, some government funding would help, but cities like”
2019-04-15 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: PBS CEO Paula Kerger · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT