- [Narrator] Funding for "Overheard" with Evan Smith is provided in part by Hillco Partners, a Texas Government affairs consultancy, Claire and Carl Stuart, and by Christine and Philip Dial.

- I'm Evan Smith.

As president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service for 17 years, longer than anyone in history, she's played a leading role in the transformation of media, technology and democracy.

She's Paula Kerger.

This is "Overheard."

A platform and a voice is a powerful thing.

You really turned the conversation around about what leadership should be about.

Are we blowing this?

Are we doing the thing we shouldn't be doing by giving in to the attention junkie?

As an industry, we have an obligation to hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold everybody else.

- [Director] Two.

- This is "Overheard."

(audience applauding) Paula, welcome.

- It is a pleasure to be with you.

- Thank you so much for being here.

And more than that, thank you for all you do for PBS, and for the country, because after all, PBS serves the public.

What you are doing to bring this public good to life is extraordinary, and we owe you a debt.

- Thank you.

I could say the same to you on many levels too, you know.

- No, no, no, no.

I'm interviewing you today.

Wait a minute.

- I dunno.

- You are a public citizen and you are a public servant in this role.

And never at a more important time, which we're gonna talk about.

Now, let's do some disclosure on this.

We have both been at this for a very long time, separately and together.

- Yes we have.

- 17 years as President and CEO.

Before that, 10 years in leadership at the Public Television Station in New York.

I was on the board of PBS for eight years serving alongside you; proud as could be to do that.

I hang around here, right?

They can't get rid of me from the studio- - Can't get rid of you.

- And I was the chair of the Austin PBS station board many, many years ago.

So, we know what the landscape is.

If you cut me, I bleed PBS blue.

- Yeah.

- [Evan] Same for you.

- Same for me.

- But most people in the world don't really understand, I think, what PBS is, they have a misunderstanding of what it is.

So, say the basic elevator pitch.

What is PBS and why is it important as you say?

- Yeah, so, a lot of people think that I sit atop this media organization of 330 stations.

- [Evan] Right.

- But actually, we're different than any other media enterprise in that public broadcasting is comprised of local stations that are all locally owned, locally operated, locally governed.

- This is bottom up, not top down.

- Bottom up, not top down.

I run the organization that brings it all together.

But none of these stations report to me.

I report to them.

- So it's like a federation of independent republics, right?

- Yeah, it's almost like a co-op.

Everyone is a member of PBS.

- Right.

- For your dues, we provide you with programming.

- [Evan] Yep.

- We provide you with all the technical infrastructure that makes broadcast possible, that makes all your digital possible, all your web possible.

We do all of that.

We help stations construct the work that they deliver into a classroom via broadband.

- Right.

- Anything that can be done at scale on behalf of stations, we do.

- But the point is that the stations are all different because the communities are all different.

- [Paula] Yeah.

- And what the communities need is different.

- [Paula] Yeah.

- This is by design, right?

- And it's a beautiful thing actually, when you think about it.

Because when you think about the debates right now about trust in the media.

- Yeah.

- Why do people not trust organizations?

They don't trust organizations if they feel those organizations don't understand them.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And we're different because we live in all the communities we serve- - Well, it's about proximity, right?

If they feel like they see them all the time, they have reason to trust them more.

- Well, and they're run by people that live in the community.

- [Evan] They know that.

- That have a stake.

They also are funded by people in the community.

Would you fund somebody that you didn't trust?

- Well, of course not.

- And so it keeps us anchored.

And I think for everyone that says, "Well, there has to be some other way to do this."

- [Evan] Yeah.

- They point at some of the great public broadcasters like the BBC, which is government funded.

But I think that, now there are moments when I think, "Oh, it could be so much easier if we didn't have to spend time raising money."

But on the other hand, I think it is one of the elements that has kept us so anchored to the communities that we serve in the work that we do.

And in this moment when trust is a very scarce commodity, I think that's profoundly important.

- So I wanna come back to trust, because I think that in the 17 years you've been running PBS, that is one of the things that has really evolved in the wrong direction, the degree to which people do or do not trust the media.

But let's stay for the moment.

- Except for us.

- Except for us.

And in fact, indexes at the very height of the business.

- Yes.

- Let's stay with PBS.

So you said 330 stations across the country, you reach 120 million people over the air.

- Yep.

- Another 26 million online.

- Yep.

- What is consistent is the kind of programming that these stations will put on, even though it's not the same station to station.

It's science, it's history, it's nature- - Arts.

- It's public affairs shows like "The NewsHour."

It's drama like "Downton Abbey."

It's the arts, here we are in Austin PBS, home of "Austin City Limits" for more than 50 years, or 50 years now.

- 50 years.

- It's kids.

I mean, we don't talk nearly enough about the impact that PBS has had on kids.

My electronic babysitter when I was a kid was PBS.

Like a lot of people have grown up with PBS right there alongside them.

So this is really an extraordinary amount of material that you have to work with and that the stations have to work with.

- Yeah, and again, it's different than most media organizations that are very focused on specific genres of programming.

- [Evan] Right.

- Or specific niches.

Our goal is to serve everyone.

- [Evan] Right.

- And that is something that we take to heart, not only in terms of the kinds of programming that we do, but also the stories we bring forward.

- Right.

- Our role is to serve all of America and to help all of America to see what surrounds us.

And I hope when we do our work really well, to maybe take a step towards bringing us together, helping us to understand each other a little better.

- One difference I think between say, PBS and NPR, is that PBS does not produce as far as it goes, its own programming up here.

- Right.

- That programming originates with stations.

- Correct.

- Right.

- And I think the other thing that's different is NPR is principally a news organization.

- [Evan] Correct.

- Now they have things like "Tiny Desktop" and other things that are in the art space.

- And there are some PBS stations that actually do have some local news product- - Both.

- I mean, that happens.

- Yeah, yeah.

And there's some PBS stations that actually are jointly owned with the public radio stations.

- [Evan] Correct.

- This one happens to not be, my old station in New York happened to not be.

- [Evan] Right.

- It was a public television station.

- But down the road here from Austin and Houston, you have a public TV and radio station joint licensee- - All together.

- At a university.

- Right.

- But not an independent licensee; different stations.

- Yeah, all very different.

So, actually, that's the other thing that's very interesting about public broadcasting.

So when we started out, we started out in many communities, the first license actually was Houston.

So, actually, public broadcasting began in Texas.

- In Texas.

- Actually, public broadcasting, PBS began in Texas because it was LBJ and the Public Broadcasting Act that signed, that brought us to life.

So the first stations that came on the air were given out to anyone that could put an organization together.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- Apply for an FCC license.

No money came.

And so the very first stations were universities.

That's why University of Houston was the very first one.

- Yeah.

- And then as time went on and Public Broadcasting Act was signed at the same time, little known series called "Sesame Street" came on the air.

- Yeah, whatever happened to that?

- Yeah, dunno what happened to that.

- I remember a big bird being on that show.

- It was a big bird, and a very blue animal that seemed to crave cookies all the time.

- And some guy in Times Square.

- Yeah.

- Who keeps bothering people.

- Yeah, he's not real.

But anyway, the thing that was interesting is that it's actually women across the country that were learning about the show "Sesame Street" and they wanted it in their own communities, and that brought a lot of stations on the air.

- Yeah.

- So as the stations formed, they became organized in the way that they came to life.

So, some of the early stations were part of universities.

- [Evan] Yep.

- Some of them were even part of journalism departments, right?

- [Evan] Right.

- Some of them were acquired by states.

And the idea there was class from the air.

And so this idea that you had this media organization that could bring advanced placement education, English classes or foreign language classes across a state, particularly big rural states.

So a lot of the states in the middle of the country and in the west, they're all owned by the states themselves.

- Yeah.

- Some of them are stations like this one, that's owned by the community.

- By the community.

- My old station was one of those.

- Yeah.

- There are few that are owned by school systems.

- Yeah.

- So when you think about the ownership structure, each one is a little bit different.

- But again, back to this idea that if you've seen one station, you've seen one station, right?

They're all different.

And that is by design.

- But also pretty similar.

- Well, so, say more about that.

- So, because their mission- - [Evan] Yeah.

- Is identical, which is to use the power of media.

- [Evan] Right.

- Again, this was LBJ's vision.

- [Evan] Right.

- To educate, engage, entertain hopefully.

- Entertain, right.

- And when we really hit our mark, inspire.

- Yeah, but they serve the public.

The point is they serve the public in their own ways to achieve that mission.

- Right, but the core is- - That's what I'm referencing.

- Exactly the same.

- So the 17 years you've been there, it occurs to me there's been a revolution in two ways and an evolution in two ways of the business that we're in.

On the revolution side, there's been a revolution in content creation.

- Absolutely.

- Right?

Technology has been a through line there.

- [Paula] Yep.

- Content is easier to create.

It's democratized content.

It's giving more people the opportunity, from the beginning of your tenure to now, more people the opportunity to create content.

- Absolutely.

- That's a positive thing.

- It's a positive thing.

And when I think of really great stories, really great storytellers that really struggle to figure out how to bring their stories forward, you have the possibility of things like YouTube.

We created something called Digital Studios 12 years ago.

Set it up separate- - God, it's 12 years ago.

- I know.

- Right?

- I know.

- Yeah.

- Set it up separate from our broadcast operation because we wanted to attract people that were working in that space.

Not TV producers that were then putting stuff on YouTube, but people that saw this as a way to create content and put it forward.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And it is a powerful way for, and literally billions of streams later, some of our largest...

There's a guy by the name of Joe Hanson who comes out of UT that has one of the most popular series on Digital Studios called "Be Smart."

He has five million subscribers.

- Does not air on television.

- Does not air on television.

Airs on YouTube under PBS Studios.

- Amazing.

- So that really democratizes content.

There's also a negative to democratizing content too, which is that if you have lots of people creating content without gatekeepers, you also have the risk of misinformation.

- Standards.

- Standards.

- We need standards.

And of course, that's the poison coursing through all of our veins right now is misinformation.

- Right.

And so, I think it has been a net-net, an enormous positive to have the opportunity to bring great talent forward.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- But we need to figure out how to help people understand what they're seeing and what they're viewing, and what they're consuming.

- Right.

- And figuring out how to judge.

- Well, of course the problem there is maybe bigger than PBS and that's we have a media literacy problem in this country.

- [Paula] Yeah.

- We've had it for some time.

It's never been more dangerous than it is right now.

- Yeah, but I think it is a role of PBS and particularly the work we do with very young children, as well as what we do for adults to help people discern.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And brand matters then.

So if you see something that has a PBS brand, not only it goes through the same rigorous standards whether it is broadcast or it is on Digital Studios.

- Digital, right.

And of course, brand matters, and you've teed up exactly the next thing I hoped you would, which is this idea that there's also been a revolution in distribution.

- Absolutely.

- Once upon a time, these were television stations.

- Right.

- Now they're media brands.

- Right.

- Television is only one platform that the content is distributed across.

And here's where I remember, I know a little bit too much, I remember those early board discussions about the idea that content would be distributed on these things called Roku devices.

- Right.

- And oh my God, what happens if you disaggregate the content from the TV?

Will the local stations still get acknowledged?

Will membership drop because now suddenly people don't have to turn on the television to see that?

We're well past a point.

- [Paula] Right.

- Where this idea of distribution across channels is seen as a negative.

It's a positive.

- It's a positive.

- Right?

- It's a positive, and look, we've been here before.

It was called cable television, right?

So it used to be that you'd have a broadcast signal and you'd send it out and it reached a certain geographic area, and you sort of own that.

And there was only three stations anyway.

And it was beautiful, right?

And then, with the advent of cable, it became a little bit more disaggregated, though it still was the channel that you were watching.

Right?

- [Evan] Yeah.

- But there were all these other channels that were popping up that some of them were created by people that used to work in public broadcasting that were viewed as the commercial version of public broadcasting.

- PBS Light basically.

- PBS Light or yeah.

That would be a good way to describe it.

And so, I think that there has been, and people were very concerned at that moment, would we disappear because suddenly there are all these channels.

But we, I think as an industry, did a pretty good job of staying focused on that which is our guide star.

- Yeah.

- This is where I said, "Even though every station is a little different, the principles behind it are all the same."

- Yeah.

Right.

- And so, whether it was cable or whether it was broadcast.

So, now, flash forward and we have all of these different distribution platforms.

And we have something called the app.

And you have a Smart TV that if you fire it up, you may see your PBS app there.

- Well, I think the best part of it is that when I fire up the PBS app, it says- - You're there.

- "Austin PBS."

Well, I don't like that part necessarily.

But it says, "Austin PBS" because it geolocates where I am.

- Absolutely.

- And it allows me to have the loyalty to the station- - Because it still is the station.

- That I always had when I watched.

Yeah, right.

- It is still the station.

- It is the station, that's the point.

- And so it doesn't matter where you're seeing it.

And so, in addition to the app, YouTube TV.

So, YouTube TV, I will call out because it is the first of the big streamers that agreed that they would take our stations, not just PBS content.

- Yeah.

- And they took all of them.

And that was the deal.

You take one, you gotta take 'em all.

- Take 'em all, right.

- And some would say, "Well, maybe if we just want Ken Burns, we don't really need to take 330 stations."

But you know, you do.

Because that is what people really care about, is what is also going on in our own backyard.

- And the generational churn, Paula, as you well know, we, our generation, we consume content one way.

My kids who are 27 and 23, they may never turn on a television station to watch content, but they know that they have access on demand through all these other ways.

They may see something on Instagram or on TikTok or whatever else.

It's all good.

We have to accept that all as audience.

- Right.

- Right, and it accomplishes the mission of PBS.

- Absolutely.

So, Kara Swisher just did an interview with Judy Woodruff, and in that interview they were talking about some of the work that public broadcasting does in news and public affairs and mentioned "Frontline."

And Kara said, "My son said, 'Oh, I watch "Frontline.'"

And she said, "You watch PBS?"

And he said, "No, I watch YouTube."

- Right.

- So I think that what we need to be doing really very deliberately is making sure that we're always drawing that connection.

And so, that kid is probably never gonna turn on a channel, probably will never own a television set.

- Right.

- But we need to make sure that we're creating that relationship.

- It's okay.

Yeah.

- It's really okay.

- Yeah.

- And the fact that she's got a 20-year-old kid watching "Frontline" is really okay.

- It's pretty great.

I have hope for America.

- Yeah.

- That's exactly right.

So, the evolution has been, I think, in at least two areas I wanna talk about.

One is the economics of doing this work.

- Yeah.

- I don't know that the economics were ever as good as we remember them being.

I think we've romanticized it.

- We were never overfunded.

- We were never overfunded no.

- No, no, no.

- But surely if you look at what's happening in the universe of the media, I'm talking about the broad universe of the media; for-profit, non-profit, print, digital, broadcast.

These are dark times.

- These are very difficult times.

- And it's really difficult to imagine a way out that looks anything like the way in.

In other words, the after is going to be different from the before- - [Paula] Yeah.

- On these dark times.

- And I think, look, if you look at the media industry right now, you can break it up into lots of different pieces.

We could spend a lot of time talking about news.

And the impact of particularly local journalism, with newspapers and then also with TV, radio, digital.

- [Evan] Right.

- That whole story.

There is a parallel story right now around kids programming.

- Yeah.

- There were a lot of people we work with a lot of different producers, some of whom produce some content for commercial and some for public broadcasting.

They always say they love the public broadcasting piece more.

We put them through a lot more hoops because the programming has to be not only compelling for kids to watch, but kids have to have certain educational gains out of watching the show, which is tested and so forth.

- [Evan] Yep.

- But that whole marketplace has really dropped out because the streaming companies aren't buying a lot of kids content anymore.

They're really very much focused on a couple brands and they're letting the rest go.

So at the moment, we're one of the only media organizations that's actually commissioning new kids content.

- Continuing to do it, right.

- The same thing is happening with independent film.

There was sort of these halcyon days where everyone was buying a lot of independent film, not so much unless you watch crime.

Or you are interested in a celebrity's backstory.

- Right.

- Or a celebrity's backstory with crime.

(audience laughing) But there are extraordinary documentaries that are not being sold, that are not being made because that marketplace has also- - Well, in this respect, PBS passes the but for test.

But for PBS we would not have all these things.

- But for.

- But for.

- But for.

And you look at all of these other media organizations that are trying to figure out their business models.

So, the streaming services that weren't taking ads are now taking ads, and now some of them are being sued for taking ads.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- Everyone's laying off a ton of people.

It will eventually settle down.

- Yeah.

- There will probably be fewer of them.

We've seen lots of consolidations.

But I think from my perspective, and when you look at us, and I always use this line because I think it describes us in a way that I think is pretty clear.

We're not in the same business.

We just happen to use the same tools.

- Yeah.

- And so for us, our economics are different.

We do rely on viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Yeah.

- We do rely on the support of our corporate sponsors.

We do rely on lots of other ways that we- - Institutional philanthropy.

- Institutional philanthropy.

We do have some revenue that we earn through our relationships with places like Amazon.

But it is complicated.

The fact that our money comes from different places, I think gives us some strength.

But we are looking very hard at what are the economics that will drive us moving forward.

- You and everybody else.

- We and everybody else.

- Yeah.

- And I think you are absolutely right when we get out on the other side, we will look differently.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- I met with the Austin PBS board today, and I was telling them that for many years I've attended meetings of the other public broadcasters, you know, the BBCs and the NHKs and so forth.

And they're largely government funded.

- Right.

- My first meeting with the BBC, someone pulled me aside and said, "Well, we always like to think of you as our poor American cousin."

(audience laughing) And I was always jealous about their budgets, which are manyfold greater than ours.

- [Evan] Right.

- Now we don't look like the poor American cousin anymore.

We look like we've always been pretty smart in the way that we have not relied on just one source of funding- - Revenue diversity is the key.

- Yeah.

- It's the key.

- And I would say, and with the government funding.

Again, all credit should go to LBJ.

He had this idea of this public-private partnership.

I would argue that we're the best because we've taken what is a relatively small amount of government money that actually goes to help our stations.

That's where the money goes.

It doesn't come to PBS.

- It doesn't go to you.

- It goes to our stations to help them, particularly in communities where there aren't as many opportunities to raise additional money.

'Cause the idea was that everyone should have access, right?

And that there should be these local media organizations and communities across the country.

And so for those that have the wherewithal, the amount of government money is really pretty tiny.

And we go out and raise the rest of it.

- Yeah, it's catalytic though in these communities especially.

- It's absolutely catalytic.

- Yeah.

- And so, I think that for us, continuing to look at what these new ideas might be is gonna be important.

- So you mentioned trust, and I wanna say that trust is the second thing that has evolved also in the wrong direction, as economics has evolved in the wrong direction.

When you started at PBS, when I back in the day started "The Texas Tribune," the default setting was people trusted the media.

Today, you go to work, I go to work.

The default setting is people don't trust the media.

- Yeah.

- Some of that is because people intentionally undermine faith and confidence in the work that we do.

That was a strategy that they executed successfully.

We also own some of the reason that people don't trust us.

- [Paula] Yeah, we do.

- We have to be honest about that.

But whatever the cause is, it is a mountain you have to climb every day, Paula.

- Yeah.

- PBS has managed to be the best house on the worst block as it relates to trust.

- Yeah.

- Right?

How is that?

Surely you've thought about how you got to that point.

- I have.

And I would also say that I am very mindful, as I believe every one of our stations is, that trust is something you can lose in a moment- - Overnight.

- If you're sloppy.

- Right.

- If you take shortcuts.

- Takes one mistake.

- Takes one mistake.

And I would like to believe that those mistakes happen not because someone has willfully made a decision, but because they haven't paid attention.

And I think in these days, we don't have the luxury of not paying attention.

- Right.

- So I think we're trusted for the reasons that I mentioned a little while ago because we are local, because the people that run the stations live in the communities.

People know them.

- Yeah.

- They stand in the grocery store line with people that work at the station.

Maybe they've gone into the station to help them with their fundraising drives or to volunteer or to be engaged somehow.

We're part of people's lives at a time that we are most needed, which is when we're little.

And parents trust us with the thing that is the most important part of their life, which is their children.

- Yeah.

- And so I think the trust that we have, we have built up over 50 or 60 years and we continue to pay attention.

And again, because our funding comes from philanthropy, you don't fund organizations you don't trust.

- Well, they're the accountability, along with the audience.

That's accountability.

- I think even if we, even if someone is tempted to take a shortcut.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- Always remembering that people will support us because they believe in the work we do and our integrity.

And that is the most important thing that we have.

- Can I call out one more thing?

I mean, I think everything you've said is true and I think about "The NewsHour."

- [Paula] Yeah.

- You know, one of the reasons that "The NewsHour" is so trusted and so respected is because the volume existentially is turned down.

There's not shouting on that show.

It's not about dividing people.

- Right.

- It's about providing information that ultimately has the effect of bringing people together.

It is in the public affairs space as much of a public square that exists.

It's not the burnt ends of the brisket on either side.

- It is not the burnt- - Like everything else in public affairs these days.

- I agree.

And they are also focused on the most important issues of our time.

- Right.

- It's not that the salacious thing that's gonna get you to watch one more minute.

- Right.

- It is really trying to focus on those things that we need to know to make good decisions for our country, for our community, and our families.

- We become better citizens when we're given the means to be more thoughtful and more productive.

And a show like that, again, I think this is one of the great benefits of a relationship with PBS as a viewer is you know that you're gonna get good inputs.

- Yeah.

- So we've got about 30 seconds left.

What is the next thing on your plate?

What is the next thing that PBS is looking to, thinking this is where we're headed, even if we're not there yet?

- So what I'm thinking about a lot right now is 2026.

2026 is the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

- [Evan] That's right.

- 2025, in the fall, we will have a massive series from Ken Burns on the American Revolution.

And I think that this is a moment when we as a country would be guided by our past.

- Yeah.

- And this will give us an opportunity to have, I think, really important engaged conversations across the country.

- Right.

- And so we are launching the largest engagement campaign alongside of this film.

- [Evan] Love it.

- And I think doing both of it together will be critical.

- When the answer to a question I ask is "Ken Burns," I am a happy man.

That's how that goes.

(Paula laughing) It's a perfect place to end.

Paula Kerger, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- It's great to see you.

Great.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) We'd love to have you join us in the studio.

Visit our website at AustinPBS.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, Q&As with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes.

- I think one of the great challenges of our time, actually, is that people descend into their own echo chamber and you see that happening actually on both sides.

So it's not just the viewers of Fox.

- [Evan] Totally true.

- There are people that really want to have media experiences around what they call news, where they have their own ideas reflected back to them.

- [Announcer] Funding for "Overheard" with Evan Smith is provided in part by HillCo Partners, a Texas government affairs consultancy, Claire and Carl Stuart, and by Christine and Philip Dial.

(soft flute music)