There is great news on the news for those with the post-inauguration blues.
Our own Northern California Public Media (NCPM) is on the march. This historic month, our local provider of NPR radio and PBS television will be breaking ground on a giant new building—the better to host tapings, screenings, lectures, music and parties, and meet us—the public that they serve.
This new home cum media complex is one of a series of moves orchestrated by NCPM CEO and president Darren LaShelle, his board and his community advisors to meet the challenges of generational and technological transition facing “old media”—in a nation that badly needs it.
And while being myself, an NPR and PBS superfan, I have slipped a bit in the transition to digital. But in reviewing their programming for this interview—from Frontline to The Sonoma County Music Hour, to NOVA to Climate California, I was reminded that this is media made to make better citizens of us all.
CH: Darren, what is the assessed combined audience?
DL: Probably about 800,000 listeners and viewers.
CH: Wow.
DL: But to put that number in perspective, that is out of 8 million people in the Bay Area. So that’s something we need to work on.
CH: Tell me about the mission and how it has changed with the digital transition.
DL: To provide education to the public—free to them, lifelong learning—through media and technology. That is a really big umbrella under which many things are happening. Of course, broadcasting is the way we accomplished that mission for many decades, but now we have to be in all these new spaces to accomplish that goal—whether it’s Spotify and YouTube or live streaming, Hulu deals, Amazon Prime deals—trying to be everywhere that we can be.
The work that used to just be—if I can say “just”—making great content and getting it to people. It’s changed, so we need to be on this panoply of changing platforms and digital streaming locations that come and go in popularity on top of everything else. We have to make sure we are where you need us to be.
Meet Darren LaShelle. Follow the link below to hear a 90-minute interview with LaShelle, one of the most influential people in our local and regional media, see press on the new building opening in Rohnert Park this year, download the PBS streamer ‘Passport’ or donate. linktr.ee/NCPMLINKS.
