Entertainment

NPR Chief Says Network Positioned for Growth After Struggles

Published

11 years ago

June 11, 2015

Jarl Mohn, president of National Public Radio, speaks during a interview with The Associated Press, Tuesday, June 9, 2015 in Washington. After years of leadership changes and funding deficits, NPR’s new president and CEO says the public radio network has turned a corner and is positioning itself to grow its already sizable audience and funding. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

BRETT ZONGKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of leadership changes and funding deficits, NPR’s new president and CEO says the public radio network has turned a corner and is positioning itself to grow its already sizable audience, along with its journalistic content and funding from donors.

Jarl Mohn, a longtime radio and television executive who created E! Entertainment Television, helped launch MTV and VH1 and formed his own venture capital firm, has led NPR for nearly a year. While Mohn may seem like an outside choice for public radio, his commercial media roots, investments in new media and his 12 years on the board of Southern California Public Radio may prove critical in charting NPR’s future.

For the first time in six years, NPR is set to break even financially in 2015 with its $190 million budget, Mohn told a group of Associated Press journalists this week. Its audience of 28 million to 30 million listeners remains strong but mostly flat, though the amount of time spent listening has declined. That’s something he wants to fix.

Behind the scenes, the Washington-based network has struggled with annual deficits of $4 million to $6 million, leading to cuts in staffing and other costs. The network also drew on reserve funds to cover shortfalls. Mohn is NPR’s fifth acting or permanent CEO in six years. He has signed on for five years.

With the nonprofit network on firmer financial footing, Mohn said NPR is looking to grow its audience and raise its ambitions in fundraising to draw larger donations from foundations and wealthy individuals and more corporate sponsorships.

“We’ve got the organization on great financial footing now,” Mohn said. “It gives us flexibility to kind of spread our wings a little bit and try some innovative and creative ideas.”

The network also has taken steps to create new potential businesses to engage audiences with live events — including ticketed shows produced with local stations to showcase popular NPR personalities. And NPR held its first “up front” event with advertising agencies to capitalize on the resurgence of podcasting, which now generates 65 million to 80 million downloads monthly.

To Mohn, the popularity of podcasts in recent years — from the breakout “Serial” series produced by Chicago’s WBEZ to NPR’s “Invisibilia” series — proves there’s fresh interest in public radio content. Advertisers have noticed as well. Revenue from podcast sponsorships is up 200 percent since 2013.

For decades, media companies thought the key to reaching younger audiences was shorter, faster, flashy stories — but podcasts have proven the opposite can work, Mohn said. The average podcast listener is 37, while the average radio listener is 54.

“We don’t have to change the essence of who we are to get a younger audience. We just need to tell great stories,” Mohn said. “You can do really thoughtful, long, slow, not-glitzy stories and keep the young audience riveted with great storytelling.”

While it’s helpful to have a “new shiny toy” with podcasts building excitement, Mohn said NPR is primarily focusing on its two flagship newsmagazines, “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” Each draws about 12 million listeners a week, and they air much of NPR’s content. Still, he sees potential for growth.

As a radio DJ early in his career, Mohn created a contest this year among local stations to increase their promotions for “Morning Edition” to 100 announcements a week. About 9 out of 10 stations ended up joining the competition to create the most creative promotions.

Mohn said public radio can learn a thing or two from the personality and buzz that commercial stations generated in the past. He said he’s reminding radio producers of the importance of connecting with their audiences.

“It’s basics,” he said. “It’s blocking and tackling that a lot of people may have forgotten just because year after year after year, things have drifted.”

Even more important, he said, is ensuring that NPR is producing the most compelling stories possible. The network is looking to build on its strengths in international reporting, science news and other areas to differentiate NPR from other media choices, he said.

In the years ahead, some shows such as reruns of “Car Talk” will likely end, and NPR may develop new shows to offer stations.

On the business side, Mohn said many public media fundraisers “aren’t as bold as they can be.” Many wealthy individuals and institutions simply have not been asked for significant gifts to support NPR’s public-service mission.

“We want to change that,” he said. “So I’m wildly optimistic that we can do that.”

____

Follow Brett Zongker at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat.

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From Historic Memories to New Possibilities: Oakland Celebrates Coliseum 60

More than 75 people gathered at Youth UpRising in East Oakland on Friday, September 18, for Coliseum 60, an event marking six decades of sports, entertainment, employment, and community memories at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Complex. Held 60 years to the day after the Coliseum first opened, the celebration featured cultural performances and a mini-documentary highlighting its history. Speakers reflected on the venue’s significant role in the community and its future possibilities. Read more to learn about the individuals and stories honored during this special event.

Published

3 days ago

September 27, 2026

Post News Group

Quixote Atkins of VillageGIVE moderates a panel discussion at the Coliseum 60 celebration at Youth UpRising featuring Keith Brown, a member of IATSE Local 107; author, historian and former Black Panther Party member Tareka Lewis; and African American Sports and Entertainment Group President Ray Bobbitt.

By Carla Thomas

More than 75 people gathered at Youth UpRising in East Oakland on Friday, Sept. 18, for Coliseum 60, a celebration honoring six decades of sports, entertainment, employment and community memories connected to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Complex.

Held 60 years to the day after the Coliseum opened, the event carried the theme, “One Community. One Legacy. One Future. Forward Together.”

The celebration opened with the national anthem performed by sisters Anese Jade, Amina Benjamin and Zaza Benjamin. Diamano Coura West African Dance Company contributed African dance and drumming, bringing movement, rhythm and cultural expression to the program.

A mini documentary highlighted the Coliseum’s sports history and its broader role as an entertainment destination. Archival material recalled performances by Prince and Tina Turner, along with memorable games featuring the Warriors, Oakland A’s and Raiders.

“The Coliseum 60 is about much more than celebrating a building or looking back at 60 years of history,” said event organizer Quixote Atkins of VillageGIVE.

“It’s about the people who made that history possible: the families, workers, athletes, artists, community leaders, fans and generations who gathered there and created memories together.”

A panel exploring that history featured author, historian and former Black Panther Party member Tareka Lewis; stagehand and union representative Keith Brown; and Ray Bobbitt, president of the African American Sports and Entertainment Group AASEG. Lewis described her family as fourth-generation Bay Area pioneers.

“My family and Black families who arrived even earlier helped build the Bay Area, grew businesses and established culture here,” Lewis said. “This should be taught in the public schools.”

Lewis recalled Oakland’s influence on sports, music and literature, from the Raiders’ beginnings at Laney College to stars such as The Pointer Sisters and Rickey Henderson who attended Oakland public schools. She also advocated for school museums, historical timelines, entrepreneurship training and investments benefiting corridors such as Bancroft Avenue and High Street.

Keith Brown, a member of Local 107 of the International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees (IATSE) who began working at the Coliseum in 2011, remembered the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Ice Capades, baseball bat giveaways and Nelson Mandela’s 1990 appearance.

“The special events are amazing, but it’s the workers that make the memories real for everyone,” Brown said. “They make the magic happen at the Coliseum.”

The program recognized longtime workers, including beer-stand manager Robert Preston, who served for 40 years, and Kenyatta Gentry, who worked as a vendor for 24 years and used her earnings to purchase her first apartment. Union workers Jose Gonzales and Carmen Sandoval were also honored. Speakers emphasized that Coliseum employment provided generations of residents with union wages and benefits.

Dr. Denise Saddler, the superintendent of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) was also honored. Saddler shared her family’s history of working at the Coliseum.

District 7 Oakland City Councilmember Ken Houston discussed the complex ownership arrangements involving the city, county and private interests.

“This was the most complex deal of its kind in the country,” Houston said.

Prior to moving from the East Coast, Alameda County Supervisor and Coliseum Joint Powers Authority Chair Nate Miley recalled learning about Oakland through its three professional sports teams. As an elected official and public servant, Miley fought hard to keep the Golden State Warriors, Oakland As, and the Raiders, but he is hopeful for the future.

“The story is not over for the Coliseum,” Miley said. “We’re entering a new chapter.”

Bobbitt said the departure of three teams had once seemed unimaginable, but he maintained that Oakland’s future remains bright.

“Oakland is a cultural superpower worldwide,” Bobbitt said. “We’re going to write the future where we participate and drive the redevelopment.”

Bobbitt highlighted AASEG’s four-year partnership with Castlemont High School’s architecture program, which engages students in reimagining and creating redevelopment concepts for the Coliseum property. “The youth will always move us forward. They are the future.”

In closing, Atkins said, “September 18 is the celebration, but what we build together afterward is the legacy.”

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Oakland Post: Week of September 23 – 29, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of September 23 – 29, 2026

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3 days ago

September 27, 2026

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BOOK REVIEW: ‘Laws of Solomon’ Reveals Tender Heart of Former Child Soldier

The monsters that came to him early in his sleep were the easy ones. It was the later demons that stole Solomon Nangobi’s sleep, the spirits of all the people he killed when he was a child soldier in Uganda, and when he was a fixer in New York as an adult. Their ghosts called to him with urgent voices, though he left that life behind long ago.

Published

1 week ago

September 22, 2026

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Book cover of “Laws of Solomon.” Courtesy of Poisoned Pen Press

By Terri Schlichenmeyer, The Bookworm Sez

Author: Eriq La Salle, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, SRP: $18.99, Page Count: 304 pages

Finally, after so much work, you’ve left your past behind.

That’s what you tell yourself: what’s done is done and you can’t undo history. It’s over. You try not to think about last month, last year, a decade back because what does it matter? As in the new novel, “Laws of Solomon” by Eriq La Salle, remembering is too full of pain.

Now, his days were filled working the soil in gardens near Malibu, and he loved the quiet life.

Still, he kept his guns.

And he was glad: when Solomon recognized two Zeta gunmen stalking a well-dressed man, woman, and child through the gardens, he couldn’t walk away. He stopped the gangsters with bullets, but not before the adults and their bodyguards were dead. The child, an 8-year-old boy named Gaby, was safe, but Gaby couldn’t tell Solomon what was going on.

What became quickly certain, however, was that Solomon was now Gaby’s guardian, and the Zeta crime boss wanted them dead, too.

When he was the same age as Gaby, Solomon saw unspeakable things, the murder of his parents, the destruction of his homeland, and the atrocities that Uganda dictator Idi Amin’s soldiers committed. He learned to kill, he observed, and he was hardened, understanding as a small boy that revenge was often necessary and needed, and that blood would shed at those times.

But Gaby was pure, an innocent, a child.

Solomon reached out to his contacts to try to get the boy to safety, but being a contact of a marked man was likewise a dangerous thing: the monsters outside were worse than the ones inside him.

Two words for you: ‘Whoo weee.’ That’s what you’re going to say when you close the back cover of “Laws of Solomon,” knowing that you’ve just been taken on a wild up-and-down, around-and-round ride.

La Salle makes it impossible not to like Solomon, an African man who has, over time, lost nearly everything dear to him and who has no faith in much of anything. Readers get that part of the story eventually, and there’s historical authenticity in some of it, but we never really get to know Solomon, which makes the book feel dark and dangerous. Along the way, we meet and get to know his helpers, which buoys Solomon’s chase to find safety for the boy, and your heart won’t stop pounding.

Keep in mind that this is a thriller partially set in 1970s Uganda, so expect lots of violence but don’t expect a lot of people to live. If you’re up for that, find “Laws of Solomon.” You won’t be able to leave it behind.