Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to the Victory Show.
Hey victors. Welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is the first time you joining us, I'm Travis cody, bestselling author, 16 books and creator of bestseller By Design. I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of business consultants, founders and entrepreneurs write and publish their own best selling books.
Through that journey, I've discovered a fascinating pattern. Most businesses really struggle to break past seven figures per year in revenue. So on this show, we sit down with some of the world's most successful founders, CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies they use to run teams and scale past that mark so you can do the same. So get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways that you can implement in your life and business. Starting now.
Today's guest is a force in modern media and a trailblazer in public broadcasting. Amanda Mountain is, is the first female CEO in the history of Rocky Mountain Public Media. And under her leadership, the organization has undergone a bold transformation. Over the past six years. Amanda has led the creation of the Buell Public Media center, restructured the organization to be digital first launched a multi platform content strategy and implemented a user centered operating model that's now a blueprint for innovation in the industry.
All while building a workplace culture grounded in equity, creativity and impact. For the last 25 years in the media world, from Viacom and Freedom Communications to her own work as a journalist, Amanda has earned honors including an Emmy, a Dupont Columbia Award and a spot among the most influential women in radio two years in a row. She's also shaping the future of journalism as a Solsberger Fellow at Columbia and currently serves as board chair of the Public television Major market group. Amanda's story is one of vision, transformation and purpose driven leadership in a rapidly changing media landscape.
Amanda, welcome.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Thank you. You make me sound so much fancier than I feel.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: So you're saying that there's, there's some changes going on in the media landscape these days?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, just a few. Just a few. It's keeping me on my toes, that's for sure.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: No kidding. Where do we start with it? I like it. It seems like every week we turn around, there's something new going on.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, well, in public media in particular, for sure.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Yeah. What? Like, I'm always fascinated because not only in your media, but you're in, you're in public media, which is very specific. And I know you guys all, guys all are under umbrella of a lot of things that you've got to kind of be aware of. But did you, do you sort of start out knowing you were going to go into media or did the media sort of choose you?
[00:02:45] Speaker B: It kind of chose me. I have to say though, I was one of those latchkey kids that watched as much television as I possibly could. I was constantly reading books and listening to the radio. And so when I had a found a path as a first gen college student in media management, I loved it. I fell in love and that led to my first job in the newspaper business. And there was no looking back.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Wow. Now, now I know we got to explain to some of our listeners, somebody read this chapter what a newspaper is.
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Oh no, so sad.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: I know, isn't it?
So first generation college grad, how was like, did you know at a young age you're going to do college and was there pressure for you coming on that, like, what was the, what was the response from your family of, of achieving that? Because that's a pretty big deal.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, it felt like a big deal in part because it took me 10 years to pay off all the loans, so.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah, that will do it for sure.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Big deal.
Yeah, it. I wasn't sure if I could navigate the process, to be honest with you. So after I graduated Colle, there was about a year where I just felt completely tetherless and lost a bit. And there wasn't anybody in my family who knew what that process could look like to build the bridge from high school into higher ed. And I wasn't necessarily one of those. I was one of the kids that always had the potential but wasn't consistently actualizing it. And so I wasn't on the radar of my, you know, high school counselor by any stretch. I wasn't valedictorian, so I. There wasn't necessarily anybody looking to find me and help me build that bridge. I had to come to it.
And so it took about a year, but then I found my way through a community college system where I was able to inexpensively get my associate's degree and then go on to a four year degree. And yeah, it felt like a really big deal because changed my thinking in a way that made me love learning and that made me pursue it as a lifelong driving purpose. No matter what I was doing, what my job title was or my job description, I. I knew I always wanted to learn and grow.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: I love it. Well, you know, and I think too, to your point, right? No, but you weren't on anybody's radar. But you. We said before we started our, the conversation here, you grew up a military brat, so you're moving a lot, so, you know, you also have kind of that. Right. And every couple of years, you're in some. Some new place. It's kind of hard to set those foundations as, um. Yeah. What. What a cool accomplishment. So when you got into college, like, obviously, media management, completely off the radar, what was it about that particular.
Like, how did you even find out about that particular direction to go for, for your studies?
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Well, I.
I think I found a class in film production, and there was an extraordinary professor, Janet Alexander, who went to NYU film school, had made several films and ended up in.
For a variety of different reasons. But she saw my work as a filmmaker at the time and told me, I think you've got something special. I think you have a story that you can tell.
And it just, I don't know, set my heart on fire. I was like, all right. I didn't link that particular experience to being a.
A suit, an ad administrator, basically a.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: CEO at the time, especially coming from a military family.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: That's right. That's right.
So I. I really did, though, fall in love with the mechanics of storytelling. And.
And then, you know, years later, I would find my way into journalism, which married that storytelling with my kind of analytical mind to want to know more and learn more. And, yeah, it was a great combination of skill sets, and I learned a lot through those experiences and higher ed.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: So where did you start when you got into journalism? So you went to work for a newspaper.
What was your. What was that first couple of years like for you?
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I started on the business side, and I'm actually really glad that I did because I work with other CEO, media CEOs, who. I mean, usually we come from the content side, the journalism side, or we come from the business side, and there are pros and cons to both. I personally am glad that I was able to come up with through the business side because it helped me understand the mechanics of what it takes to build a financially sustainable journalism organization, which, of course, has been the ongoing challenge of the newspaper business and now the broader media industry.
But those. Those formative experiences of understanding, like, how do you build an audience? How does the money work?
Not being afraid of making money, whether it's through fundraising or selling advertising, all of those early experiences ended up just being invaluable to get to the CEO role and to be successful in it.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Love it. Don't be afraid of making the money. Was there a culture that was kind of like, oh, asking for the fundraising was like, a scary thing, or like charging for what you were doing was like, ah, did we really charge for this?
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I mean, it was scary for me. I thought I wanted to be as far away as possible from that. Direct accountability for meeting sales goals or meeting revenue goals, there's just nothing like that kind of pressure.
The pressure of meeting a deadline for an article is not insignificant, but from my experience, it's nothing like having to meet that revenue goal. And when you don't, those repercussions are so much more significant than, you know, any one story, any one deadline. And so learning to live with that pressure, learning to like it, learning to step into that accountability was really critical and I think critical for any successful CEO.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I think you're right for sure. So, so let's talk a little bit, but briefly about how do you go from, you know, starting in, in, in journalism to becoming, you know, CEO of the public media and in the Rocky Mountain area.
So like, you know, let's talk a little bit about your newspaper. But when did you, when did the Public Broadcasting System become part of your, like, when did you join that and you know, what was sort of your path through there?
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so my path started, as we mentioned, in the newspaper business and I was able to ultimately, during my time there, really be on the editorial side and see what that is like and experience roles on the business side in marketing. And so I got a really well rounded skill set and orientation that helped me understand more about what I was good at, what I wanted to do that led to a journey through corporate media and Viacom and other places. Ultimately, it led me back into the newspaper business.
And when I got the call about going into a potential job in public media, I did not think it was for me. I made a bunch of assumptions about what public media is, and I was kind of addicted to that adrenaline in corporate media in a way that I wasn't sure I was going to get in public media.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Little did you know.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah, right, exactly that. Well, isn't that the truth? Being a CEO is like, you know, having a child. Like you really don't know what it's like until you're in the role. And I had a lot of naive assumptions.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Lots of, lots of learning as you're going, right?
[00:10:46] Speaker B: Oh my God, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That's an understatement.
So.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah. So was there any work specifically you did in Viacom, in the, in the newspaper industry that led to you getting on the radar for the, the public media CEO spot?
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Well, I think there were a lot of different breadcrumbs that helped me find my way towards what I was really meant to do. And one of them was this project called Dream City 2020. That colleague that a colleague in the newsroom and I, Warren Epstein and I worked on together. It was at the time the largest civic engagement process led by a media entity in the country.
And we ultimately pulled together thousands of people. We trained over a thousand community facilitators and together I think it was like 30,000 people ended up engaging in these conversations about what they wanted their communities to look like, that generated written reports that then were presented to nonprofit organizations and political representatives. And it translated into the political will to, to take ownership of these goals and connect citizens with the outcomes that they ultimately want out of their community and to see how the mechanics of how media can not tell people what they want and drive towards a predetermined outcome, but how media can and should be a facilitator to set the table to bring forward people's hopes and dreams and wins and losses in their communities and make sure people with power see it and feel accountable to it in a way that ultimately generates better outcomes for everybody.
That was a critical formative experience.
The next breadcrumb would come when I was at Viacom plus, which was this startup in the corporate world, very, very large company, but it was one of, it was a pet project of the CEO at the time, Mel Karmazin, and he had a vision of these cross platform sales divisions that are now commonplace. But at the time it was one of the first examples of this idea come to life. And to be in a startup phase in a massive multibillion dollar company.
I just learned a lot about politics, about internal corporate politics, but I also learned a lot about people and how to align incentives with motivators to achieve common outcomes. And so that project, ultimately it was to incent, create a structure to incentivize really big thinking across every single one of Viacom's brands in ways that sometimes would require individual salespeople to sacrifice exclusively independent outcomes in favor of collective outcomes. And so it was a lot of learning about persuasion and I learned a lot there. So ultimately all those, those two formative experiences, I think coming together in public media, where there's a mandate to deliver community impact, not just shareholder value, it. It clicked for me in a way that just seemed really obvious and inevitable that this is where I was supposed to be.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: What a remarkable time to come into this too, where, you know, they're the most communities are feeling like they're becoming invisible, right to the corporate Machine and like they feel like they're losing their voices. Right. So to step into that and, and sort of be a path for, for people to still have those voices, it, it, you know, I think we could argue at a time that they're more important than ever.
[00:14:48] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: So what. Let's talk, let's go through the first year then of like stepping into like, all right, we're gonna, you know, there's the pressure now that you're taking over the thing and you know, people, the first female CEO also, big deal, right? That seems to be a theme of your life. Kind of stepping into the big deal stuff. Doing the first, the things first. That's good. I like, I like the theme. What, what were the first couple of years like for you navigating this, this new responsibility?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah, the first couple of years were a time of exciting reinvention for the organization. I stepped in in the midst of a potential capital building project and fundraising project. And immediately it was my job to assess whether or not we would move forward or we would scrap the project altogether. And so at the time there was a vision of a city block development that included a middle school and a community garden and affordable housing alongside public media. And this full block development, ultimately I was able to, with amazing partners, reconceive of a vision of really a state capital for local journalism in Colorado. And that ultimately became the scope of what we were working towards together.
And the organization had only run one capital campaign in its history many, many years ago. So this was the first time in maybe 20 years that we were really going to donors and inviting them to invest catalytic amounts in our future.
And so we needed to raise $35 million very quickly, which was for this organization atypical.
So the first two years were really all about that. Just like rescoping this project, building a collective vision together, not only for physical.
Center that we were all going to be working out of, but what really describing a strategy and a vision for the organization in our future that would view this facility as a jumping off point for strengthening a collective journalism ecosystem.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Wow.
So how, like, let's talk. How big is the team that you're running at, at the Public Media right now?
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Yeah, they are. It's about 130 people, 30 million dollar organization.
We haven't doubled in size in terms of staff, but we have doubled in revenue over the last five years. So five years ago, before this facility I was speaking about, we were a $15 million organization.
So we have rapidly grown revenue and significantly grown staff, but we haven't doubled the staff. So it's been a lot of learning about how to scale.
[00:17:54] Speaker A: So let's talk about, because you mentioned that in, in your bio about the, the importance of culture. How important is that, especially in a.
Right. Like this is the, what's really fascinating is the fact that you are, you know, you, you do have revenue, you got to generate revenue, so you've got the business side of it, but there is also the public side of it. So like, just talk about like, where was the culture at when you came on board and, and what were some of the things you've done as, as you've gone along to like maintain a culture as, as you've, you know, done that growth? Because a lot of companies that'll, when they, when they get into scaling culture goes out the window and then it turns into a mess.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Yeah, well, there are some days that are messy, but culture has actually been what's gotten us through, what's helped us together find our way forward. Even in the haze of the mess happen when you're in the midst of transformation.
And so I had a vision to create a culture that was almost like what, what many startups promise to be, they, they promise to be this, like out these agile learning environments where people can grow and experiment and take risks and be supported in that.
And so I wanted that, but I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't leave people behind.
I wasn't inherit, I wasn't starting something from scratch and building a team from scratch. I was inheriting an institution that at the time was over 60 years old. Many of the staff had been there for 20 years.
And so it was really important and we're building the culture to build a bridge that anybody who wanted to could walk across.
Not everybody did. Some people didn't necessarily want to be in an environment where things were changing as much as they are in our culture.
Not everybody wanted to push themselves to that discomfort level around growing and adapting.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Pesky change, stuff getting in the way.
[00:20:02] Speaker B: Well, and I, you know, I know there are a lot of complex feelings about change and I have them too. So I don't have as much judgment about it as I might have before I was a CEO, but I did see it as my responsibility to at least make sure that we were creating a culture where everyone had the option to walk forward. They weren't just told, you're not going to change, so you're out.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you know, so there's a documentary on the, on the Disney plus kind of talking about what George Lucas did with Industrial Light and Magic. And they were. The. One of the whole episodes was about when they hit that critical point in the early 90s where up to that point everything had been practical models and model builders and you know, they had a team of 50, 60 people that were model builders and sculptors and whatever. And they were like, that's going away. And it's all computers. And there was that. And they said, they're like, this is where we're going. And they gave everybody the opportunity. And some people were like, yeah, I will absolutely become a sculptor on the computer. And some of the guys were like, I'm a hands on guy, I can't do the computer. And they, you know, then they had to go, you know, go down a different path. So that's just the nature of, I guess, progression, especially in business. For sure.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Well, and things are just changing so quickly in the world. Not just in our industry, which is clear as well, but in the world everything is changing. And I would say Covid was a moment when all of that rapid change obviously came into very, very specific focus in a way that was undeniable. And for our business, we had to make rapid and significant changes. We were doing episodic television before COVID and all of it was irrelevant. We could not, it was, it felt like a luxury we couldn't afford that our community needed daily digital journalism.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: And so Covid was as difficult and as excruciating of a time it was for so many people. It was this moment of clarity around the fact that our business needed to irrevocably change and we were never going to be going back to that, you know, broadcast business.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Was that. So you were like what, 18 months as CEO when covet hit?
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Something like that, yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Oh man. So talk about like still trying to get your feet in and then everything you've been doing just gets tossed out the window.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And when I stepped into the job, I had a six month old at home too. And so I was learning how to be a mom and a CEO at the same time. So it was a period of great expansion in many different ways for me.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: I'd love to talk a little bit about. You mentioned this earlier and I think it's important for, for the consist web is that, you know, there is, there's, there's what public media actually does, but then there's also the public perception of what public media is.
Right. So can we, can we talk a little bit about what's the perception that most people have of what you guys actually do versus what, you know, what actual reality of what's going on.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think when people think of pbs, they many, many, many people think of it so fondly as a part of their own initial spark of learning and falling in love with learning and feeling like they can build that confidence as lifelong learners. And so, so many people watching Sesame street and learning our ABCs and one, two, threes are taught their kids or grandkids through PBS Kids.
People think about NOVA and watching episodes in their classrooms and learning about science and this bigger, broader world and universe. And so I do think there's a lot of nostalgia and just love for what we mean as a brand.
I think sometimes there's a lot of misconceptions about just how much we're really doing. In local communities across the country, there are public media organizations, thousands of us, ultimately serving every single American in the country in a way that commercial media cannot and would not do because there's not a commercial incentive to do that.
And so that's where I think there's so much more to tell about our stories. You know, the tribal radio station in the four corners of Colorado that is working with tribal youth to provide equipment and training so people can tell their own stories unfiltered by that. That corporate lens or what we did when we stepped in to this, this Covid gap for kids. 20% of our state that didn't have reliable broadband access, and we were able to immediately teach teachers across the state how to shoot lesson plans in their living rooms. And then we were able to broadcast that across the state. And As a result, 250,000 kids who have fallen through the cracks with remote learning, they were able to stay. To stay, stay up to speed and not lose years of their life and learning, which was so critical.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: You know, so, like, you're the first. This is the first time I've heard of anyone, any one particular state, doing that. But I'm hearing you say that going, that seems like such a common sense solution to the problem. I don't like, you know, it was so innovative. But I'm going, why wasn't other people doing that? That seems I was. And. And what. I mean, the resources and the infrastructure was in place to do that, which is. Is, I mean, a brilliant idea. I mean, that's. That's fantastic.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Well, the good news is that there are public media stations doing things like this every day and have been for decades in a way people can count on. And that's why, you know, the current threats to federal funding I think are drawing so much community engagement.
You know, in the last month alone, millions of Americans have reached out to members of Congress and said, please do not touch my public media organization. We are the only.
This is the only place I can go for local news and information.
You know, those calls are powerful. And every day we are getting letters and texts and emails that are articulating in the voices of our community that we are truly an essential service, that we have been there and people need us to keep being there in those same ways.
[00:26:44] Speaker A: Well, and I, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of people also have the assumption that, you know, your guys's budget is 100 from federal funds. Right. And that's not the case at all. Right. It's just a small part because you guys have fundraising, you have your own business activities. So I think it's important for people, again, people reading this or listening to this as like, you know, like they're not funding you fully. It's like a supplement to what you're doing. And I think that's, you know, an important distinction to make for people because I do feel like a lot of people don't understand that.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And I would say too, that a lot of people who live in rural parts of their states are very aware of the power of public, public private partnerships, because that is how rural communities get their services. Because again, there isn't a commercial incentive to have corporations go in and solve community problems, and there aren't the resources available to self fund community solutions. And so these public private partnerships are a way of life in much of the country. And that is what public media is. We take a dollar of taxpayer money and we turn it into at least $5 of impact.
And we do that in a lot of different ways every day.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
So, you know, we're halfway through the2020s, looking forward to 2030. Like, what are the challenges that the public media is facing? And then for you specifically at Rocky Mountain, like, what's your vision? Where do you hope to be by the time we hit the2030s?
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Well, it is so unpredictable day to day now that it is, I have to admit, difficult to imagine what five years are going to look like. But what I will say is that we already know enough about our audiences to know that we are no longer in the media business. We are in the relationship business.
And it is just as important for us, not just today, but for our future viability, that we are connecting people with each other just as much or more so than we're connecting them with us and our content and our brand.
And that is where I think there's increasing opportunity to expand impact for people every day.
There's record levels of loneliness. Commercial media and social media are making us. Us feel oftentimes like we have to fit into a box that can be isolating and lonely.
And public media can bring people together, remind folks that we're a part of something bigger than ourselves alone. And we're united by these common American values that I think are inspiring to people. They want to know that these values we've been taught about who our country is, the American dream, that we can always learn more and do better, and we can have access to generational progress, all of those things. I think people have counted on public media as a partner in. And we can convene and protect that public square in a way that continues to hold up those values for everybody outside of a political lens that commercial media can so often, you know.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: No, no, that's a. That's a good title for a book, if you ever write. Write one. Protecting the Public Square.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: I mean, because that is what it is about. And, you know, it is fascinating. Right. With all this technology we have. And I mean, look, we're, you know, we're having this conversation. I'm in Las Vegas, you're in Colorado. It's like we're in the same room. I mean, what an amazing time that we live.
And at the same time, everybody feels disconnected and visible and alone.
So it's just so weird that we have this technology that can connect everybody. And the end result has been people are feeling isolated and not heard and lonely. Right. And. And I, I think that's to the. The point of what public media is doing is trying to protect those voices and let everybody know that their voices can be heard. So especially when there's a lot of noise around. So.
[00:30:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: All right, so if somebody want. If they're listening to this and they want to get involved in. In especially the Rocky Mountain public media, how do they, like, how do they, you know, connect with you or connect with the organization?
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Yeah. RMPBS.org is a way that you can catch up with our daily journalism and storytelling and find out more about what we do. And especially right now, Protect My Public Media.org is a way to stay up to speed with how the threats to federal funding are unfolding and how you can participate by reaching out to your Congress Rep. Your representatives, especially in the Senate, as we go towards a vote here soon around reconciliation and rescission. And so there's a lot of ways you can get involved.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: I love it. Amanda, this has been fantastic. Really looking forward to this next five years of where you head. And I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to be here.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.
