WBUR convened a dream lineup for its inaugural festival. Facing funding threats, can the event help it reinvent its business?
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Tectonic shifts in the media business have forced all news organizations to rapidly adapt to the digital age, including at public media organizations such as WBUR. Led by Margaret Low, an NPR veteran who helped pioneer The Atlantic's successful events business, WBUR's inaugural festival was not just a 75th anniversary celebration, but a test case for a business facing immense financial challenges.
The festival turned a profit and brought in roughly $3.7 million in revenue from ticket sales, sponsors, and an anonymous $1 million donor, WBUR said. But now, with the federal government mounting the most significant threat to public media's federal funding in its history, the test is whether tentpole events such as the festival can help sustain the organization for years to come.
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'I would love this to be the first of many,' Low said. 'I do see it as both a revenue source, but also an ability to sort of expand our circle and do more in the city.'
Over the course of two days, with special events such as a live taping of NPR quiz show 'Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!' held before, WBUR convened a dream lineup of conversations for its faithful audience. Friday alone featured headliner after headliner: Garten, Barbaro, tech journalist Kara Swisher, The Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, bestselling author Roxane Gay, and environmentalist Bill McKibben.
'We care about what's going on in the world, and this is a great opportunity to bring things like [Jeffrey] Goldberg on the Trump administration, but also art and science and innovation,' said attendee Connie Breece, 73, a midwife from Boston.
The station held a 75th anniversary bash during the midpoint of the festival, transforming BU's fitness center Friday night into a fête replete with hors d'oeuvres, a live auction, and sit-down dinner featuring awards, a Josh Ritter musical performance, and interview with Nobel Laureate and Substack writer Paul Krugman.
The architect of the
festival is Low, who after nearly 26 years at NPR joined The Atlantic in 2014 as president of its events business, where she helped rebrand the magazine's Washington Ideas Forum into The Atlantic Festival. By the time she left The Atlantic for WBUR in 2020 her team was producing more than 100 conferences a year.
'I knew that that public radio in particular, had a natural entrée into this world. We're constantly grappling with big issues and ideas,' Low said. 'We have people who understand what it means to lead a conversation.'
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Those conversations were on full display this past weekend. WBUR journalists such as 'Morning Edition' host Tiziana Dearing interviewed Mayor Wu and her City Hall challenger Josh Kraft, and 'On Point' host Meghna Chakrabarti interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci and
Krugman.
Events are a not a sure-fire moneymaker. The costs of bringing speakers in, renting and decorating venues, buying food and drink, and more is high, and profit margins can often be thin.
'Taking risks these days is not something you see very often in the media business,' said Evan Smith, co-founder of the Texas Tribune and an advisor to the WBUR Festival.
But those risks are necessary for many media organizations. Just this week, WBUR's public media counterpart in Boston, GBH,
This year, Low said, her organization's financial picture is stronger. She said this week that the station expects to have $2 million more than its budget at the end of June, when its current fiscal year ends, and she is not planning on making any cuts.
Now, in addition to the larger financial challenges, public media organizations such as WBUR and GBH are facing the most significant threat of losing federal funding in its existence.
President Trump signed an
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The threats make alternative ways of making money crucial. But at a time when Trump and some Congressional Republicans argue that public media no longer needs taxpayer support, events such as the WBUR Festival 'might even weaken the rationale for continued public support,' said Victor Pickard, a University of Pennsylvania media policy professor.
It also might provide more fuel for Trump to call out NPR for its perceived liberal bias. WBUR Festival speakers including Goldberg and Fauci have both been the subject of attacks from the president, and many of the speakers leaned liberal.
'If I'm seeing this from the White House, I can't help but notice how the lineup of the speakers leans one way politically,' said Howard Husock, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former board member at the CPB.
Low said that WBUR had 'a wonderful mix' of speakers and that while there were people who declined invitations to participate, the organization was 'really happy with the lineup.'
While students received free or discounted tickets, and some events were covered on WBUR's website or streamed at WCVB, festival such as this one can't be open to all. Two-day tickets to the festival cost $250, single days went for $150, and VIPs, who received front orchestra seats to the separately-ticketed 'Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!' event and other perks, shelled out $500.
'They're certainly going to be beyond the means of many poor and working class households,' Pickard said.
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While Pickard would rather public media be truly public, and receive federal funding akin to similar organizations in other liberal democracies, he understands why WBUR and other public media organizations would turn to revenue-generating events.
Smith, who helped create the annual festival at the nonprofit Texas Tribune, said he didn't believe that putting on an event with important conversations and making money had to be mutually exclusive.
'The content at WBUR is free,' Smith said. 'You need to fund the ability to make it free.'
Aidan Ryan can be reached at
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