Increasing membership a top goal of new president, CEO of MPBN

BANGOR – These days, Jim Dowe is more inclined to switch on the television than to pick up a book.

“I haven’t been much of a television watcher, but I am now. I feel like I should be,” said the new president and CEO of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

Dowe, who came on board last April, said Wednesday that he is “having a blast” in his new position.

“I have so much to learn. I feel like a student with some great teachers,” said the former president and CEO of Bangor Savings Bank, recalling recent excursions to the transmission towers in Mars Hill and Eddington to “see what we have out there for infrastructure.

“It’s just fascinating,” he said during an interview at the MPBN office on the former Dow Air Force Base in Bangor.

Dowe has spent much of his first 90 days on the job conducting a “listening tour” – meeting with each of the approximately 20 members of the MPBN board of trustees and virtually all of the 130 employees at the Bangor, Lewiston and Portland offices to determine the short- and long-term priorities for the nonprofit television and radio broadcasting group.

Dowe said his primary focus right now is to retain existing members and attract new ones. During the last five years, memberships have declined by 10,000 and now total about 54,000.

MPBN staff plan to examine data to determine who joins public broadcasting and why, said Dowe, noting that some viewers likely have fallen by the wayside because of tight budgets and cable television.

“Yes, there’s satellite and cable, but not everyone can afford it,” he said. “If you have a television set and an antenna, you can get MPBN at no charge.”

Federal and state funding accounts for about 36 percent of MPBN’s current $11.6 million annual operating budget, while fundraisers and memberships make up the difference.

Public broadcasting enables everyone to “have the opportunity to be inspired and informed,” said Dowe, acknowledging critics’ arguments that it’s not the government’s place to fund television and radio.

As a way to attract more viewers, MPBN has begun basing fundraisers on core television programming rather than on one-time specials, he said. That type of pledge drive has been used successfully on Maine Public Radio, he said.

MPBN may be one of the few public television stations in the country to have taken this tack.

The change came last January after the network learned that the decline in membership appeared to be fueled largely by viewers who were lured in because of a program aired specifically during a pledge drive, but who didn’t renew their membership the following year.

MPBN also realized that viewers were irritated by pledge drives that interrupt their programs.

“One member said don’t send me a T-shirt or a mug, just don’t interrupt my regular programming with those pledge specials,” Dowe recalled.

MPBN also plans during the next year to analyze the types of programs it carries, armed with the knowledge that viewers have said they want relevant, in-depth coverage of important issues.

“We’re constantly listening to our audience and trying to provide them with programming they want and can’t get anywhere else,” he said.

In addition to hosting gubernatorial debates in October, MPBN plans to air a new program called “Hometown Economies,” which spotlights the communities of Bangor, Brewer, Limestone, Rockland, Lincoln, Waterville and Wilton as residents discuss how they are dealing with tight times.

Dowe said that by next March he hopes to have developed some longer-term priorities for the organization as a whole.

“It’s the right time to look at all aspects of our businesses and make sure we’re doing what our audience wants and needs in the most efficient way.”

Another plan is to tell people more about MPBN. To that end, a public awareness campaign will be launched in a couple of weeks using media other than its own airwaves to explain what the broadcasting network is doing and why.

“We really haven’t done much of it in the past,” said Dowe, who heard from staff, viewers and the public at large that “you’ve got to tell your story beyond what you say to your viewers and listeners.”

The hope is to attract more members. Maybe someone will tune in to “Hometown Economies” and say to himself, “Now I know why MPBN is getting a little bit of taxpayer money,'” Dowe said.