Illinois Public Media
giving voice to local arts, knowledge, new ideas, community needs
2011 ANNUAL REPORT
Dear friends,
Sometimes the most important things in life don’t get the attention they deserve. Often it seems as though the people who are shouting are the only ones who get heard.
stories that need to be told. Look back with us at Illinois Public Media’s
Illinois Public Media makes a difference
accomplishments of the past year
by calling attention to people and is-
and you’ll see many examples of this
sues that get drowned out, discoveries
work.
that get overshadowed, history that is ignored, and arts that have only a limited presence in commercial media. We give voice to problems that people care about in their towns, to University of Illinois research and knowledge, to large and complex issues that sound bites can’t cover. We bring you into the conversation through live online chats, social media, on-air phone calls, and partnerships in the community. You help us tell the
In the past year, Illinois Public Media began to rebuild after being rocked by consecutive years of funding cuts by the Illinois Arts Council, the source of our state funding. We’re carefully adding staff, most recently a TV producer, and reaffirming that locally created content is an essential value for public media. We are grateful to the University of Illinois for making a $350,000 investment in our AM transmitter site to address some long-deferred maintenance issues. The repairs will improve our signal reliability and provide at least another 20 years of life for our transmitter towers. We
have strategically linked our news and community engagement in ways that we weren’t able to before, continuing to build partnerships at the University of Illinois and in the community.
that public media and Illinois Public Media provide, please sign up at 170millionamericans.org for the most current information about public broadcasting’s federal funding threats.
Increasingly, our content is available to you in many ways: broadcast, cable, satellite, online, on demand, and through mobile wireless devices. We’re committed to continuing to innovate, to becoming a multi-platform presence, to be available anywhere anytime for you. And we’re excited about using new technology to help children learn, working with teachers on a PBS LearningMedia pilot project in 24 central Illinois schools.
Your financial support is invaluable to us as we continue to experience lean financial times. It’s the new reality for us. Thank you for believing in us and encouraging us with your financial gifts and your advocacy on our behalf.
We appreciate your enthusiastic support last year when you let Congress know of the importance of public broadcasting in your lives. Your letters and phone calls made a difference. The future of public media continues to be threatened. Public media is a national treasure, much like our state and national parks. The educational broadcast spectrum was set aside in 1953 for use in the public interest. With a loss of federal funding, this American institution will be slowly dismantled, with little chance of being rebuilt. If you believe in the continued importance of all of the things
Mark Leonard General Manager
Illinois Public Media
Clockwise from left: Gibson City student using Illinois Edition digital learning tools; historical WILL radio scene; people at mobile food pantry; WILL agriculture mobile site; worker replacing the guy wires on WILL-AM’s tower.
local arts New ways to highlight central Illinois music and arts Kevin Kelly expanded his Live and Local music and arts interviews, usually heard on WILL-FM, to WILL-TV with a series of video conversations with central Illinois artists after the PBS Arts Fall Festival. He talked to Robert Mangialardi of the Prairie Fire Theatre in Normal; Mark Rubel of Pogo Studio in Champaign; Deanna Doty of Champaign Urbana Ballet and others doing work related to the national PBS programs. For Live and Local on WILL-FM at noon weekdays, Kevin continued to draw an eclectic mix of musicians, both local and those visiting the area, who came to play for the WILL-FM audience. Audio of the performances, and video recordings of many of them, are archived on the Live and Local website for an impressive mix of folk, classical, Irish music and blues, as well as Kevin’s insightful interviews with artists and groups with upcoming concerts and events in the area.
On Prairie Performances, Roger Cooper brought WILL-FM listeners great music from central Illinois orchestras and artists, and many artists and groups from the U of I. Among the groups featured were the Illinois Symphony Orchestra, the Millikin Decatur Symphony, Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera and the U of I Symphony.
WILL-FM broadcasts DoCha young people’s concert DoCha, the Downtown Champaign Chamber Music Festival, featured an interactive chamber music program to introduce children to the instrumentation of the string quartet as well as the process of composing music.
Kevin Kelly of WILL-FM’s Live and Local hosted the performance for children from Champaign County Schools in the theater of the Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, and Live and Local broadcast the performance live. Music educator, composer, guitarist and writer Rami Vamos designed and performed in the program with members of the Pacifica Quartet.
“This is really a unique opportunity offered in our community that’s not being done anywhere else, said Molly Delaney, educational outreach director for Illinois Public Media. “We’re so fortunate that these dedicated actors wanted to create this event.”
Local actors star in fundraising event for Book Mentor Project Words in the Wind, a fundraising event for Illinois Public Media’s Book Mentor Project featuring actors from The Station Theatre, Parkland College Theatre and the University of Illinois Department of Theatre, brought to life children’s books in a concert-style performance. The event, similar to successful benefit performances the past two years, was organized by Tom Mitchell, U of I associate professor of theater, and Parkland Theatre instructor Joi Hoffsommer. More music and more stories were included this year. “I’m drawn to the brief but magical, or brief but revealing, stories found in many children’s books,” Mitchell said. Local musicians provided vocal, piano or guitar accompaniment for several selections.
Left to right: Kevin Kelly (in hat) hosting children’s performance during the DoCha Festival with music educator Rami Vamos; trumpet performance; Rami Vamos; the Wilders on WILL’s Friends Plaza after performing on WILLFM’s “Live and Local”; Cameron Cornell makes a dramatic presentation of a children’s book at Words in the Wind; Kevin Kelly with the Wilders.
learning
PNC grant funds expansion of Book Mentor Project Illinois Public Media expanded its Book Mentor Project into every Champaign County Head Start preschool classroom with the help of a three-year, $90,000 grant from the PNC Foundation. The project trained more volunteers to read and lead math and science activities in Head Start classrooms, enabling an additional 276 children to be served, said Molly Delaney, educational outreach director at Illinois Public Media. As part of the project, PNC employees became volunteers for the Book Mentor Project and assume other volunteer roles in Head Start classrooms.
Left to right: Girl at Super Fab Lab; boy digging in dirt during book mentor activity; students at book mentor grant announcement; book mentor dirt activity; flowers.
Book mentors help kids “get the dirt” on dirt Kids in Illinois Public Media’s Book Mentor project found out in April that it’s okay to dig in the dirt if you’re a dirt detective. Book mentors visited classrooms to help students examine soil with a magnifying glass and to read aloud the book Wonderful Worms to the children. The students also watched a video clip of Sid the Science Kid, who learned with the children that dirt is important because it helps things grow. “We’ve always wanted to serve all the Head Start classrooms, but didn’t have the resources,” Molly said. “This grant enables us not only to serve all the children, but to provide wonderful learning field trips and family nights, and to create learning kits for the classroom.” The Book Mentor Project combines media with books and activities in an effort to get children excited about reading and learning. This program now serves nearly 720 families in Champaign County, has 60 trained teachers and 100 volunteers in classrooms this year, and distributes more than 4,300 books to families in Champaign County Head Start and the Champaign County Early Childhood Program.
Noland said it’s an opportunity to “share what we love with even more gardening friends.” With the new name, the program also unveiled a new studio set. Panelists began blogging on the program website, midamericangardener.org, where there’s also a live online chat and live video stream during each show.
“It’s a natural fit since the information Dianne Noland and the panelists provide applies outside the state’s geographic border,” said WILL-TV program director David Thiel. The program airs on public television stations in Chicago, Peoria, Springfield, Quincy, Macomb and Charleston as well as on WILL-TV and WILL-AM 580.
Illinois Public Media takes Super Fab Labs to libraries Sid the Science Kid from the popular PBS Kids show teamed up with Illinois Public Media and area libraries to show central Illinois kids that science is cool. Sid met budding scientists at public libraries in Champaign, Decatur, Rantoul and Urbana, and shared lots of learning fun, including Super Fab Labs where kids explored the science of inertia with wagons, skateboards, miniature cars and inclined planes.
Mid-American Gardener premieres on WILL-TV WILL-TV’s Illinois Gardener changed its name to Mid-American Gardener July 21 to promote a planned expansion of the number of public TV stations airing the program, including those in other states.
country. The programs are archived at examiningeducation.org.
Examining Education tackles big issues in schools WILL-AM aired an 11-part series about the big questions in education. Examining Education, produced by Champaign-Urbana educator Elizabeth Goldsmith-Conley, looked at issues such as charter schools, teacher tenure, standardized assessment and teacher evaluation, with guests including U of I professors and experts from around the
“I’ve seen firsthand how the Sid the Science Kid TV show really captures that sense of wonder children have about the world around them,” said Molly Delaney, educational outreach director for Illinois Public Media. “Having the Sid walkaround character here in person really helped us tap into that even more.”
our communities WILL-TV followed a PBS Sesame Workshop family program, Growing Hope Against Hunger, with a live program, Growing Hope Against Hunger: An Illinois Response, hosted by Illinois Public Media’s David Inge live in the studio. David was joined by a panel of central Illinois residents who are working to fight hunger, and a studio audience of others involved in the effort through faith-based organizations, non-profits, businesses and government programs.
Raising awareness of hunger issues WILL TV, radio and online featured interactive content in November about how people in central Illinois and around the nation are responding to the problem of hunger. At least 79,000 people in eastern Illinois and 105,000 in central Illinois don’t have enough to eat, according to a study by Feeding America.
Interspersed within the live studio show were video stories looking at the work of the Wesley Evening Food Pantry in Urbana; at the way the SNAP program (formerly known as food stamps) works in central Illinois and the stigma attached to SNAP that deters people from applying; and at efforts to combat rural hunger, including a mobile food pantry run by the Central Illinois Foodbank in Springfield. “This day of hunger programming was one way to highlight ongoing efforts to feed the food insecure in our area. And we will continue to report on it,” said Kimberlie Kranich, director of community engagement for Illinois Public Media.
Panelists included Tracy Smith, state director of Feeding Illinois; Donna Camp, director of the Wesley Evening Food Pantry; Craig Gundersen, professor of agricultural and consumer economics at the University of Illinois; Brittani Evans, outreach coordinator, McLean County SNAP; and Kristy Gilmore, manager of food and agency relations, Central Illinois Foodbank. An hour-long, live, online interactive chat followed the program.
Life on Route 150 Illinois Public Media News reporters used Route 150 as the central thread for weeks of intensive reporting on matters that face us all: the spread of suburban development and the stability of small towns, access to food, services for rural and urban families, government funding problems that affect state parks, farms and cities.
Many of the ideas for these stories come directly from community members who participated in recent community conversations as part of IPM’s engagement efforts. Reporter Sean Powers looked at community kitchens, small-town police departments and the Farmer City Raceway. News director Tom Rogers visited Kickapoo State Park, and found out about the potential transformation of an old rail line into a bicycle trail. Reporter Jeff Bossert looked at the business of raising alpacas and at the challenges facing rural churches. Reporter Jim Meadows looked at food insecurity in central Illinois. Agricultural programming director Dave Dickey looked at the stigma of the SNAP program, or food stamps. The stories aired in June on Morning Edition and The Afternoon Magazine. You can still hear them at willconnect.org.
IPM receives Lumpkin grant for wellness initiative The Lumpkin Foundation has awarded a $20,000 grant to Illinois Public Media to fund an anti-obesity community engagement and media messaging campaign. The one-year grant began in July, and funded a new reporters’ beat in the
Illinois Public Media newsroom to cover active living and healthy eating on-air and online. Reporters will produce 12 feature stories over the course of the grant, with additional online content. The reports began airing in December 2011 and will continue through June 2012. As part of the initiative, Illinois Public Media produced a public awareness video encouraging recipients of SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) to use their benefits at the Urbana farmers’ market. The video will be shown in waiting rooms of the C-U Public Health District and other agencies. Additional videos are planned to promote SNAP use at other farmers’ markets. The grant also helped extend the employment of a part-time coordinator for C-U Fit Families, a diverse coalition of groups that want to increase active living in the community. “Research has shown that raising community awareness can mobilize members of the community to enact changes,” said Kimberlie Kranich, director of community engagement for Illinois Public Media. “We hope our reports and messaging campaigns will make people aware of the implications of obesity in the community, and provide non-judgmental inspiration for people to take steps to live healthier lives.”
Left to right: Mobile food pantry; students on playground at Danville’s Northeast Elementary School; line at mobile food pantry in Ramsey, Ill.; students eating watermelon at Northeast Elementary School.
Our Communities continued
WILL partners with CU-Citizen Access for restaurant and nursing home reporting In September, Illinois Public Media brought WILL radio listeners and website users an in-depth report by CU-Citizen Access about the health inspection process for Champaign County restaurants. It revealed that many restaurants’ repeated failures remain unpublicized to the public. CUCitizenAccess.org posted inspection reports of failing restaurants in Champaign County online. In December, WILL radio aired a CUCitizen Access report on the low ratings by inspectors for nursing homes in our area. Both reports were a result of IPM’s partnership with CU-Citizen Access. org, a community journalism project of the U of I College of Media with student and professional journalists. CU-Citizen Access reporters are working in the WILL newsroom several days a week, making it easier for them to collaborate with IPM’s news reporters. IPM followed up the restaurant report by CU-Citizen Access’ Dan Petrella with a Focus program featuring representatives of area health departments, who answered questions about the inspection process, and the nursing home report with a Focus
about nursing home quality and what can be done to improve it. “The work Illinois Public Media has done with CU-Citizen Access has been invaluable,” said Illinois Public Media reporter Sean Powers. “The reporters and editors at CU-Citizen Access have a keen sense of local economic and social problems in ChampaignUrbana that are symbolic of larger issues across the country. They have the resources to spend months or even a few years on reports.” CU-Citizen Access and Illinois Public Media also collaborated on reports on Rantoul’s Cherry Orchard Apartments, where managers were found guilty of failing to legally connect and repair sewage systems for six of the eight buildings on the property; on nuisance properties in Champaign, Urbana and Danville; on the lack of storm shelters for mobile home park residents; and on the growth of food insecurity in central Illinois.
Restaurant kitchen; resident Ardith Orr at Gifford’s Country Rehab & Care Center, Champaign County’s only five-star rated nursing home (photo by Darrell Hoemann).
our history Remembering 9/11
Celebrating Champaign history
Left to right: City of Champaign’s LaEisha Meaderds with student Sonie Toe, who put together a slide show for Champaign’s 150th anniversary; firefighters beside structural steel of World Trade Center.
The interviewing skills Sonie Toe learned as a participant in Illinois Public Media’s Youth Media Workshop (YMW) helped the 14-yearold coax tidbits out of Champaign-Urbana pioneers as part of an oral history project for the City of Champaign’s 150th Anniversary celebration. A Centennial High school freshman, she produced a multi-media presentation at Illinois Public Media, where work of the Youth Media Workshop had attracted the city’s attention. A YMW participant in 2009-2010, Sonie, along with recent Urbana High School graduate Gabby Parsons, interviewed 10 pioneering people in Champaign about their lives and attraction to the city of Champaign, and created a slide show with sound. The 14-minute presentation premiered at the
Special programming on WILL radio, television and online observed the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and examined how individual lives and the nation have changed since that day.
Champaign 150th Unity celebration June 23 at the Boneyard Creek Second Street Basin. Featured pioneers were Ernie Westfield, Erma Bridgewater, Jerry Schweighart, Robert Toalson, Lott Thomas, Marjorie Sodemann, Alison Krauss, Larry Kanfer, George Chin and Sylvia Ronsvalle. IPM director of community engagement Kimberlie Kranich and outreach producer Henry Radcliffe mentored the students on the project.
In the week leading up to the anniversary, Illinois Public Media News reporters presented stories on how 9/11 continues to affect people in central Illinois, including a follow-up with Muslims we interviewed just after 9/11; a look at how 9/11 is being taught in central Illinois classrooms, especially for children who are too young to remember it; and a visit to the 9/11 Memorial Grove inside River Bend Forest Preserve. The reports are archived online at willconnect.org. On the Sunday anniversary, WILLFM 101.1 and HD2 aired a live broadcast of the University of Illinois Black Chorus memorial concert, which began its 12-minute performance at 7:46 am, the time the first hijacked jetliner crashed into the north tower.
Our History continued
What is the impact of the Freedom Riders today? Future Freedom Riders demonstrated by marching to Nashville City Hall in 1960
In 1961, a courageous band of more than 400 civil rights activists risked their lives by deliberately violating Jim Crow laws. They called themselves the Freedom Riders.
In April, Illinois Public Media presented a screening of the American Experience film Freedom Riders, followed by a discussion. Afterward, IPM recorded video interviews with people who came to the screening who answered the question, “What would prompt you to ‘get on the bus’ today?” Some of the interviews aired on WILL-TV in May after the broadcast of Freedom Riders. Panelists for the discussion, led by Will Patterson of the U of I Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Relations, were Sundiata Cha-Jua, U of I African-American Studies professor; Aaron Ammons, C-U Citizens for Peace and Justice; Chris Adrian, Champaign Jefferson Middle School teacher, and Jason McGaughey, a Heartland Community College student who joined 40 other students and original Freedom Riders in retracing the 1961 Rides from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans.
Uni High students examine how U of I influenced nation on disability Throughout history, when people have faced barriers to achievement, those barriers always have a breaking point, says Kevin Fritz, who graduated last May from the U of I. “It just takes the right people and the right fights and the consistency to break them down,” he said. Fritz was one of the people with disabilities interviewed for a radio documentary by Urbana University Laboratory High School students that aired in November. It looked at the days when disabled students were new on the U of I campus, and how the U of I helped shape the way the nation thought about disability. Breaking Down Disability Barriers: The Journey Toward Equality at the U of I was directed by Dave Dickey of Illinois Public Media and Uni High teacher Janet Morford. This marked the 16th year of the Uni-WILL collaboration to produce radio documentaries.
Illinois
PI NEERS Putting Champaign history in the spotlight
When Champaign County went dry
Featuring historical photographs and guests with knowledge of Champaign history, WILL-TV’s Illinois Pioneers finished up its look at the city’s past, examining how Parkland College was created and built, leadership among African-Americans in the city’s history, Champaign high school athletics over the years and business and industry in the city. The series coincided with the city’s 150th anniversary celebration.
WILL-TV partnered with the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette to promote Ken Burns’ new series on Prohibition and look at what happened during Prohibition in Champaign and Vermilion counties. The newspaper’s Tom Kacich appeared in a WILL-TV special, Temperance Hotbed, following the first part of Prohibition, to tell stories about the days when Champaign County towns went dry. He also wrote a Sunday News-Gazette feature on Prohibition in central Illinois that ran on the first day of the TV series.
Illinois Public Media presented DVDs of the 13-part series to the city during a city celebration in June.
Left to right: Uni high student Surya Lombela works on the radio documentary with producer Katherine Floss in the background; officials pose with confiscated booze.
knowledge and ideas Focus turns 30 To celebrate the 30th anniversary of WILLAM’s Focus in February, host David Inge and producer Harriet Williamson sifted through what they call the “deep archives” to find some of the best interviews from years past. They aired archived interviews twice a month through the rest of 2011, bringing back conversations with Mickey Spillane, Jack Kevorkian, William Warfield, Jean Auel, Randy Shilts and many others. David, who has been host for 29½ of the program’s 30 years, said he thinks the old interviews, which were on audiocassette and had not been available online, provide a perspective on issues like climate change, technology and race relations that society is still wrestling with after all this time. Here are a few comments submitted by listeners in celebration of the anniversary: Left to right: Carol Spindel interviews people in the Ivory Coast for her WILL Radio commentaries; “Focus” host David Inge in the studio.
Thirty years ago I was a new mother. I started to listen to David Inge so that I heard another “adult” voice in my home. I needed something beyond ABCs and 1-2-3s! I was well rewarded and still listen daily to his show. I have been
challenged to think “outside the box,” prompted to call in and ask questions, and even shared cooking advice. Bridget McGill We have lived in the Charleston area for 20 years and listened to your wonderful program for 15 years. We wish we could listen forever. From practical, down-toearth Doyle Moore, Scott Spies and Rick Karch and medical doctors, to current cultural and political discussions, to the best book reviews we have ever heard. We have purchased and read many of those that we may never have heard of otherwise. Maurice and Donna Libbey
One Village Votes: Commentaries focus on Ivory Coast election
Harwood Institute includes C-U in research on attitudes
University of Illinois English instructor Carol Spindel visited the Ivory Coast as a momentous election took place in the west African nation. She produced a series of commentaries for WILL Radio. One of those commentaries, depicting the atmosphere on Election Day, won the Best Writing Award for stations of WILL’s size in the Public Radio News Directors Competition.
Rich Harwood of the Harwood Institute talked to Champaign-Urbana residents in June as part of a focus group for “Main Street,” a project with the Kettering Foundation, in which people in eight cities are being interviewed about their attitudes and beliefs surrounding public life and politics.
Spindel has long-standing connections with Ivory Coast and traveled there to watch the vote in a small village in the country’s north. “It was moving to be
in the schoolroom of this village as the poll workers dumped out the ballots and counted them in front of the local witnesses,” Spindel said. “The school had no electricity, and they had to work by lantern light and with flashlights. I spoke with women who walked 11 kilometers to vote!”
Getting people together to watch and discuss Our monthly Community Cinema series last winter and this fall drew community members for discussions and screenings of documentaries that later aired on the PBS Independent Lens series.
Left to right: Member of the Spirit of Goodwill band featured in the Community Cinema film “For Once in My Life”; reenactment from the Community Cinema film “Two Spirits” about a hate crime victim; Rich Harwood.
“It’s been a great opportunity to showcase documentaries and generate conversations about issues and concerns raised by the programs,” said Henry Radcliffe, who heads up the project for Illinois Public Media. “Public television tells some of the best stories on television and these stories give voice to issues we often forget.” The series continues in 2012.
The Harwood Institute chose Champaign-Urbana as one of the participating communities because of the institute’s work with Illinois Public Media on community engagement and impact. IPM General Manager Mark Leonard said that the new Harwood project will benefit the ChampaignUrbana community and Illinois Public Media by putting a face on the struggles of our community. IPM will get a report on the focus group that can help guide our programming, news content and community engagement. Founded by Rich Harwood 20 years ago in reaction to the cynicism and distrust that permeates much of politics and public life, the Harwood Institute is today an organization leading change, recognized nationally for their unusual approach to breaking down barriers and empowering people to make progress in improving their communities.
Knowledge and Ideas continued
Engineer Guy videos come to WILL-TV In August, WILL-TV began airing videos produced by University of Illinois “Engineer Guy” Bill Hammack to help simplify the complex science behind things we encounter in everyday life. Between 1995 and 2005, Bill produced more than 300 “Engineering and Life” commentaries for WILL Radio. These pieces explained, in everyday language,
how objects like cell phones and vacuum cleaners work. During the past year, he has produced a series of videos with more than one million views on You Tube. The 10 short videos are airing between programs at various times throughout the broadcast day. Bill said his passion is showing that engineering is a creative profession. “I know no better way to do that than by showing the creative things that engineers do,” he said. Learn more about Bill’s work at engineerguy.com. Left to right: The University of Illinois’ Bill Hammack; student at white board using Illinois Edition digital learning activity.
innovation PBS Learning Media In October, Illinois Public Media launched Illinois Edition, a tremendous teaching tool that integrates technology into the classroom to teach core subjects. In June, PBS rolled out a new service called PBS LearningMedia, a robust library of free digital media resources and support materials designed for classroom use and professional development. Illinois Public Media worked with public broadcasters across the state to create a customized version of the service, called Illinois Edition, and then asked a group of more than 50 teachers from across the state to test it.
Illinois Edition contains more than 16,000 research-based instructional resources including videos, interactive images, audio files, mobile apps and lesson plans. This fall, teachers from 24 schools tested the service and gave feedback on the most effective ways of using the online resources. Evangeline S.Pianfetti from the U of I College of Education designed questions for the pilot and analyzed the results. A full report on the pilot project will be available in early 2012. So far, PBS LearningMedia gets high grades from teachers who have seen its potential. Covering K-16 science, math, English language arts, performing arts and the social sciences, it draws from popular and trusted PBS shows, such as NOVA, Frontline, American Experience, Nature and Cyberchase, as well as other trusted source materials from universities, government agencies, museums and libraries.
Illinois Radio Reader begins online streaming Users of Illinois Radio Reader, Illinois Public Media’s free service for blind and visually impaired people, have a new way to listen—on the Internet. IRR began streaming its programming on the Web in November. “The new Web stream won’t replace the radio receivers,” said Deane Geiken, director of IRR, because some listeners aren’t connected to the Web. Listeners apply to IRR to receive a password to log in for the stream, just as radio receiver users apply to get a free receiver.
The Pre-Opening Market Report, Opening Market Report and Closing Market Report are available on the site each weekday minutes after they air on WILL-AM 580 radio. Commodity Week is available on the site late Friday before its Saturday morning radio broadcast. “We know producers can’t always be near a computer or pick up a good radio signal when they’re working. We’re glad we could launch the site this fall,” said Illinois Public Media agricultural director Dave Dickey. “It has the information farmers care most about like our analysis and discussion of the weather.”
IRR programming is provided by volunteers who read the Wall Street Journal, Decatur Herald & Review, BloomingtonNormal Pantagraph, Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette, Christian Science Monitor, and local and area advertisements.
WILL Agriculture takes ag info to mobile devices
Just in time for harvest season when
farmers are often in their combines, WILL agriculture crafted a website for mobile devices, http://m.willag.org, providing access to WILL’s on-air agricultural programming and other agricultural news.
WILL Agriculture mobile site; Illinois Radio Reader volunteer Rohn Koester. (Photo by Stephen Haas, Decatur Herald & Review).
updates AM tower repairs improve signal reliability The WILL-AM tower system underwent mechanical and electrical repairs to preserve structural integrity and improve signal reliability. Work on the two AM towers, located near the corner of First Street and Windsor Road on the U of I South Farms, included painting, replacement of the tower guy wires, patching of the concrete at the guy anchors and installation of new fencing around the tower base and at the guy anchors. Crews also replaced the tower lighting system and transmission lines. Chief engineer Rick Finnie said the work will extend the life of the towers for another 20-30 years and improve reliability of transmission during severe weather. “The towers had the original materials from their construction in 1967 and no replacements had been done for 44 years,” Rick said.
Illinois Public Media’s social media
Gaining control of our history with the American Archive
Do you “like” our page? Our WILL Radio TV Online Facebook page ended 2011 with more than 1,500 “Likes.” Our Facebook updates are a great way to keep up with breaking local, state and national news; see special news features by our award-winning reporters; get sneak previews and program reminders for upcoming programs; and see behindthe-scenes photos at WILL.
How many important historical moments have been captured by WILL since its founding in 1922? We’re not entirely sure. Changes in staff, technology and focus over the decades have resulted in our collection of media archives being spread over many locations with no master index. WILL produced many thousands of broadcasts documenting the 20th century and its people, events and stories.
Follow our tweets. Our willpublicmedia Twitter feed, which has more than 650 followers, helps people learn about breaking news and find out about weather warnings and emergencies.
An $81,000 grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will enable us to create a complete inventory of every media asset in our collections. The American Archive Content Inventory Project awarded Illinois Public Media funding for four full-time catalogers through early 2012. These catalogers are poring through the thousands of analog and digital media items stored in our tape library, hard drives, closets and desk drawers. And it will help us secure funding in the next round of American Archive grants, when we hope to digitize, preserve and make the content accessible to the public.
GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY AWARD
Left to right: Image from WILL’s Facebook page; worker replaces guy wires on WILLAM’s tower; old tapes in WILL library; imagery from “The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today.”
awards Illinois Public Media’s Jack Brighton, director of new media and innovation, received the University of Illinois Chancellor’s Academic Professional Award. Illinois Public Media News reporter Sean Powers won a second place award in the Hard News Feature category of the 2010 Journalism Excellence Contest, downstate radio division, sponsored by the Illinois Associated Press Broadcasters Association, for his report on the political deadlock over legislation to extend immigration rights to samesex bi-national couples.
The Lord Is Not On Trial Here Today, a documentary by University of Illinois associate professor of journalism Jay Rosenstein produced in partnership with WILL-TV, was one of the winners of the 70th Annual Peabody Awards. The documentary also won a 2011 Gracie Award for Outstanding Documentary from the Alliance for Women in Media, two regional Emmy Awards (MidAmerica Region), a CINE Golden Eagle, and a bronze Telly Award in the documentary category. Rosenstein’s production premiered on WILL-TV in 2010 and was broadcast nationally by PBS in May 2011.
1.45% Other
Fiscal 2011 financial report Steady financial support from our members and local businesses, along with relatively level funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and University of Illinois, allowed Illinois Public Media to experience a stable financial year in Fiscal 2011. Illinois Public Media once again closed the year with no operating deficit, and a slight surplus for carryover to the next fiscal year.
27.18% 24.05% Community Service Grants and Other Federal Grants
6.2% 10.05%
Other
Management and General
4.89%
State Grants Program Underwriting
45.54%
25.89%
University Funding
6.6%
Local Programming and Production
Promotion and Development
Membership Contributions
35.82%
OPERATING REVENUES:
Broadcasting
12.32%
OPERATING EXPENSES:
2011
2010
Local Programming and Production .....................4,143,991......................... 4,139,502 Broadcasting .............................................................1,120,617.......................... 1,321,981 Promotion and Development ............................... 2,355,624......................... 2,319,705 Management and General ......................................... 914,152 .......................... 878,506 Other ......................................................................... 564,451............................ 563,126
TOTAL OPERATING EXPENSES
9,098,835
9,222,820
2011
2010
University Funding ................................................ 1,691,618................... 1,930,429 Membership Contributions................................... 2,229,971................... 2,170,068 Program Underwriting.............................................. 411,001..................... 405,439 State Grants.............................................................. 304,489..................... 270,039 Community Service Grants and other Federal Grants ......................................1,497,117................... 1,595,759 Other income.............................................................. 90,431...................... 126,936 Total operating revenues ......................................6,224,627..................6,498,670
Non-operating revenues: Indirect Support ....................................................1,967,260.................... 1,945,183 Other........................................................................ 956,867...................... 593,201
TOTAL REVENUES
9,148,754
9,037,054
with appreciation UNDERWRITERS WILL thanks the underwriters who make our programs and outreach projects possible. These businesses contributed more than $5,000 during the past year. Supervalu State Farm Insurance Foundation Farm Credit Services of Illinois Tate & Lyle C-U MTD Amber Glen Alzheimer Special Care Center Heel to Toe Meijer Flooring Surfaces Krannert Center for the Performing Arts AgriGold Rental City Common Ground Food Co-op Illinois Times Busey Bank Subaru of Champaign Archer Daniels Midland Company
2010-2011 COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE Thanks to our Community Advisory Committee for their help during the past year in gathering information about community issues and needs, helping heighten community awareness of Illinois Public Media and the WILL stations and their services, advocating for broad-based support of WILL, and identifying and encouraging new sources of funding for specific projects. Phyllis K. Dougherty, chair Allan Penwell, vice-chair John & Susan Adams, Atlanta Kevin Breheny, Forsyth Arthur Culver, Champaign Belinda De La Rosa, Urbana Joan Friedman, Urbana
Bert Gray, Decatur David Grothe, Savoy Maxine Kaler, Champaign Joe Lewis, Champaign Geoff Merritt, Urbana Kathy Munday, St. Joseph Gregory Ray, Mattoon
George Richards, Danville Steve Rugg, Urbana Barbara Shenk, Urbana Melia Smith, Champaign Patti Swinford, Decatur Maggie Unsworth, Urbana
2010-2011 GRANTS Illinois Public Media PNC for Young Learners Initiative Book Mentor Project: $90,000 over three years Lumpkin Foundation for Health and Wellness Initiative: $20,000 Illinois Radio Reader Illinois State Library: $29,232
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PARTNERSHIPS Student Advancement Group for Education, Student Education Association, Hometown Heroes, Graduate School of Library and Information Science (Book Mentor Project) Center for Education in Small Urban Communities (Chancellor’s Academy) Family Resiliency Center, Food Sciences and Human Nutrition, Department of Communication, College of Media Department of Advertising, Kinesiology and Community Health, National Soybean Research Lab, Recreation and Park Resources, U of I Extension, College of Medicine (C-U Fit Families) Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Relations (Freedom Riders event) College of Media, Department of Journalism (CU-Citizen Access) State Water Survey, Institute of Natural Resource Sustainability (Environmental Almanac)
Illinois Public Media WILL radio • tv • online College of Media Campbell Hall for Public Telecommunication 300 North Goodwin Avenue Urbana, IL 61801-2316 217-333-7300 will.illinois.edu