ideastream:
the New "Public Media"

Creating ideastream
Wareham and Jensen are absolutely sure that they can’t recall the first time they discussed merging WCPN and WVIZ. That’s probably because they tried dating for a while before contemplating marriage—that is, the broadcast operations, not Wareham and Jensen.

In 1997, the stations joined forces to do a series of stories on “urban sprawl,” and despite a rough start it pointed the way towards greater cooperation. “It was a really miserable experience,” says Wareham, laughing. “The computer systems didn’t talk to one another. The radio people thought the TV people were shallow. The TV people thought the radio people were weird. But a funny thing happened. We started getting these phone calls from viewers and listeners: ‘Didn’t I see or hear something about how to get involved in my community?’ And, in spite of ourselves, we had made an impact and that got the attention of our boards.” They continued to look for joint projects and, with Wareham and Jensen in the lead, by the fall of 1999 the planning committees of the two boards were in meetings discussing merger.

While Cleveland’s economy was and continues to be distressed, the financial motivations for merger related to increased efficiencies realized in staffing, marketing, fundraising and grant seeking. Both were also desperate to replace dilapidated facilities.

“But this did not start out with something being broken. Both broadcast stations were in good shape. Except for their physical location,” says Susan Eagan, then with the Cleveland Foundation, which served as a neutral moderator to the discussions. “It was mostly Kit and Jerry looking out ahead and seeing a lot of unrealized opportunities...and knowing that if public broadcasting was not repositioned and aligned with what was going on in the larger marketplace, at some point down the road there could be some significant issues.”

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	Paula Kerger

Wareham and Jensen argued that the emerging reality, the shift in the marketplace, meant, “Access to programming through broadcast distribution is becoming relatively less valuable than content creation, packaging, marketing and control of intellectual property.” In other words, having control of the media delivery system is no longer sufficient to remain a player in the community; content development is of greater importance.

While much of this may seem self-evident today, it wasn’t all so clear in 1999 to members of the two boards. To make their case, Wareham and Jensen turned first to Chicago and then to Cinderella.

Network Chicago, a multiple media public service organization operated by Chicago’s WTTW was a model very similar to what Wareham and Jensen wanted to create in Cleveland. A 1999 promotional video, which they brought to a meeting of the Cleveland boards, explains, “We can create alliances with cultural, educational and business institutions...We can leap beyond the television screen and carry our quality content to radio, print, and the Internet...[create] strategic alliances...driven by our values.” (Unfortunately for WTTW, Network Chicago’s business model relied heavily on advertising in a print publication, which did not succeed.)

But the “Aha!” moment in the negotiations, the inspiration that enabled people to understand how this worked, they say, came when Jensen posed the question, What is Cinderella? To illustrate the point, she passed around several props including a Disney DVD, an illustrated story book, a Cinderella Barbie, and a volume of the original French fairy tale. Which one of these various media forms is Cinderella? “The right answer was really intellectual property,” she says. “We needed an object to illustrate that platforms do not define content, content just exists. Cinderella had presented itself in all these different media in all these periods of time. And now we were facing the need to re-invent how we present our stories. This really worked for people.”

From that point forward, parties to the talks say, there was only one essential sticking point: who’s in charge? And this provided a defining moment in ideastream’s reinvention of public broadcasting.

“When it came to the CEO question it all fell apart because people had their loyalties,” says Eagan. The WVIZ board pressed for Wareham; the radio side wanted Jensen. But what happened next was iconic in terms of the ideastream partnership model: Wareham and Jensen wrote a memo saying, if the boards agreed, they would resolve the leadership issue on their own. But until the discussions moved off this point neither of them would have anything further to do with the proposed merger. They took their egos off the table.

“That was a very, very critical moment,” says Eagan. “And it set a standard that said, this is not about us, this is what the community is entrusting to us.”

The boards bought it. Weeks later, on a Sunday, Wareham and Jensen met over coffee. Each made a long list of what they liked most and least about their jobs. They exchanged documents. They agreed he would be CEO and she COO. The same procedure was followed with other managers at the two stations.

Somerset-Ward and others credit this enduring, almost stubborn, spirit of cooperation as the primary reason for ideastream’s success, stemming from the Wareham-Jensen leadership model. “They don’t take credit for anything and that, of course, is one of the main reasons why it works,” he says. “Everywhere else, public broadcasting stations that I know of, would leap at the opportunity to grab credit. Jerry and Kit understood from the beginning that you couldn’t do that, not if you want to be a partner. That is why they have been successful.”

On July 1, 2001 ideastream became a reality.

It was here, at 1375 Euclid Avenue, back in the 1950s, in the studios of WJW, that disc jockey Alan Freed coined the phrase “Rock & Roll.” Well, Cleveland still rocks! All the proof you need is a visit to The Idea Center, home of ideastream, where you will experience a symbiosis of community-based arts and media raised to the highest level of quality. For example: one afternoon last December, Alice Walker and Marsha Norman sat facing each other on the stage of the black box theatre that occupies a three-story space in the center of the building. This was an event that served multiple purposes. Walker, author of The Color Purple, was in Cleveland to promote the Oprah Winfrey musical based on her book, due to open in the spring of 2008. Norman, author of the play ‘night Mother, wrote the libretto for the Winfrey musical. Walker made a little news by saying this would be her final appearance on behalf of the book, the movie or the musical. But the real show was listening to these two sophisticated ladies light up a corner of downtown Cleveland. Filling the 300-seat bleachers rising up two stories in front of the floor-level stage were college and high school students as well as several local arts dignitaries, who took turns lining up at the microphones to ask questions. Meanwhile, at a half-dozen schools throughout northeast Ohio, another hundred-plus students watched the event live via broadband and they, too, lined up for a chance to interact with the two Pulitzer Prize-winning writers. Currently, ideastream is linked via broadband to 115 public schools and 190 private schools, reaching a potential audience of 500,000 students. On any given day, the black box theater does double duty, serving primarily as a theater for the performing arts sponsored by the Playhouse Square Foundation and also as a live TV studio for WVIZ and PBS. So, on this occasion, the two-hour event was also taped for local broadcast in the spring, when The Color Purple is presented at one of the major theatrical stages at Playhouse Square and is being offered to PBS affiliates as one in a series of artist appearances at the Idea Center. These presentations, and the resulting TV productions, are called “Master Moments,” where famous performers speak candidly about their work. Some other recent visitors to the “Master Moments” stage include composer Marvin Hamlisch, actress Chita Rivera and composer/lyricist Adam Guettel. Many of the student-questions Walker fielded related to fame—How has it changed her life? Does it make writing easier or more difficult?—and with each answer she seemed to become more succinct and focused until, towards the end of the two-hour session, she offered in reply a poem she said she wrote some time ago: Expect nothing, Live frugally On surprise.