By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Wednesday April 15, 2015
Public Broadcasting Atlanta - which has PBA/30 on TV and 90.1/WABE on the FM dial - has replaced retiring CEO/President Milton Clipper with a veteran TV executive who has plenty of local ties.
Georgia Tech graduate Wonya Lucas has worked at senior levels of Turner Broadcasting, CNN, the Weather Channel, Discovery Communications and TV One. The PBA board officially cleared her hiring on Monday.
PBA, which is owned by Atlanta Public Schools, under Clipper's watch over the past 20 years has grown significantly in revenues and membership. In the past 10 years, despite the recession, finances at PBA have been stable. And during his tenure, the low-key Clipper was able to eliminate subsidies from APS.
Lucas is facing a world where people's media consumption habits are rapidly changing and PBA faces more competition than ever.
"I'm incredibly honored and humbled," Lucas told the board. "I'm passionate for Atlanta. I'm a product of Atlanta Public Schools. I went to Northside High School... I love this community." She noted she's been active with the Atlanta-based Boys and Girls Club of America.
She said she is also passionate about branding and media. She said growing up, she watched "Julia," the first TV series starring a black woman (Diahann Carroll) in a non-stereotypical role from 1968 to 1971 as a nurse. "It really impacted me," she said. "One day, I can run things like Julia! I understand the power of the media."
WABE-FM, recently changed its daytime program to news/talk, which has involved a major increase in labor expenses to pay for more producers, editors and reporters. (The news department is now up to about 20 people, nearly doubling in size in recent months.)
"Having been at CNN, I think it's a smart thing to do," Lucas said in a brief interview after the board meeting. "You have to appreciate the power of local news. I've enjoyed listening to the local stories. I'd like to continue that and see we are covering the diversity of the community."
The station is in the near term planning to going to dip into reserves to cover the increased costs. And while individual donors have been on the rise (the spring fundraising drive began today), the station has struggled to grow underwriting grants from foundations and corporations.
"I'm going to get on that," she said. "I've run development on non-profit boards" like the Girl Scouts of the USA and the National Environmental Education Foundation.
She said she's going to "dig through the bushes" to find more funding opportunities.
She also said she knows Georgia Public Broadcasting chief Teya Ryan from her CNN days and hopes to work with her. Tensions have risen between GPB and PBA since Ryan's arrival at GPB and especially after GPB added news/talk programming on 88.5/WRAS-FM last year.
At PBA, Clipper had largely left day-to-day operations to chief operative officer John Weatherford. In the short term, Lucas said she plans to be more hands on to learn the public radio and TV world.
She certainly has an impressive resume.
At Turner in 1990s, she was vice president of entertainment marketing and business operations. From 1999 to 2002, she was vice president of strategic marketing at CNN. From 2002 to 2008, she was GM at the Weather Channel. She then spent three years as chief operating officer of the Discovery Channel followed by a 16-month stint as president of TV One. For the past two years, she has run her own strategic consulting firm.
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