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The Public Media Content Collective (PMCC) is a membership organization that empowers public media content leaders, managers, and professionals to understand, serve, and grow their audiences within an increasingly complex and competitive multi-platform media landscape. Our membership includes mission-driven media outlets and local radio stations in communities large and small, national networks, researchers, and professional content producers.
Noncommercial media is an essential part of our culture and democracy. From critical reporting on national and international news to supporting local music communities, public media programming informs, connects, inspires, and sustains us. As a leader in public media, we help our members build smart, viable strategies to deepen their connection with audiences and continue to thrive.
We convene a dynamic collective of programmers, public media experts, content professionals, and independent creatives to help our members do their very best work. While our membership includes a wide range of roles, geographies, and perspectives, PMCC members are united in their commitment to developing thought-provoking, relevant, and impactful audiocentric content that serves the community.
PMCC is led by established public media leaders who have built influential programs in the industry. Through PMCC, our members collaborate with some of the top minds in media, audience research, journalism, and music programming and support each other in navigating the field’s evolving challenges.
We train our members on emerging trends, best practices, and new strategies and tactics through online resources, documentation, and hands-on workshops. In order to provide our members with valuable insights into audience and industry developments, we regularly participate in and share new research. We partner with leaders in our collective to host practical webinars, multi-session workshops, and training sessions.
As the only content-focused gathering in public media, our annual conference is a must-attend event. Every year, we host provocative speakers who challenge our assumptions, expose us to new ideas, and push us to innovate and improve. From thought-provoking panel sessions about the future of audio to data-driven insights on audience interests, this event helps our members continue to drive the industry forward.
We collaborate with members to advocate for their needs and address issues in the field, ranging from national programming performance to journalistic ethics to music rights. We advise industry leaders, concentrating the collective power of our diverse membership through a unified voice.
We were founded in 1987 by a group of public radio program directors seeking to create a nationwide network to support fellow programmers in the sector. Originally called the Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD), the organization rebranded in 2023 to the Public Media Content Collective (PMCC) to better reflect our membership and the evolving media landscape.
As the collective voice for content and programming interests in public media, we use our position and programs to support the content needs of our members and advance the industry. In our early years, we helped refine the broadcast product by connecting local programmers with NPR and we remain a vital bridge between national content producers and local stations, providing an important local perspective in conversations about national programming and content development. We also provided hands-on training for local station programmers to encourage broadcast audience growth and our Content Conference is the only national convening focused solely on content and audience service.
Our national studies and audience research provide critical insights that help our members successfully reach and engage audiences. Our groundbreaking 2001 Core Values Research Project created a common understanding of audience needs and new language to describe the shared values between audiences and public radio programs. Our 2016 Millennial Research Project brought together more than a dozen stations to examine the attitudes and behaviors of the Millennial generation towards public media. Every year, we invite public radio organizations to participate in the Public Radio Techsurvey, which tracks the media habits, preferences, and perceptions of their email subscribers and social media followers. In 2023, we partnered with the Station Resource Group and Greater Public to conduct a meta-analysis of local research studies, which resulted in a report and playbook designed to help local public media organizations better understand and serve their potential audiences.
Join us by becoming a member! We offer 10 tiers of membership for individuals, stations, and institutions. Tiers are based on organizations’ annual budgets or station NFFS. Individual members fall into Tier 1.
Membership benefits include reduced conference registration rates, access to PMCC’s knowledge and training resources, and members-only webinars. PMCC’s annual conference encourages program directors from all corners of the country to collaborate and learn from one another.
