KQED has been around since the earliest days of television.

It signed on the air on April 5th, 1954, making it the sixth public media TV station in the United States to debut. The call letters QED stand for quod erat demonstrandum, a phrase used in mathematics that roughly translates to “which (is what) was to be shown (originally)” —which is abbreviated to QED and —used at the end of a logical or mathematical proof.

Despite being located in a major metropolitan area, KQED struggled for a number of years to find its financial footing. During its first few years, it only broadcast one hour a day twice a week. Even then, it was losing money and by early 1955, the board of trustees voted to close the station.

But the staff of the station came up with a then-novel way to raise money - hold an on-air auction. That move not only saved the show, but it served as a fundraising template for other public media stations across the United States.

As you might imagine from a public media station based in the San Francisco Bay area, KQED has sometimes tackled controversial subjects.

In 1991, the station sued the state of California, asking for the right to videotape an upcoming execution.

In 1994, KQED was co-producer of the television adaptation of Armistead Maupin's novel Tales of the City, which aired on PBS stations nationwide in January 1994. This fictional portrayal of life in 1970s San Francisco included gay themes, nudity, and illicit drug use.

It became PBS’ highest-rated drama series, but KQED bowed out of plans to produce the follow-up More Tales Of The City after the federal government threatened to cut funding to PBS. That sounds like a familiar story….

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Michael Isip, President and CEO of KQED about the station’s history, it’s strong connection to the community and how it is navigating the challenges brought on by federal funding cuts.

The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity:

Can you talk a little bit about how you view the station's connection with the local community, and some of the ways that you are trying to reach out to them and strengthen that connection?

Michael Isip: I guess what I would say is, let me just start with KQED.

You probably know this. Signed on-the-air April 5th, 1954, and we were one of the first of six public television stations in the United States, founded by two broadcast journalists, Jim Day and Jonathan Rice. That era when we launched was when commercial television was expanding rapidly, and our founders built KQED with a mission which was not commercial, it was an educational enterprise that informs and empowers our community, which speaks to exactly what you're asking about.

I think the insight here is public media fundamentally started as a local enterprise, and KQED was on the ground floor. And our foundational purpose is that we are meant to be entirely accountable, shaped by, and indispensable to the local communities we serve. So, it's in our DNA, and it's all about local.

I'm just going to say it again. That's what differentiates public media is the boots on the ground and our connection to our communities.

One of the things that fascinated me was the fact that early on, when the station was struggling, it arguably invented the auction, which turned into quite a thing for PBS stations across the country. That just showed the link early on the station had with the community.

Michael Isip: It is a great story.

So, in 1954, I love this part of my history, we had a small staff and a $70,000 budget. Our first studio was a dressing room on the top of the Mark Hopkins Hotel.

Our transmitter was donated by a local commercial station. The studio was so small that the cameraman had to back into an adjoining bathroom where there was a sign that says, don't flush during broadcasts. The story goes that that first year was almost our last because we were accumulating debt and the board was going to shut us down.

Our founders asked for one last 30-day final push. This PR firm recommended a desperate solution, which was a 24-hour television auction. That was the birth of Pledge.

At one point, Pledge was innovative, right? I love this quote. I think it was Jim Day, our co-founder, said that was when KQED became part of the community.

KQED is working from a position of strength. Of course, it's about our service, but it is really reflective of how civically and culturally engaged the Bay Area is. Our region is a big reason, a primary driving reason for our success.

How challenging is it having such a big region? I lived in the Bay Area for a few years. There are a lot of differences between neighborhoods and between cities.

How do you manage that as a station to reach all those people in different places?

Michael Isip: We serve, as you know, the nine-county Bay Area. We currently reach 40 percent of Bay Area adults every week. One in two people use at least one KQED service every month.

I would say that we don't see it really as a challenge, because what we do as a public television, public radio station, is it's about informing, inspiring, and involving our community. That is KQED's stated mission - inform, inspire, and involve. Trustworthy information, storytelling about the human experience, and providing both so that people can participate, that cuts across age and cuts across geography, as well as race.

We don't find it really a challenge. I think everyone wants to be enriched as a participant in society. That's what we do.

I don’t have to tell you that the past few years have been challenging for public media, in part because it’s now become a political argument.

How do you make the point to viewers that “Look, don’t pay attention to what you’re hearing. This is not a political thing. This is us reaching out to you, us connecting with you. This is not a political statement or political action at all.”

Michael Isip: I think it's informing people, educating them, reminding them about why we exist and what we do. We do not serve or treat our audiences as consumers. We treat them as engaged citizens or participants.

We provide the information and the story so they can be active participants. Our message over the last year as a system hasn't been “save us.” It's been focused on here's what's at stake, what's at risk for communities if we go away.

By the way, what's at stake is more urgent than ever. I think it's important to take a step back and look at the broader media landscape. Ever-changing technology, changing audience behavior.

It's fragmented. Technology is speeding up. AI is here.

Disinformation is spreading. The reality is when you don't have a shared set of facts, you don't have a shared reality, that's when you begin to lose humanity. That's what's at risk.

That's how we fill the gaps. That's what the story has been over the last year. As you said earlier, sure, it's been tough to be in public media because of the political threats and the ultimate loss of federal funding.

Here's the thing I think has been true across the system. We have really been waving this flag at KQED. We may have lost federal funding, but we have not lost our mission to serve.

We've grounded ourselves in that. Over the last year, the community response has been breathtaking. I know across the system, individuals have stepped up.

I can talk specifically about what's happened at KQED because the turnaround has been incredible.

Yeah, I'd like to hear a little bit about that because it's a challenge talking to different stations. Every station has handled it in a different way. What's your station's story about that?

Michael Isip: I have to preface all this by saying, again, we are in one of the most civically culturally engaged regions, a very generous, very wealthy region that believes in what we do. That's our privilege that we have here in the Bay Area. Defunding and the shutdown of CPB were the system's worst nightmare.

Smaller stations really focused on survival. For KQED, it was an immediate budget gap of a little over $8 million. We entered in this fiscal year with a deficit of about $9 million, that amount.

Here's the thing. We didn't blink. We just grounded ourselves in our service.

What has been incredible is over the last 12 months, we have added more than 30,000 new members. We are currently at about 270,000 members, which is the largest in the system. That deficit that I talked about, we have flipped it.

We brought in close to a little over $12 million in membership contributions. We're going to end the year with a surplus for this year. We're still projecting deficits moving out because this federal funding is not coming back for the foreseeable future.

We're still going to have that gap. The other thing that I have to say about KQED, we have that influx of individual contributors, but this organization dating back to the 90s and the 90s was a rough period for the station. I think we were going payroll to payroll.

We came out of that with a very cautious financial approach, really focused on growing our endowment. We have an endowment of, last we checked in March, was $210 million, which is robust. One would argue not as robust it should be for an organization that has a $100 million budget and has about 320 staff members, but it currently spins off about $6 million to support operations.

We have that endowment. We have no debt. We own our building.

We have no lines of credit. We are in this position of strength. We're one of the few stations who are not just focused on surviving, but we're actually thinking about the future.

To your question, how are we approaching this, what I've said to the board and our staff is we are not just survivors. We are stewards of a service, which means we have to continually evolve to serve the changing needs of our audience. We need to find new sources of revenue to invest in new activities, new initiatives that drive a younger digital audience and drive digital revenue.

We have a very proactive strategic approach at KQED, which I also think is a function of where we are. The barrier is incredibly creative and innovative.

One of the challenges that any sort of broadcast TV station has is that it's an older audience than they would prefer. I know talking to other PBS stations, everyone's working on their efforts to try and get that younger audience engaged, not so much with the kids, but with the teens and early 20s. Where do you see the future with that and maybe some of the ways that you can make that connection a little stronger?

Michael Isip: Let me just say, first of all, in our current strategic plan, we have a dual path approach because I don't think it's either or. I think the fact that we have an aging audience, it's a core audience, I think it's an advantage. We need to maximize our broadcast distribution platforms and super-serve this audience.

KQED has a legacy society, more than 900 people who have us in their wills. These are the people who are investing in us to ensure that we're in our future. We have to continue to serve them, but at the same time, to your point, we need to focus on younger audiences.

For KQED, our target growth audiences are 25 and above. The way that we're going to serve them is obvious. Where are they?

They are on digital platforms. One other service that we've built over the last four years with the renovation of our building is live events and experiences. We have more than 60 annual events this year.

What's exciting about these events is around 24,000 attendees annually, but about 53% of those attendees are between the ages of 25 to 44. 40% of those 25 to 44 say they don't otherwise use a KQED service. It's serving them on digital platforms, but what younger people are craving is in-real-life experiences.

That's another part of our service. What I'll tell you is we've gone through two transformations. We had this campaign, Campaign 21, which was from 2013 to 2021.

$140 million invested in digital production, distribution, and capacity, and then a $90 million investment in the renovation of our building. We're going to go through a second transformation. We're launching a campaign, but the vision is to become the essential connector of the Bay Area.

We want to be more than just a media organization. We actually want to be the civic infrastructure of the Bay Area.

How much of that is focused on beyond the actual TV signal? You mentioned digital. What other ways can you connect with live events? What other ways can you connect or you're hoping to connect to bring people into this overall umbrella?

Michael Isip: At the top of the list is our journalism. We have to ensure that we safeguard our journalism. People need trustworthy information, but it's one thing to create it.

People actually have to have access to it and be able to find it. Being able to produce in digital native formats, focusing on online video, online audio, but also video for social media. We see the numbers.

It's something like more than half of Americans get their information on social media platforms. 38% of those people are under the age of 30. We need to be on those platforms.

That's a big part of our investment. The journalism and then getting it to where they are.

How difficult is it to stay on top of all this? I know that the technology where people are finding news, where people are finding entertainment, it changes so quick. Platforms change so quick.

Things are in and out. How difficult is that for you personally and for you as a station to stay on top of it, stay connected, not to get distracted with whatever the latest hot thing is, but to realize these are the things that are our core business?

Michael Isip: There are a couple of challenges. I think the challenges are internally. We're launching another major fundraising campaign, about $220 million.

We are redirecting annual bequests and trusts to make some immediate innovation investments. The challenge internally is that some staff, we have to manage our expenses, and they don't get why aren't we pouring new support into operations? We have to constantly remind them we have to invest in new and different things so we can evolve for younger generations.

That's the internal challenge. The external challenge is kind of what you said. We have a finite amount of resources.

You want to be able to make bets, but they have to be smart bets. What I think public media has to focus on is not chasing every trend or every piece of technology. It's really just sort of staying true to our values, and then iterating over time and finding small innovations.

With the discussions of the budget, is there something where if someone waved a magic wand and said, hey, here's $10 million. Go do something. What would you like to do?

But you just don't have the money to do yet.

Michael Isip: We're doing it right now with this redirected question for us. I think we're super fortunate to be in this position. I think if public media could take a more experimental learning approach, I think we just have this history of working from a place of scarcity where every investment we make, it has to work.

But I think when things are changing, you need to invest in things that sometimes aren't going to work. To me, that's not a failure. That's a success, because you're kind of learning what's not working.

I think that's the cultural change we're trying to make at KQED, is try something new and different, be very clear as to what the outcomes are. If they don't deliver on that, then let's move on to something else. It’s just trying to be a little bit more nimble and adaptable. Look at what's happening with AI.

You have this new generation of wealth coming in, and they just have a different mindset in terms of being bold, taking risks. I think if we want to attract that kind of support, I think we need to reposition ourselves as being a little bit more innovative and experimental.

Is there anything that I haven't asked you about that you wanted to get across before I let you go? I know you got a busy schedule, so I want to be cognizant of your time here.

Michael Isip: No, I think we hit it all. Again, thank you for doing this and focusing on our service. We know what differentiates public media, and that is that we are independent and non-commercial.

If you look at the broader landscape in terms of what's happening with media consolidation, public media really may be the only information source that is not beholden to anyone but the community. I do think the values that we have around public service, I do believe no matter how turbulent it's going to be, and it's going to be turbulent because we're going to have continued economic pressures and technology is going to change. I really do believe in my heart of hearts that our values and what we stand for is going to endure.