Innovate with Current: Powering Public Media with Digital Revenue

October 23, 2025

Audiences are rapidly shifting from linear broadcasts to on-demand platforms, and commercial media has already followed them by retooling its strategies, moving investments to streaming, and leaving linear channels behind. Public media, however, still leans heavily on the broadcast pledge drive, even as audiences dwindle.

How can we adapt? Our panelists: Tom Davidson, Professor of Media Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Penn State; Tyler Smith, Principal Consultant at Tanager Digital; Christina McPhillips, VP at Carl Bloom Associates; and Alex Curley, founder of the Semipublic Substack and the Adopt-a-Station initiative will share data, case studies, and experiments that show what’s possible. Join them for a session that will highlight interesting experiments taking place within public media and expand your vision of revenue possibilities beyond the broadcast pledge drive.

Panelists

Alex Curley

Alex Curley

Alex Curley is a product consultant based out of Asheville, N.C., and the author of the Substack SemipublicLinks to an external site.. He spent a decade at NPR, where he worked on the Public Radio Satellite System, NPR’s SiriusXM channel, national fundraising materials and newsroom promotional strategies.

Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson is the Bellisario professor of media entrepreneurship and innovation at Penn State University. Before becoming an accidental academic, he was a journalist, business executive and product developer at Tribune Co., PBS, UNC-TV and Gannett.

Christina McPhillips

Christina McPhillips

Christina McPhillips is the VP of Client Partnerships at Carl Bloom Associates. Christina has worked with nonprofits for nearly 20 years, specifically with North American animal welfare organizations, public media stations, environmental groups, and public libraries. She identifies emerging fundraising trends and helps organizations integrate those new strategies into their practices. Christina is based in Atlanta, Georgia, and is an avid travel enthusiast.

Tyler Smith

Tyler Smith

Tyler Smith is Principal Consultant at Tanager Digital, specializing in building effective digital fundraising systems for public media. Since co-founding the firm with former LAist marketing leader Andy Orozco, Tyler has helped stations like KUOW, LAist, WHUT, and APM convert their digital audiences into sustainable donor support. A featured presenter at PMDMC, Tyler helps stations focus on strategic distribution approaches that acquire new supporters year-round, not just during traditional drives.