New Mexico State University's KRWG Public Media is one of 50 public media stations in the nation participating in the Poynter Institute's Digital Transformation Program.
KRWG began the nine-month program in March 2025. Funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the program educates, assists and coaches public media leaders and staff on the best strategies to transform their organization's digital operations and culture to meet the needs of local audiences.
While KRWG has had a digital-first focus in place for several years, the program will put the station in a position to better understand its audiences across TV, radio and web.
"It'll help us develop more relevant content, and help us meet our audiences where they are," said Adrian Velarde, KRWG Public Media general manager.
As part of the program's Fundamental Track, Velarde and six other KRWG staff members receive virtual one-on-one and peer group coaching sessions, educational webinars and practical work exercises designed to accelerate KRWG's digital development and drive audience and revenue growth.
The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to journalistic excellence and advancing press freedoms in democracies worldwide, provides monthly training through December 2025.
The program aims to help participating stations create an audience-centric, digital-first focus and build deeper connections with their communities while growing revenues and strengthening their financial foundations. It also shows stations how to speed up their digital transformations by emphasizing the development and use of multi-platform digital content tied to local audience needs and expectations.
"I'm excited to take advantage of these new tools and training to help KRWG move forward integrating new digital capabilities in our growing community," said Edmundo Resendez, KRWG Public Media director of development.
A key part of the program provides intensive data analytics training to enhance data literacy among station leaders to improve their decision-making capabilities.
"We use metrics to a certain extent already," Velarde said, "but this will help us fine-tune how we identify what programming resonates with our local community."
KRWG is part of the program's second phase. Between 2022 and 2023, the program trained 79 public media entities and 458 station personnel.
For more information about KRWG, visit https://www.krwg.org.
A version of this story was published in the spring 2025 issue of Panorama. For more stories, visit https://panorama.nmsu.edu.
The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/nmsu-s-krwg-participates-in-digital-transformation-program/s/0a190c4e-3fcf-4847-9eb4-5f0305e207be?CP=1
