KERA acquires producer of public radio’s ‘From the Top’

KERA in Dallas is acquiring From the Top, the radio program that features performances by young classical musicians and airs on more than 200 stations.

The partnership adds to KERA’s portfolio of arts programming while giving From the Top an opportunity to create new local projects, said KERA CEO Nico Leone.

“It connects our work locally with a national program, and I think it will also open up incredible opportunities for us to collaborate with other arts organizations in North Texas and with stations around the state,” Leone said.  

Executive Director Gretchen Nielsen said that From the Top Inc., the nonprofit that produces the show, began looking for a place to set down local roots in 2024. Nielsen said her organization reached out to KERA as a way to ensure continued growth for the coming decades. 

“There were certainly other kinds of partners we were looking at, but KERA in the public media space is absolutely a leader, and we were interested in … their entrepreneurial approach,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen said she anticipates no major changes to programming or the show’s national focus. In gaining a new home base in North Texas, she said, From the Top can explore localized special projects to test out new ideas. She described the arrangement as “a local laboratory where we can try things out and bring [them] to the national and vice versa.”

“As we imagined partners and what a really powerful partnership would look like, that was critical,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen said she also looks forward to using KERA’s new facilities, set to finish construction in the spring of 2028. The space will allow From the Top to host events for young musicians, she said, which it has been unable to do since the pandemic.

“We’ve been touring the country and recording in studios,” Nielsen said. “We’re able to bring young people together in those settings, but it was much harder for us to convene larger groups of young musicians, and we were really missing that.”

In fiscal year 2024, From the Top Inc. generated $1.6 million dollars in revenue and ran a deficit of about $473,000. As From the Top prepares to join KERA in May, the nonprofit will dissolve and KERA will absorb all costs and the organization’s 16 staff members. 

KERA’s Leone said that in the wake of the rescission of federal funding, public media has the opportunity to think strategically about how to grow with financial stability in mind — something he commends From the Top’s leadership for doing.

“They didn’t come to us because they were in trouble or going to go out of business,” Leone said. “They initiated this process while they were financially healthy and thinking about their growth and opportunities over the next few decades.”

Nielsen said nonprofits are often intimidated by collaboration because they fear sacrificing their institutional identity. To adapt to a tumultuous fiscal landscape and ensure longevity, she said, nonprofit leaders can’t let ego and perceived identities get in the way of strategic partnerships.

“I’m really gratified that we have such a great future and that our organization, although much smaller than KERA, can have a big influence on such an important organization,” Nielsen said.