MANAGING PRODUCER, PODCASTS, WBUR Program & Production (23500582760107)

Who We Are & What We Can Offer You:

WBUR is Boston’s NPR and a public media leader, producing exceptional journalism on-air, online, on demand and in real life. Our mission is to provide an essential public good — high quality journalism and enriching experiences that foster understanding, connection and community for an expanding circle of people. WBUR is member-supported and licensed to Boston University.

Employees at WBUR are a team of professionals who value truth, diverse perspectives and candid debate, creating a culture of mutual respect, passion, and belonging.

We’ve got exciting plans to keep innovating and building WBUR for the future.

We’re growing. And you’ll grow too.

We offer our employees a hybrid workplace, with a mix of remote, hybrid, and in-person work arrangements.

The Opportunity and Who You’ll Work With:

WBUR Podcasts is known for producing a mix of daily, weekly and limited series podcasts like Endless Thread , Circle Round , Anything for Selena , Last Seen , The Common , and more. We're currently producing new projects about climate change, the gun manufacturing industry, and the parole system, among others.

As Managing Producer, your position is a key role on the WBUR Podcasts team, responsible for guiding department strategy and audience growth, as well as overseeing editorial projects, managing some WBUR Podcast team members, and lending their hands to production as needed. In this role, you will work in consultation and close collaboration with the teams Executive Producer and Production Manager to establish production calendars, content strategy, and execution of projects from concept to delivery, as well as leading and supervising the department's efforts for audience development.

You may oversee multiple projects at any given time, depending on the needs of the team and department, whether expanding a particular show into live events, or delivering new projects in collaboration with multiple departments. You will play a managing role in working with producers to shape content and will be expected to regularly interface with sound designers and technical directors inside the department to ensure delivery of our products, keeping audience and revenue top of mind.

Your role will be focused on collaborating cross-departmentally across business and editorial teams. As Managing Producer, you will also be a key decision maker in the department's efforts for audience development and growth, connecting their intimate knowledge of the teams' editorial content with the best strategies for reaching WBURs goals for podcast audience growth. As a leadership position, you will report directly to the Executive Producer of Podcasts at WBUR.

Your Primary Responsibilities:

• Oversee some show production and provide general guidance and support to host and producer/s on story ideas, timelines, production process, and higher-level management of all show assets.
• Lead audience growth and development by focusing on cross-promos, editorial and distribution partners for marquee projects, digital and programmatic advertising and more.
• Aid Executive producer in managing the department’s hosts, producers, and sound designers to shape and execute content.
• Organize and run kick-off meetings, table reads, and other team meetings.
• Ensure show achieves highest standards for conversational and/or narrative audio storytelling.
• Brainstorm and execute creative bonus content and/or special events related to audio projects.
• Manage communication between cross-functional teams.
• Supervise show or project-specific teams on execution and delivery of content.
• Work with the Executive Producer to handle legal review, licensing, ad sales, and other asset management.
• Collaborate with Marketing team to handle materials needed for marketing/promotion and Product team to ensure clear brand identity across platforms, data insights that lead to actionable guidance on audience development and growth.
• Interface with the Business Partnerships team to ensure collaboration and clear communication over the editorial/sponsorship firewall.

What You’ll Need to Succeed:

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors degree or relevant/equivalent experience
• 5-8 years of related experience in media, journalism, podcasts

Capabilities and Proficiencies:

• An excitement about WBUR’s mission to provide an essential public good: high-quality local journalism and enriching experiences that foster understanding, connection and community.
• A commitment to journalism fundamentals, including accuracy, fairness, respect, honesty and independence on air and online (for more, see WBUR’s ethics guidelines ).
• Experience with project management, including launching new editorial projects
• Experience working closely with busy, high-profile talent
• Excellent writing and communication skills
• Excellent organizational and project management skills
• Deep knowledge of the podcast industry and audio landscape and understanding of how to innovate in that space
• The ability to juggle multiple projects on deadline and work across geographically spread out teams
• Demonstrated ability to give valuable editorial guidance and feedback in a group editing environment

In an ongoing effort to enrich our organizational culture, WBUR is committed to building a staff and leadership team that reflects the diversity of our city, region and nation.

Designing an organization where everyone thrives, creating connection and community that permeates our workplace requires real change across all facets of what we do and who we are.  

We must hire, support, develop, advance and retain diverse talent at all levels of the organization with a standard of inclusive excellence.

If you are excited by this opportunity and have a passion for our mission - whether you meet all or some of our criteria - we want to talk to you.

Please note all newly hired staff and faculty will need to be in compliance with Boston University’s COVID-19 Vaccination and Booster Requirement within 30 days of date of hire. You must upload your vaccine documentation or request a medical or religious exemption (instructions ). For further information on the University’s response to COVID-19, please visit the COVID-19 Resources site. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, military service, pregnancy or pregnancy-related condition, or because of marital, parental, or veteran status. We are a VEVRAA Federal Contractor. 

BOSTON, Massachusetts, United States