Expanding Digital and Media Ownership Opportunities for Women and Minorities

The goal of the full-day symposium is to explore the challenges as well as possible creative solutions to increasing ownership opportunities for women and people of color to achieve success and viewpoint diversity in all facets of media – TV, radio, cable, and streaming. Symposium participants will include:

• Experts from both large and small media companies who have grown and thrived in the media and tech industries, as well as some entrepreneurs who did not sustain operations, despite their best efforts, and exited their businesses;
• Research entities and thought leaders;
• Advertising and marketing experts, as well as representatives from successful media/tech training programs.

Panel presentations on research and trends in ownership and employment diversity will include:

• Competitive Hurdles for Minorities in Media exploring competitive challenges for people of color, women, small and independently owned firms in media and tech, and probing ways to level the playing field. The panel will examine how to incentivize the sale of stations to diverse owners, and the policy and regulatory measures that could create more robust competition in the media industry.
• Grooming Next-Gen Minority Leaders, CEOs & Owners, discussing best practices to cultivate the next generation of diverse media leaders, training and succession plans from college, through midlevel development to C-Suite and to ownership. Panelists will share strategies for bringing young diverse owners into the current media landscape of streaming, apps, gaming, coding, and social media, as well as traditional broadcast radio, television, and cable ownership.
• Show Me the Money: Access to Capital, Investors and Ad Dollars for Diverse Owners, exploring what incentives exist to fund or support diverse owners, including tax incentives. The panel will also focus on the important role of access to increased advertising dollars by female and minority-owned media outlets.