Big Bird has taken over the news. Gary Knell, Vivian Schiller’s replacement as president and CEO of NPR, was promoted in December from his position with the Sesame Workshop. Having launched numerous non-profit children’s education programs through the Sesame Workshop, Knell is no stranger to taking a long-standing public staple and breathing new life into it.

During his keynote address at iMA on Wednesday there were a few things that he wanted to make clear:

– No one under 30 is reading a newspaper.
– Our nation needs an educated public at all times, especially in this currently volatile economic and political climate.
– Public media must be able to fit into people’s evolving lifestyles; people’s evolving lifestyles will not revolve around an outdated public media.

The biggest emphasis was on creating diversity within NPR in the areas of geography, people, perspectives, and age. Which is funny, because the first words out of Knell’s mouth were, “I’ve never spoken to such a wide room before.” Ironically enough, it sounded like he said, “I’ve never spoken to such a WHITE room before.”

Here’s a video of Amanda Hirsh, public media consultant, asking Knell about his potential misspeaking during the Q&A:

The crowd tittered, but if you looked around…it pretty much applied. Public media has long been considered the news of the older, whiter, more privileged segment of the population.

However, Knell showed statistics that suggest radio is no longer coming out of the radio…it’s coming out of mobile devices. A younger generation and people of color are primarily using those mobile devices; unless public media catches up, they will be outdated in the way they are heard and they will not reach the emerging market.

But, Knell makes this all seem very possible.

In his few months on board at NPR he has restructured the team at the top to focus on the issues of mobility, accessibility, and diversity. He basically said it’s time for us to get our heads out of our a**es. When discussing the chasm between public radio and public television, the push and pull for funding, and the hesitation about going digital, he refers to Jorge Luis Borges’ poem about the Falklands War where he states, “[This] thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

He has a vision, he is taking action, and maybe it’s his nice tan and confident presence, but he makes you think that it’s all going to get done.

Knell has begun carrying a phrase around with him that pretty much sums it all up: “Radio isn’t going away. Radio is going everywhere.”