Pause/Play

Terry Lickona, Executive Producer of the Austin City Limits TV show, joins hosts Elizabeth McQueen and Miles Bloxson to talk about how cuts to federal funding for public media are impacting the show.

Learn more about Congress’s decision to rescind over 1 billion dollars it had previously allocated for public media.

You can donate to Austin City Limits by going to austinpbs.org/donate.

You can support Pause/Play by heading to supportthispodcast.org

The full transcript of this episode of Pause/Play is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Elizabeth McQueen: I’m Elizabeth McQueen

Miles Bloxson: and I’m Miles Bloxson And you’re listening to Pause Play the podcast about live music, why it matters and what comes next.

Elizabeth McQueen: So today we have a bonus episode for you. You may know that we make this podcast at a public radio station in Austin, Texas.

Miles Bloxson: As you may have heard, Congress recently voted to take back over a billion dollars that they had previously allocated for public media

Elizabeth McQueen: For KUT and KUTX. The stations where we make this podcast, that comes out to about $1.2 million that we can’t really count on anymore.

Miles Bloxson: But public media doesn’t mean just public radio. It also means public television.

Elizabeth McQueen: Austin’s public television station, Austin PBS, is home to a show that a lot of people have heard of Austin City Limits.

Miles Bloxson: If you’ve never heard of Austin City Limits, it’s a live performance show that has been on the air for a very long time. Oh yeah.

Elizabeth McQueen: And if you live in Austin like Miles and I do, then you get to [00:01:00] see the shows in person and they bring in really good artists.

Miles Bloxson: Oh yeah. I saw Robert Glasper one year and I saw Little Yachty another year.

And let me tell you, those shows you can’t beat them. They’re amazing.

Elizabeth McQueen: They really are because they bring them in and it’s for a pretty small audience. I saw Janelle Monet and Billy Eilish like up close. It was really great.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah, it’s really an institution. And Austin PBS, where Austin City Limits is made was also impacted by Congress taking back that funding that we were talking about earlier, that they had allocated for public media.

Elizabeth McQueen: We wanted to know what impact that funding decision would have on Austin City limits. So we asked Terry if he would come and talk to us about it.

Miles Bloxson: I am Terry Lickona. I am the executive producer of Austin City Limits.

So how long has Austin City Limits been on the air?

Terry Lickona: We are currently in our 51st season. Last year was our big 50th anniversary, which was a [00:02:00] milestone that none of us in our wildest streams ever thought would happen, and it was a great year. too. Did some special programs and it was a, a really beautiful celebration of 50 years, which makes us the longest running music program in television history. And that’s anywhere in the world. ’cause we did the research.

Elizabeth McQueen: That’s amazing.

Miles Bloxson: That is amazing.

Terry Lickona: So onto season 51.

Miles Bloxson: Love it. How is Austin City limits connected to the festival known as ACL Fest?

Terry Lickona: Well, our current relationship is basically one of, um, licensing our name, but when it started Austin City Limits and the original producers of ACL Fest, Capital Sports and Entertainment were. Actual partners, uh, they invested in the infrastructure for the TV show, helped to upgrade our equipment to high definition.

But over the years it’s sort of evolved to just a licensing agreement where they literally pay for the rights to use our [00:03:00] name as part of their festival. But when they first approached those back in the day, 20 plus years ago, they really weren’t sure how to even do a music festival. It was brand new to Austin.

It was before C3 and they thought if they had a name as recognizable as ours back then, it would, number one, help with booking talent. And number two, just as important, sell tickets. And needless to say, after all of these years, it’s been a huge success and our relationship with them continues on a different level, but it’s still, it’s great.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. You want, you figure the person who came up with that idea probably feels pretty smart. Like I know we could ask Austin City Limits.

Miles Bloxson: Yeah, that was genius.

Terry Lickona: The only downside. Really, which is not a downside necessarily, but there is the confusion in people’s minds. It has something to do with generation.

I mean, people who know about ACL fest, they may not be from [00:04:00] Austin, but they don’t necessarily know about the TV show or the history of the TV show. I remember having my bubble burst like in the first year or two when I went down to the festival. And I’d be walking around the ground feeling really proud to see our name on those, the big stages and all.

And somebody came up to talk to me and, and, uh, asked me what I did. I said, I’m the producer of Austin City Limits the TV show. And they had this look like there’s a TV show. Oh, what’s that? Wow. Yeah. That’s

Miles Bloxson: crazy.

Terry Lickona: So it hit me. Yeah. But not everybody knows or knows the history at least.

Elizabeth McQueen: Yeah. And I mean, I bet a lot of people think that.

Because the names are the same that Austin City Limits Television and the Austin City Limits Festival are like inextricably combined. Maybe you guys put on the festival, but that’s not the case. It’s like Live Nation puts on the festival now with C3. Mm-hmm. And you guys license your name to them, so

Terry Lickona: Exactly.

Elizabeth McQueen: , But you are [00:05:00] connected to an organization, you’re connected to our local PBS station, correct?

Terry Lickona: Yes, indeed. And that’s where and how it all began because back in the day when Austin PBS, which was known then as KLRU, was housed at the University of Texas Campus Communications Center, literally across the street from where we are now.

Austin PBS started the show. It was back in 1974, which you know, again is 51 years ago and it was seven or so years after they created public broadcasting both television and radio. And so every PBS station around the country was trying to come up with new ideas for programs that they could pitch to all of the other stations because it was sort of a network, sort of loosely formed network of, of stations and the programmers at, uh, KLRU decided. Well, the Austin music scene was really heating up back then in the seventies, so they [00:06:00] decided to put together a music show in their big studio six A, and the artist who they approached who had just moved back to Texas from Nashville was of course Willie Nelson. So Willie did the original pilot show for Austin City Limits in 1974.

And that was the basis for the series. You know, next year we did a whole season of shows and, and we’ve been doing whole seasons of shows ever since. But yes, Austin PBS created the show, owns Austin City Limits, owns all of the rights to Austin City Limits, uh, uh, did back in the beginning and still does to this day.

Elizabeth McQueen: And do they produce Austin City Limits now or is. Yeah. Is that, is there a different relationship there?

Terry Lickona: They do produce Austin City limits, but there we get, things get a little complicated, especially for the average person on the street to understand who don’t necessarily know or even [00:07:00] care frankly, who owns what and where that comes from and who does what.

But, um, there are a lot of people involved in Austin City Limits, including myself. I’m not an employee of Austin PBS. I am an independent contractor. I have my own company and some of the key people, staff people who work on Austin City Limits actually work for my company. And we have a contract collectively with Austin PBS, who provide our services.

So there are a lot of people involved in producing a show. I would say probably when all is said and done, about 200 people have their hands somehow. Involved with the show, uh, just to make it happen.

Elizabeth McQueen: I actually had no idea that that many people were involved in making Austin City limits happen.

Terry Lickona: Most people think TV is like magic.

It just, you turn on your TV or go to your phone and voila, it’s, it’s there. Somehow it all comes together, right? Mm-hmm. But even with the radio, as you can [00:08:00] relate, you know, it takes a few people behind the scenes to do what we do. Mm-hmm.

Miles Bloxson: And when did you create the company? What is it called?

Terry Lickona: Uh, my company is called LickonaVision After, guess who?

And it started back in, uh, 1983, actually pretty, pretty early on. And you know, some people think when they hear the name that it’s, is that like, you know, optometrists or. Can I buy glasses there? LickonaVision? No, it’s clever. Play on words, or it’s supposed to be, uh, when it comes to television, but yeah, the name of the company is LickonaVision and the people who work for me.

I have a staff of four producers, and I also have our director, our lighting director, our, creative, producer and a photographer, and any number of other people who do work, for my company. And then we altogether work for Austin, PBS.

Elizabeth McQueen: And what are some of your favorite Austin City Limits episodes?

You’ve been doing this for over 50 years, you’ve had a [00:09:00] ton of musical guests.

Terry Lickona: Okay. How much time do we have?

Elizabeth McQueen: Uh,

Miles Bloxson: about 45 minutes.

Terry Lickona: So it might take that long. No, we, we have, uh, produced and I’ve been involved in over a thousand shows down through the years, so it’s really impossible to say what my one favorite is.

I can pick out a few, I mean. The first one that comes to mind is the show that I booked with Tom Waits, and that was my first year as producer, and it was actually the first show that I booked as producer, and it was about as big a step away from how the show began with Willie Nelson and the Austin country music scene back in the seventies.

But I wanted to shake things up. We wanted to kind of go in a different direction. Tom Waits definitely took us in a different direction. And then maybe my second proudest moment was when I booked Ray Charles to do the show the year after that, season five. But some of the shows that, that stand out for a lot of different reasons, uh, [00:10:00] certainly has to include Stevie Ray Vaughan because of who he was and how he died and, and the connection he had with Austin and it was a really emotional. A moment when he did that show, literally just a few months before he died in the helicopter crash. And, uh, so every time I look back at it, I still get a little emotional when I think about it, but, um. But then again, I tend to focus more on the recent shows that we have done that stand out because they were like recent, not 50 years ago.

The show that we did with Kendrick Lamar was by far one of the best shows we ever did in that room. He, as he does, just lit up the stage and he came, he came off stage afterwards, proudly wearing his Austin City Limits t-shirt. Which apparently he wore for like three or four days after that. But he said, man, that felt like I was playing a music festival out there.

He just had a great time and the audience obviously lit up with him. So that was, that was amazing Jon [00:11:00] Batiste He is an incredible performer. He has a heart and a soul a spirit about him that like elevates You and John, uh, did the show not too long ago. Well, actually, it’s been like four years and he is coming back.

Elizabeth McQueen: Oh, cool. Well,

Terry Lickona: I wasn’t supposed to say that. Oh, we haven’t announced it yet.

Elizabeth McQueen: We’ll, we’ll, we’ll cut that out, but you wanted to cut it out. Oh,

Terry Lickona: no. You know, there are no secrets here at Austin City Limits. People are gonna find out one way or the other anyhow, so yeah, I, I, I could go on and not obviously, but those are a few standouts for me.

I’m sure I forgot two or three that I should have said.

Elizabeth McQueen: Mm-hmm. And do you know how many stations, Austin City Limits runs on?

Terry Lickona: Virtually every PBS station in the country. I don’t know of any that Don’t carry it, to be honest. No, they do carry it at different times on different days, but it’s uh, in the neighborhood of about 300, give or take.

Miles Bloxson: And recently Congress took back money it had allocated for public media. For [00:12:00] KUT that comes out to be about $1.2 million.

How much does Austin PBS stand to lose

Terry Lickona: For Austin PBS it comes out to about 3 million, plus or minus some change. And that hurts. You know, I did, uh, an interview recently with Billboard about it, and I said, it’s like a, a kick in the gut. And that’s really how it felt in a lot of ways. I mean, we sort of saw it coming and there has been talk for years and years about cutting back or cutting out funding for.

PBS and NPR. But this time it actually happened and it happened so fast. I mean, the way the funding for public media was set up in the first place was supposed to protect against that sort of thing because the Congress, Congress authorizes the funding for public media two years in advance, literally to protect it from political influence.

So what happens? They found a way to get around that. Two, your. [00:13:00] Provision and just decided to take the money back, and we have like about two months notice, you know, to, to shift gears and, and figure out what to do. It’s harder for some sessions than others. I mean, we are obviously lucky to be living in Austin, Texas for so many reasons.

Healthy economy, BoomTown, USA. The community has been so supportive here for both Austin PBS and for KUT and KUTX. Uh, without that support, we’d be even in worse, worse shape. But still, that’s a big hit, 3,000,000 so we’re still trying to figure out what that means, what the impact is gonna be, and how to compensate for that amount of money.

And we don’t have much time to do it. We have to do some number of crunching. We definitely have to look to the community for even more support, to step up and do what they can. Go the extra mile. We need to [00:14:00] look at the artists, the record labels, the people who have. Supported, but who also depend on Austin City limits to be that showcase for For themselves or for their, for their acts.

And so we’re not sure exactly what the future looks like from here, but one thing we are determined is not to change what Austin City Limits is. We’re not gonna cut back on the number of programs we do. We’re not going to. Change what it is in terms of the format or anything about the show itself. We may have to cut some corners.

We may have to tighten our belts, but Austin City limits is going to survive and it will carry on.

Elizabeth McQueen: And if people wanted to help it survive, like what can people do to help Austin City limits and Austin PBS,

Terry Lickona: Well, one of the first things you can do to show your support for Austin City Limits in Austin PBS is to go to our website [00:15:00] at austinpbs.org slash donate and do what you can.

We also have a special event. Speaking of artists who have support of the show and, and who we count on more than ever. We have a private fundraiser on August 21st. This is a really special, intimate concert. It’s gonna take place at our new home for Austin, PBS up at the a CC campus at Highland Mall Mall. And it’s with Jason Isabel.

Uh, everybody’s favorite singer songwriter. He’s a genius. He’s a big, uh, fan of ACL. He comes to Austin at least once a year and people buy his tickets and sell out his shows. So we are looking forward to Jason coming back to Austin in August and helping us to fill that gap. Thanks to Congress.

Miles Bloxson: Right on.

And is there anything you would like to leave the audience with?

Terry Lickona: Well, [00:16:00] Austin City Limits has such an incredible legacy. Over the last 50 years and we celebrated our 50th anniversary. And yeah, we love to look back and remember some of those shows that stand out and think about the impact that it has had on so many people, the artist, music fans around the world.

We wanna keep doing the same thing for the next 50 years, and there’s a whole new generation of artists talent. People who are discovering music for the first time. We wanna serve those people the same way we have for the last 50 years. And we just need the support of other people, everybody, to continue to do that.

Elizabeth McQueen: And I wanna say thanks. Just as an Austinite and an Austin musician, I mean Austin City Limits, it’s like. The TV show for me and a lot of people that I know was the reason that people knew about Austin and that people [00:17:00] associated Austin with music. So, you know, thanks so much for all the work you’ve done all the years.

Terry Lickona: Austin City, Limits has kind of been like a window to the world. I mean, for some people they don’t know much, if anything else about Austin, except maybe it’s the capital of Texas. Right. But when it comes to the music scene, it’s a two-way street, you know? The music scene in Austin fed some great music to our show, uh, but we have also been that window that shows off the Austin music to the rest of the world.

Miles Bloxson: Thank you. Thank you.

Terry Lickona: My pleasure. Thanks guys.

Miles Bloxson: The Austin PBS fundraiser starts on August 8th. You can find out more at Austin PBS slash donate.

Terry Lickona: And you can us make this podcastm, which is made at a public radio station that also lost funding, by heading to supportthispodcast.org

Elizabeth McQueen: And you can help us continue to make this podcast, which is made at Public Radio Station that also lost funding by heading to support this podcast.org.

Miles Bloxson: And thank [00:18:00] you.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.