NETA & PMBA

This year, NETA and PMBA are coming together as core partners, combining our strengths to support professional growth, broaden networking opportunities, and create a more meaningful conference experience for you. This partnership reflects a shared belief: the opportunities and challenges facing stations today are best addressed together. The result is a conference designed to be more connected, more collaborative, and more relevant across roles and departments.

Learning Tracks

The hybrid conference will feature multiple learning tracks, including community engagement, education, content, professional development, station innovation, and more. New this year, thanks to PMBA, we are also offering HR and finance learning tracks for CPE/CEU credits.

What really makes the NETA Conference unique and valuable are the 50+ station-led sessions. These connections with your colleagues reach far beyond the conference, creating collaborations, inspiring innovation, and leading to lasting and vital relationships.

Registration

NETA Member registration is now open to allow you the flexibility to choose which fiscal year works best for your budget. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with questions, ideas, or concerns. Your voice matters, and collaboration is essential as we shape the future of public media together.

We hope to see you in person or online September 13-17!

Rooted & Relevant

The conference theme reflects the moment we’re in and the work ahead. Across the system, we are being asked to do more with less, to innovate without losing our values, and to serve communities that are navigating disruption, division, and change – often all at once.

Rooted & Relevant speaks directly to how public media meets these challenges. Being rooted is a clarity of purpose: local service, education, trusted storytelling, representation, and accountability. Being relevant encompasses thoughtful innovation, sustainable structures, and staying aligned with community needs as the environment changes.

New Orleans offers a powerful setting for this work. It’s a city that understands what it means to rebuild without erasing identity, how to modernize without discarding history, and how resilience grows from deep connection to people and place.

Over our time together, the conference will focus not on predicting the future of public media, but on preparing to actively lead it. Sessions will translate the theme into action through peer-led learning and practical conversations. We’ll hear from people who are experimenting, adapting, and reimagining what service looks like. We’ll talk honestly about funding, technology, workforce strain, and trust. And we’ll leave with actionable ideas, not just inspiration.