Gravity Medium
strategies for public media 2.0
Alaska public media falling apart
In: In Other News| Public Media| Strategy| alaska
1 Jul 2009Things are tough all over the public media world these days. But if you think you’ve got it bad, you should try working in the Alaska public media world. It’s brutal.
In case you hadn’t heard or figured it out, I was fired from APTI back in March, along with our news director, ostensibly for failing to “align” with the CEO’s preferred — and secret — strategy of merging all the public radio and TV operations in the state into a single company (there are roughly 25 separate companies). We were firings #3 and #4 from a management team of 7, all in less than a year. The GM hired a personal friend to replace us literally the next day. Oh, and the rest of those 7 managers? Only 1 is left, and that position was demoted below management level last year.
So if you’re feeling down about pay freezes, furloughs or being laid off, just be glad you’re not living with this series of unfortunate events (and these are just the ones from memory)…
August 2008
- APTI (Anchorage): Reorganization – General Manager (GM) fires Communications/TV and Development directors; no one hired to replace them
December 2008
- APTI (Anchorage): Award-winning and beloved statewide program, “AK” is canceled, staff terminated
February 2009
- APTI (Anchorage): GM decides a statewide merger of all public radio and TV stations into a single company is the strategy of the future; GM doesn’t announce his intentions to the rest of the company or the other stations in the state — stations that have been suspicious Anchorage would try this one day
- KTOO (Juneau): It’s revealed — privately — that the Juneau-based stations are roughly $250,000 in the hole due to falling underwriting sales and other issues
- KUAC (Fairbanks): It’s revealed — privately — that the Fairbanks stations and statewide TV service (AlaskaOne) lose roughly $1,000,000 per year, but the University of Alaska Fairbanks fills in the financial hole annually
March 2009
- APTI (Anchorage): Strategy change! News/content and broadcasting/web directors fired; GM’s personal friend hired to replace them (a print journalist and professor with no broadcast or public media experience)
- KUAC (Fairbanks): GM quits to take a job out of state; he’s not replaced
May 2009
- KTOO (Juneau): Company scales back operations, eliminating positions and cutting pay/benefits due to cash shortfalls
- APTI (Anchorage): Long-time HR manager and financial analyst (the kind that knows where all the bodies are buried) retires
- CoastAlaska reporters are secretly asked to make reporting contingency plans, in case the statewide news network — APRN, run by APTI in Anchorage — collapses in the new fiscal year due to lack of payment from disgruntled and financially distressed stations
June 2009
- KUAC (Fairbanks): Radio station goes off the air due to busted automation system
- KUAC (Fairbanks): Company is officially reported to be $450,000 in the hole; station cuts staff and more
- APTI (Anchorage): CFO quits to take a job out of state; Director of Engineering quits to take a job out of state; new hire for HR/Finance position quits a couple weeks after starting
- KYUK (Bethel): GM — a nationally-known pubmedia veteran — literally dies on the job, only a few months short of retirement, shocking the station and community
About that last item… I met with and worked with KYUK’s GM a few times. He was one of the good guys. He resurrected the station’s finances and dealt with the privations of living in rural Alaska — a far cry from his decades of work in the Lower 48. I won’t name him here as that’s not really my right to do so — you can look him up if you’d like. But I can say I sure wish he had taken the GM job in Anchorage back in mid-2007. Things could have turned out very differently for a great group of people that have persevered through so many challenges in the last few years. They don’t deserve the chaos they’ve inherited.
Crystal Ball Time
I have no idea what the future holds for public media in Alaska. Public radio — of the rebroadcasting NPR variety practiced in Anchorage — is probably pretty safe, barring straight-up mismanagement. Pubradio gathers a good chunk of change in Anchorage and the cost structure is comparatively light. Public TV is another story. The cost of merely rebroadcasting prepackaged material is excessive and traditional TV production is out of the question for pretty much all the stations in Alaska (without special project funding, which goes to outside contractors anyway).
Internet effects on the business models are definitely coming to urban Alaska, as are demographic shifts that represent brand new media consumption habits for which public media outlets aren’t really prepared, at least not here on the continent’s edge. Those changes will occur slowly, accumulating quietly until, one day, it’s just too late for the old guard to meet the new challenges, and that’s when public media either gets more government funding (a bailout) or it just disappears.
For the Alaska stations, and especially APTI in Anchorage, the biggest problem remains the same one I identified when I started working there in late 2004: You must answer two questions: [1] Who are you? and [2] Why are you here?
Those questions remained unanswered for my entire career in Alaska’s public media world, no matter how many times I asked or how hard I pressed for an answer. (The current GM thinks he answered those questions with a “strategic planning” process everyone regarded as a waste of time.) But without knowing, deeply, the answers to those seemingly-simple questions, it doesn’t matter what “strategy” you have — you’ll drift, you’ll live off the good intentions of past supporters. Without those two answers your future will be created by fate, happenstance, luck and disaster rather than by coordinated effort around a shared, meaningful goal that’s relevant to the world today.
But enough of all that. What happens next in the 49th state’s 50th year? Hopefully nothing worthy of adding to the harrowing list above. Public media up here needs a breather.
And maybe, one day, new leadership.
“I’m in the Audience Business”
In: Innovation| Inspiration| New Media| tribes
19 Apr 2009
In addition to covering developments in the technology sector, This Week in Tech — the flagship of Leo Laporte’s podcasting network — often hosts guests directly participating in the media revolution that’s already in progress. And they often have illuminating conversations about what is and isn’t working in old and new media spaces, and in the spaces in between.
This week the conversation offered this little gem from Shira Lazar, a young pro in both new and old media (at time index 5:14):
“For me, I say I’m in the Audience Business.”
Bingo. This is the future for nearly all media (but not absolutely all). If you don’t have or can’t maintain control over media distribution in a 1-to-many distribution model, then you must learn to engage an audience.
This is also known as building and leading a Tribe.
Be sure to listen to TWiT 190 from about 3:20 to 13:00 for the complete old/new media and audience conversation. Plenty of relevant ideas for public media leaders.
- Comments Off
Out of the mouths of (27 year old) babes
In: Inspiration| Public Media| Public Radio| Required Reading| Strategy| social media| tribes
17 Apr 2009
If you’re involved in public radio, this is required reading / listening.
Jesse Thorn, host of public radio’s The Sound of Young America (which is really a podcast that happens to be on a handful of 25+ public radio stations nationwide), speaks with Josuha Benton (Nieman Journalism Lab / Harvard) about his notions of creativity, business, media scale, public radio economics, audience interaction, passion, awesome content and more.
In particular, he nails the problems of the public radio industry today: the saturation of the older, educated white market and the industry’s pull back from attempts to stretch into new market segments with old formulas. He also keenly understands and explains the financial models in “the system.”
Because what Thorn proposes is that public media programs, hosts, writers, and others do is, well… make great content and directly interact with the audience that gels around the content and experience. He’s suggesting you build a Tribe.
Take a listen…
While listening, pay special attention to his observations about how he pays himself for his work, how he interacts with his audience, and how small-scale his show’s production model is. Also pay attention to how he thinks programs in the future will work — using mass media as “calling cards” or “advertising” for the interactive media experience the programs are creating.
From a Tribes perspective and a mass media model perspective, there’s only one other major national project I know of that’s doing the same thing: Planet Money, in a tiny, experimental pocket of NPR. And that could be said to be an outgrowth of the defunct Bryant Park Project.
There will remain a place for mass-produced and mass-appeal general news production. But for everything else, and especially for any local station that wants to survive, your future is in building a community around awesome content and services, a la Jesse Thorn.
–
Bonus Listening: If you haven’t heard the SxSW presentation by Merlin Mann and John Gruber on creating content online, that’s your immediate next destination. Indeed, here’s your reading list for surviving in the 21st century media world:
- The Cluetrain Manifesto
- Here Comes Everybody
- Tribes
- The Jesse Thorn interview (above)
- Merlin Mann and John Gruber at SxSW 2009
Double-Bonus Listening / UPDATE 2009-04-19: Thanks to the unstoppable Jesse Thorn for stopping by with a comment (below) and sharing the link from the discussion at the 2009 Integrated Media Association conference in Atlanta. Highly recommended, too. Thanks Jesse!
Shirky on the collapse of newspapers
15 Mar 2009This is, hands down, the most important piece on the collapse of the newspaper industry that will be written all year:
- Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable (13 Mar 2009)
Clay Shirky succinctly wraps up the last 20+ years of media history in just a few pages and explains how and why the newspaper industry will ultimately disintegrate.
He points to a future for journalism, but admits it will be a messy future, much as the world of information control and dissemination was utterly upended in the 16th century with the application of the printing press.
This piece reminded me of a speech given by Michael Rosenblum at the IMA conference in 2007. I have a whole hour of his storytelling and exhortations to take action on video, but here’s a brief (3:30) clip of just one story of technological innovation:
For those still clinging to news-on-paper notions: prepare your eulogies. Technology transforms society, whether you like it or not. Your horses are dead. The bowmen are here.
- Comments Off
21st century leaders foster talent, not scale
In: Innovation| Strategy| leadership
14 Mar 2009
I’m starting to (finally) get back into reading great stuff from around the web, fueling some new thinking. I stumbled across this nugget from consultants with frequently insightful writing:
…the rate of learning, innovation, and performance improvement within the institution must match (or exceed) that of the surrounding environment if the institution is to survive (or thrive). Given that innovation is inherently a human activity–one performed by talented individuals–it follows that talent will pull institutions into the 21st century.
That’s because a rapid rate of innovation cannot be programmed from above. At best what institutional leaders can do is to create the environments–the “creation spaces”–that foster innovation and faster learning. But here’s the rub: many of these institutional leaders are caught in the mindsets of the previous generation of infrastructures and the related assumption that scalable efficiency is the key to success. Talent, on the other hand, is under increasing pressure to get better faster and will either leave institutions that cannot help them or become catalysts for change within those institutions.
Let’s just say I can vouch for the above quote 100%.
Questions for public media firms, leaders and talent:
- Does your corporate culture, as led from the top, regularly share, explain and praise positive examples of media innovation both inside and outside the firm?
- Do stakeholders in your firm’s success understand the risks of stasis in a rapidly-changing media and business environment?
- Do you have a plan, a process or even just a notion of how to ensure everyone in your firm is learning substantial new things every year, every quarter?
- Which activity absorbs more of your time: protecting sacred cows or fulfilling a mission in a presently-relevant way?
- Is your firm innovating in media creation and delivery at a rate that matches or exceeds the media changes in your service area? (note that media changes occur at variable rates based on where you are)
- Is your solution to a changing media environment becoming “too big to fail” (AIG) or becoming “too vital to ignore” (NPR)?
- Are you leading a tribe or building an audience?
- Comments Off
Kick Out the Ladder
In: Inspiration
12 Mar 2009Has public media yet kicked out the ladder? Doesn’t seem like it. But as of this week, I’ve kicked out my own ladder. It’s time to fly.
Thanks to @MitchKitter for the great link.
- Comments Off
The letter I didn’t send
11 Mar 2009The vast majority of public television viewers are kind, intelligent, supportive and understanding people. Generous, too. Lovely folks that I’m delighted to work with every day.
But there are also …pardon me… assholes.
Below I’ve included a viewer comment I got this week (with identity obscured), and the reply I never sent, but wish I did. I actually had the message in draft, but never clicked the Send button.
A little background: We are in our spring pledge drive right now, and that always upsets some people because much of the programming most PBS stations run during pledge is way, way outside the norm. It’s widely assumed that the people “giving” during pledge drives are actually “shopping” for stuff (books, DVDs, etc.) and don’t really care terribly much about the core public TV mission. I think it depends on the program and the viewer, but in general it does seem like regular viewers lose their beloved programs as they are broadly displaced by those giving — or buying — around the specialty programs.
Anyway, on to the letter…
VIEWER FEEDBACK
Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 10:18 PMAs usual, throw the mission statement out the window and run reruns of Yoga and Guru’s and fake Irish Can Can dancing, over and over, and over and over. Some os us, a slim minority agreed, are interested in seeing the Treasury Secretary, not some twisting body parts for over paid middle class white folks. You know there is a Depression going on, but what do you care, too caught up with being local t.v. stars. GET A CLUE… either give us the news or give up the Charter to maybe an outfit in the Valley. Because you people are through the looking glass infatuated with your own stink. NEWS … not fake gurus !! I mean, the Babtist Temple idiot guy makes more sense then those dumb asses you peddle.
Oh, one other thing… this person has written nasty e-mails to us at least twice a year for several years now. He never fails to send the most bombastic and horrifying rants, and he always threatens to start his own station. He sends in his hate both about our TV and our FM stations, depending upon which one “offended” him most recently.
I wish I’d sent him this reply (but didn’t)…
Ah, Mr. Xxxxx… Your hate-filled comments about pledge drive programs, our staff and volunteers and viewers that don’t keep in line with your expectations have arrived in our e-mail once again. I would think after several years you’d get tired of leaving this bag of flaming dog poop on our doorstep.
Yet, ironically, what your regular rants suggest is that you’re watching our station. Watching quite a bit. More than most people.
But you’re not paying as close attention as you could.
Because while in the past we’ve pre-empted virtually all Charlie Rose episodes during pledge drives, this time we made adjustments. THIS time, we’re running nearly all the Charlie Rose episodes during pledge (4 out of 5 each week). Sure, they may slip from 10pm to 10:30 or 11pm, but they’re on the air. We made extra work for ourselves — without adding staff — just to keep Rose fans hooked up with their favorite show.
Some viewers have noticed and appreciated the effort and even became supporting members because they recognize both the value of the program in their lives and the fact that we paid attention and changed things to respect their interests.
But not you. After all, why break with tradition?
I highly recommend you start your own public TV station. That way, you can have a front-row seat for what could very well be the death of an entire industry as the proliferation of TV channels and the Internet explosion thins the air so much that you can’t breathe. Meanwhile, thousands of your colleagues across the country collectively scratch their heads, trying to figure out just how to fund the business while still serving the public interest (more than any other TV service out there).
Go ahead — hire the lawyers and bicker with the FCC over licensing. Build a tower, buy a transmitter, hire a staff. Find a building, build a studio, buy cameras and then pay PBS hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the privilege of airing their programs, leaving you no capacity to serve the local audience in a locally-relevant way.
Then you, too, can have the pleasure of reading some of the nastiest viewer comments you’ve read in your life — in the middle of the night when you’re trying to catch up, just once, with the mountains of work on your plate, left there because you can’t afford to hire staff to run the business efficiently.
In a situation like this, a little Irish dancing, a little yoga, and yes, even Yanni sounds pretty damn good.
As far as we can tell, this particular “fan” of public television has never given a dime.
What do you think — should I have clicked Send?
About
Q: What is the purpose of public media when the cost of content creation and distribution has evaporated and the value of content itself has rapidly fallen toward zero? If there's no value to be gained from scarcities of content or distribution, how can we survive?
A: Context, Contact, Tribe -- Discuss.
Photostream
- Rob Paterson: My time was never wasted - I met you Duncan and Karen [...]
- John Proffitt: Rob, we were SO fortunate to have had some of your time. Your valiant efforts to help were deeply ap [...]
- John Proffitt: If I remember correctly, the DTV issues KUAC has were driven by several technical factors, not all o [...]
- Duncan Moon: Right on the money, John. It's sad that something so many people put their hearts and souls into - [...]
- rpbert: Chilling indeed. John, I'd love to talk about this before I take off, if you would call. [...]
- Alaska public media falling apart
- Social Media ≠ Fundraising
- “I’m in the Audience Business”
- Out of the mouths of (27 year old) babes
- Shirky on the collapse of newspapers
- 21st century leaders foster talent, not scale
- Kick Out the Ladder
- The letter I didn’t send
- Digital Public Media: From Broadcasting to Leading a Tribe
- I had 2/3 of Apple cycle right on 3/3
Categories
- advertising (3)
- alaska (1)
- analytics (1)
- apple (2)
- BPP (7)
- Free (1)
- Fun (17)
- Funding (3)
- IMA2008 (10)
- In Other News (4)
- Information Technology (5)
- Innovation (12)
- Inspiration (3)
- Introductions (2)
- leadership (1)
- Links of Note (1)
- mass media (4)
- mobile (2)
- New Media (49)
- news (3)
- Newspapers (7)
- npr (10)
- Public Broadcasting (12)
- Public Media (26)
- Public Radio (27)
- Public TV (14)
- Rants (1)
- Required Reading (8)
- Research (1)
- Site Updates (4)
- Social Impacts (4)
- social media (11)
- Strategy (31)
- tribes (3)
- Twitter (2)
- Uncategorized (3)
