Tag: Strategy

NPR stations vs. The Future

I commented on Robert Paterson’s blog this morning, and wanted to reproduce the full comment here for the record. And because it was kind of a long comment — it’s better suited to being a post, really.

I’m not sure if I’ll comment any further on the Ken Stern developments directly. Perhaps — it’s definitely disturbing to see this turn of events. But I’d rather wait to see what else comes out in the next day or so. NPR’s reporters have already lifted the veil further today than they did yesterday.

In any case, here’s the full comment left over at Paterson’s site…

Continue reading “NPR stations vs. The Future” →

New Pew Internet reports

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If you’re not already subscribed to the Pew Internet & American Life project reports, go ahead and get the RSS feed or add the site to your browsing plans. They’ve got two reports out this week:

The Pew Internet reports are great for survey data and some broad conclusions about trends of Internet usage in the United States, oftentimes broken down by demographics.

The Paterson innovation series

Robert Paterson has begun a multi-part series on innovation in the public media space around the country. For anyone laboring on new media projects or working to promote new media (especially connective community media), this is a must-read series.

The posts so far…

I’m expecting more posts soon, probably on KETC‘s work in St. Louis (building community around shared media and history), WOSU‘s work in Columbus (bringing the online community into station engagement), and Ideastream in Cleveland (blending a dual licensee with fellow nonprofits and the community).

Doc Searls on the future of public media

Back in the midst of the IMA 2008 conference Doc Searls posted a brief, yet deep, article on what he sees for the future of public media (with an open source perspective).

For anyone looking to find a way forward for public media — whether inside legacy public broadcasting companies or in new freestanding nonprofit entities — this listing of core assumptions and tenets is critical to know and see.

My own favorite excerpts:

  • The market for public media will finally become… conversational and participatory.
  • There will be a new business model for public media, based on the ability of listeners and viewers to pay as much as they want, for whatever they want, whenever they want, wherever they want.
  • Membership will mean more than schwag and promotion payoffs. We will cease to conflate transaction with relationship, and start relating to listeners and viewers in ways that conform to the shape of their wants, need an habits as well as ours.
  • Cell phones will be the new radios and televisions.
  • Websites will become as inadequate as transmitters. That is, both will remain necessary but insufficient means for reaching listeners and viewers, and for relating to them.
  • Archives will be the ultimate killer kontent. … Bigger inventory, bigger income.
  • The end of analog terrestrial television will be a big mess and a wake-up call in more ways than we can name.
  • Brands and reputations will matter more than ever. …they will be enriched or impoverished by the degrees to which they participate in a marketplace sustained by real relationships, and not just by marketing that goes by that name.

But those are just my highlights. Be sure to read the entire article for the full effect.

Required Reading: FREE!

I was chatting with the boss this week when I made a shocking suggestion.

I told him that one or perhaps all of the audio (radio) programs we create today — and for which we charge hefty fees to “member” stations — be simply given away to any station that wanted it.

Immediately he shot back: “But someone has to pay for that content!”

I love these situations. I get to try out newfangled business or economics insights to suggest something that’s anathema to the old guard (people and/or ideas). Plus, it’s a little logical fallacy that’s fun to pick apart:

  • Me: Give it away for free.
  • Him: We can’t — someone has to pay for it.
  • Me: Who said no one would pay for it?

Indeed, someone must pay for the people and equipment (mostly people) required to produce award-winning content, regardless of medium or delivery system. The future isn’t all user-generated content (UGC).

The notion of free has come up a lot for me in the last year, as I’ve ruminated on the idea that PBS and NPR should give away all their content to incumbent pubcasting stations for free. (But someone has to pay for that content!) I’ll explore more of that idea in postings to come.

For now, I’d like to share some FREE readings that have been published within the last week concerning this notion of giving it away, seemingly willy-nilly. The notion of “free” has actually been a viable business option for decades, but in the digital media space the idea is gaining widespread traction very quickly.

Why free?

Because in the digital media world, where every user is one link away from any other user and everything can be digitally copied to perfection with little or no impediments, maintaining control is becoming impossible. Plus, as media content volume rises toward infinity (or certainly more than any one person can possibly consume), the value of content (in broad terms) falls toward zero.

So, here are my picks for the late February 2008 “free reader” if you want to get schooled in how and why giving it away makes sense in lots of situations:

Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
Chris Anderson / Wired / 25 Feb 2008

Anderson was the author of the article and follow-on book called The Long Tail that’s been cited as much as any Web 2.0 meme can possibly be cited. It’s accepted as a given truth (a little too easily, I might add) at this point. Now he’s been exploring the notion of free as a part of viable business models and this is the opening article in what’s sure to be both a series of thought pieces and, eventually a book. This is basically the seminal article of “free” at this point. There’s even a little intro video included with the article, featuring Anderson himself.

Chris Anderson Takes Up The Free Banner
Mike Masnick / Techdirt / 25 Feb 2008

That ‘Free’ Stuff Is Catching On…
Mike Masnick / Techdirt /26 Feb 2008

Masnick is a wizard at both succintcly explaining tech-focused business developments and eviscerating ideas that make no sense. In these two cases, he points out the Anderson article, adds some other links, and in the first article points out the mistake in Anderson’s logic — the notion that the “free” model turns economic principles on their heads. He rightly points out that, no, in fact no laws of economics are broken. Well worth your two clicks so you don’t get sucked into believing FREE is bigger than it is.

Free is the Future
Lee LeFever / Common Craft / 26 Feb 2008

Step aside from the free hyperbole for a moment and read this piece. In this case, the guy that owns and operates the Common Craft custom video development service explains all the ways in which his business — a money-making venture, to be sure — has benefited by using free technologies and services from other businesses. Indeed, his two-person shop is wildly successful today precisely due to the impacts those free services had on their ability to get the word out and share their work. It’s a great piece because Lefever takes you step by step through the ways in which “free” made their profitable business possible.

Free Is A Great Way To Make Money
Fred Wilson / A VC / 25 Feb 2008

This post is mostly a link over to the Anderson article — with one exception. Wilson points to one of his own posts from July 2005 (!) that discusses the notion of free in business models.

Better Than Free
Kevin Kelly / The Technium / 31 Jan 2008

  • Immediacy
  • Personalization
  • Interpretation
  • Authenticity
  • Accessibility
  • Embodiment
  • Patronage
  • Findability

Sick of discovering how you have to give it all away? Wondering how you’ll actually make money? Well here’s the antidote to the free movement — here’s what can’t be given away, what really carries lasting value. This article probably had more buzz at the IMA conference than perhaps any other because it lays down a conceptual map for the services that public media can provide that are fundamentally undisruptable (yes, I just made that word up).

PBS solution: implosion / explosion

Interesting dinner conversation last night here in Los Angeles at the IMA conference. Lots of topics. But I let slip one idea that really upsets people with a vested interest in the current public televison model in the U.S.

My shocking and insane recommendation:
Continue reading “PBS solution: implosion / explosion” →

WaPo cage match

Great article over at the PBS-hosted MediaShift Idea Lab on the battle for attention, resources and respect between the completely separated online and traditional newsrooms at the Washington Post companies. The money quote:

The entertaining part of the drama lies in the pronouns. …the finger-pointing always targets “those people,” “those folks,” and other, less polite, designations. …”we” generally takes a breather.

Sound familiar? I hope not, but alas it’s still all too common.