Scenarios for the Future of Public Broadcasting

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Scenarios for the Future of Public Broadcasting

• What Does Public Service Mean in the Multi-Choice
  Digital Age?
  
• Channeling Public Interest MediaReporting on
  the Public Broadcast System

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Strategic investment scenarios

• Sustaining investments
• Sustain the legacy business
• Best practices improvements
• Collaborations to lower costs and gain scale

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Strategic investment scenarios

• Repositioning investments
• Often disruptive innovations (à la Clayton
  Christensen)
  
• Reposition in new directions consistent with
  original mission
  

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Über trends in electronic media

• Digitization
• Personalization
• Democratization

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Über trends digitization

• Content meets mathematics
• Noiseless generations for production
  distribution
  
• Metadata data about data
• Find, manipulate and distribute content with
  great granularity and flexibility
  
• Repurpose content
• Extend the life and value of media assets
• Search

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Über trends personalization

• Content meets self-organization
• Tagging (folksonomies)
• XML syndication (RSS, Atom)
• Attention (metadata that tracks to what people
  are paying attention)
  

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Example Tagging at flickr
Tags / norway
Sample photos from the RSS feed of the tag
norway from flickr.com
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Example RSS

• Really Simple Syndication (better Really Simple
  Subscriptions)
  
• Its very easy to implement.
• It aggregates in one place whats new in web
  content to which you subscribe.
  
• Combined with personalization, it will provide a
  powerful distribution platform for pubcasters
  (or, a powerful competitor).
  
• Open a Bloglines.com account and try it.

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Über Trends democratization

• Content freed from gatekeepers
• Inexpensive but powerful production tools
• Low barriers to effective distribution
• Search and referral substitutes for marketing

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Example Podcasting

• Works with any portable media players, PCs, Macs,
  and most news aggregators.
  
• Means adding an enclosure to an RSS 2.0 item (can
  be a link to any file MP3, WMV, etc.).
  
• Specialized aggregators can automatically sync
  your files with the player.
  
• Implications for how we do journalism and
  production.
  

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The long tail meme

• From Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson
• The future of entertainment is in the millions
  of niche markets at the shallow end of the
  bitstream.
  
• Real time is hits oriented. For non-real time
  long-tail distribution, success can come with
  much smaller numbers.

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The long tail meme

• Amazon, iTunes, Netflix, et al. have much larger
  inventories than corre-sponding brick-and-mortar
  stores.
  
• The average record store has 40,000 tracks, but
  Rhapsody has 735,000.
  
• The average Barnes Noble carries 130,000
  titles..., but more than half of Amazons book
  sales come from outside its top 130,000 titles.

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The long tail meme
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Broadcasters must adapt to

• A multi-platform future
• A multi-choice future

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A multi-platform future

• Were evolving from distribution over one
  platform to distribution over multiple
  platforms
  
• Over-the-air transmitters
• Internet and broadband
• Cable and satellite
• Physical media
• Mobile and portable devices

From Dave MacCarn, WGBH
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A multi-choice future

• The number of channels through which users will
  be able to access our content will continue to
  grow.
  
• Increasingly, users want control over when and
  where they use our content.
  
• Increasingly, users want choice and
  personalization.
  
• Successful public broadcasters are morphing into
  digital libraries.
  

From Dave MacCarn, WGBH
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The new media divide

• People are taking control over their media
  usage.
  
• My time (non-real time) is the fastest growing
  segment of media usage.
  
• I want what I want, when I want it, the way I
  want it.
  
• So its less and less audio vs. video or print
  vs. electronic, its ...
  
• Real-time vs. my time.

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Who does my time serve?

• People who have already left linear programming
  for other reasons
  
• Career
• Chores
• Community
• Family
• People who cant get enough of what they like on
  your stations.

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CPB TV primetime study

• PTV viewing was small in two segments compatible
  with PTV
  
• Innovative Inclined
• Distracted Unavailable
• Together, they are 26 of viewers
• Limited free time
• Frequent users of technology
• Medium-to-high users of public radio

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CPB TV primetime study
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Real-time economics

• For real-time broadcasting, distribution costs
  scale perfectly ( for 1 for 1,000,000), but
  time for content is dear.
  
• Rewards AQH listening/viewing.
• Programmers are tacticians.
• Programming strategy is finding hits and
  competing with other hit-programmers.

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My time economics

• For my time distribution, costs scale
  incrementally with use, but time for content is
  limited only by storage.
  
• Requires a business model to cover incremental
  costs.
  
• Rewards cumulative access over time.
• Programmers are curators.
• Make the tail lo-o-o-ong.
• Programming strategy is to make content
  personalized and accessible.

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Public Service Publisher

• A my time, long tail repositioning
  initiative
  
• Public broadcasting stations and independent
  producers
  
• Partnering with Open Media Network for content
  distribution component
  
• To include citizen-supplied media
• Broadcasters can serve as enablers for community
  public service content

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Public Service Publisher

• Multi-platform content delivery from a common
  user interface
  
• Internet
• Free
• Subscription
• Pay per use
• Cable VOD
• DTV broadcast data caching
• Physical media (DVD, CD)
• Station-supplied
• Amazon, Netflix, et al.

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Public Service Publisher

• Users can access via portal or station affiliated
  pages
  
• B2B services
• Station program guides
• Fair use recording

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New revenue sources

• Member benefits (more content, convenient times)
• New audience revenue (relationship building,
  underwriting)
  
• User compensation for access to niche, premium or
  hard-to-find programming

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New revenue sources

• Assets in permanent distribution build record of
  community value, important for tax-based,
  foundation and philanthropic funding
  
• B2B revenues (rights to distribute, marketing
  content for derivative works)
  
• Distribution services (datacasting, load
  balancing, my time traffic)

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Pull urgencies

• Opportunities
• My time use growing rapidly.
• PBCore, broadband, off-the-shelf core
  technologies are in place.
  
• Long-tail businesses are succeeding.
• Pubcasters and partners have great and deep
  content assets.
  
• There is substantial interest in use of my time
  electronic media by other public service
  organizations.

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Push urgencies

• Threats
• Competition for pubcasters is coming from the
  for-profit sector.
  
• Its no longer a one-platform world. If we cling
  to one platform, we risk our mission.
  
• XML-based syndication to portable devices is
  growing and presents a real bypass to linear
  programmers.
  
• Barriers to entry are low. If we dont do it,
  someone else will.

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Contact information
Dennis L. Haarsager, Associate VP
GMEducational Telecommunications TechnologyPO
Box 642530Washington State UniversityPullman,
WA 99164-22530Contact info www.haarsager.org/co
ntactWeblog www.technology360.comResources
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