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| Tuesday, October 3, 2006 |
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In other words, be more public 
| | Just came off a long and interesting conference call in which the topic was public radio, and the challenges of adapting to what Terry Heaton calls an "unbundled" world, and David Weinberger calls a "miscellanized" one. (His new book is titled "Everything is Miscellaneous".) |
| | I've gotta run out and do some errands right now, but I want to get some thoughts down before I leave. |
| | First, radio isn't about "content delivery". At its best (and the best of public radio is its best), it's about informing people and relating to people. "Content delivery" is less than either. When you truly inform people you form them. They are changed by what they now know and didn't know before. This is equally mundane and profound. That we are all authors of each other is to the great advantage of public broadcasting. Many years ago, in one of my few conversations with the great and underappreciated Larry Josephson, he told me his philosophy of radio is simple: it's personal. That's not easy to admit or deal with, but there's a big pony in there somewhere. |
| | Second, quit copying commercial broadcasters. This means, a) relying more on listener relationships and contributions than on "underwriting" that amounts to advertising, and b) simplifiying complex websites that ape the worst of what commercial broacasters (and, for that matter, newspapers) do — which is put up craploads of internal links that trap the user in a maze and exposes them to advertising along the way. Look into River of News approaches to what the station is doing. Think about how people listening to radio in cars also have mobile phones and iPods. Add that up. |
| | Third, face the fact that everything you broadcast will, and should, be available on an a la carte basis to everybody in the world, eventually. Then support making that happen. Then make it possible for listeners downloading individual podcasts of those items to pay for them on a voluntary basis. Concentrate on making this stuff valuable, not scarce. |
| | Fourth, look to relationship for saving the local stations. With individual listeners, and especially to individual citizen journalists who can contribute to news coverage. |
| | Fifth, get in front of the citizen journalism movement. This is where the most sources for the most stuff will come from. Think in terms of AND logic, not OR. For example it's not BigTime Journalism vs. Podcasters and Bloggers. It's BigTime Journalism PLUS Podcasters and Bloggers. CJs of today are going to be the first sources and stringers for all kinds of news and public affairs programming of tomorrow. |
| | Sixth, get ready for VRM, or Vendor Relationship Management systems, that support the user or customer expressing their intentions for whatever it is that you provide as a station, and which support payment by the customer for exactly the stuff that they want. |
| | Gotta roll. Might add some more later. |
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