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Tuesday, October 3, 2006
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 Tuesday, October 3, 2006
started 10/3/2006; 10:45:27 AM - last post 10/5/2006; 4:49:05 PM
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Doc Searls - Tuesday, October 3, 2006 
10/3/2006; 2:45:27 PM (reads: 6463, responses: 5)
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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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Jake Shapiro - Re: Monday, October 2, 2006
10/4/2006; 12:43:39 AM (reads: 949, responses: 1)
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Right on!
Nice to see a Larry nod here too (here are his PRX offerings: http://www.prx.org/user/radioart)
An encouraging aspect of public radio is that enough of the folks involved believe in the public service mission of what they're doing to transcend the tricky transitions underway. At least that's the optimistic view.
There is definitely a risk of adopting models and approaches (and language, as you're helpful at cautioning) of commercial enterprises with different ends and means.
Two of the intertwined dimensions are "distribution" and "engagement" (which you delve into a bit with the points about relationships), and there are also differences between the vantage points of producers, stations, and listeners.
Just managing a transition to on-demand delivery of public radio programs is proving thorny, though there's been more progress recently and more collaboration between the networks, stations, and producers that need to disentangle their relationships a bit to make it happen.
Your second point is important to address soon, because public radio in the digital domain is looking to underwriting/sponsorship (aka ads) as the leading source of revenue to sustain a means of offering openly syndicated content. It may be preferable to paid-only access (pretty much a non-starter) but it brings other risks and missed opportunities.
I agree that the strategy overall has to be one of offering everything everywhere and more, and it would be a mistake to forego the voluntary contributions that currently make up a critical part of the funding for the whole system (though because those dollars flow to stations NPR itself is less sensitive to them which might explain the emphasis on underwriting at the national level).
A big yes on #5 too.
I guess I need to bone up on VRM, not sure what that's all about yet but I'm ready...
- Jake
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Jim Bursch - Re: Monday, October 2, 2006
10/4/2006; 9:49:30 AM (reads: 1046, responses: 0)
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There are two inexorable laws that all media needs to understand and appreciate to survive and thrive into the future:
1. He who pays the piper calls the tune
2. You get what you pay for
I love public radio, but I am also of a libertarian bent, so back in the day I had a hard time squaring the government funding. It also disturbed me that a publicly funded medium was soooo superior to the commercially funded alternatives.
But then I came to this conclusion -- the quality of public radio has nothing to do with government funding; it has to do with the funding that comes from listeners like me. It's rule number 1.
And the reason commercial radio is so bad is because of rule number 2. I don't pay a dime for commercial radio, and they don't even ask me to pay. They don't give a sh*t about my dime, and ultimately, that affects how they serve me -- namely, they don't serve me. They serve their advertising masters.
This is what informs MyMindshare (http://mymindshare.com), a consumer advertising cooperative that seeks to put advertising dollars in the hands of consumers so they can fund the media that serves them. You are invited to join us at MyMindshare.com
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Jim Bursch - Re: Monday, October 2, 2006
10/4/2006; 10:05:39 AM (reads: 893, responses: 1)
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Oh, and one more thing.
The Broadcast model is to public radio...
what the Paper model is to newspapers.
Get it?
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Doc Searls - Re: Monday, October 2, 2006
10/4/2006; 6:47:55 PM (reads: 1075, responses: 0)
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George Luft - Re: Tuesday, October 3, 2006
10/5/2006; 8:49:05 PM (reads: 902, responses: 0)
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Doc, I hope you develop this topic further. Today's newspaper post is also spot on.
While you don't speak directly about (the dwindling number of) community radio stations, many of them do these things already. Although, they could probably use some help especially with the technical aspects of making their stuff available online.
We are fortunate to have one such station in our area (Southern Connecticut and Long Island): WPKN. Check them out at WPKN.org. Feisty and independent. 100% listener supported. And along the lines of one of the other commenters, we get much more than we pay for.
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