Where’s the public in public broadcasting online?
David Johnson November 13th, 2006
Ok, so I’m blogging this a day late, but the one who keeps coming up a dollar short online is public broadcasting because neither NPR or PBS are enfranchising their audiences to build communities. How did MySpace get positioned to become the biggest clearinghouse of unsigned musical acts online? How did YouTube become a billion-dollar video powerhouse in less than a year? Because they gave the PUBLIC a platform and the people not only got in the game, they changed the rules. The Internet is the platform that can truly deliver the promise of what public broacasting SHOULD be. So why am I still tuning out annoying pledge breaks as I hit the paypal donate button on the grassroots podcaster sites?
NPR has a legit claim to be the podcasting giant, but they got there by shovelling all things broadasted to mp3. Ask newspapers how well the shovelware is working. With their legacy, brand and affiliate structure, public radio should own all things audio online by providing a web 2.0 service-oriented podcasting and community site to allow “members like you” to sound off, rock out, jam on, and get your groove on. Thank you. You know your niche, it’s sound, now own it.
But at least NPR has a strategy and has carved a very nice niche for itself in the newsscape. I miss audio theater, variety and music, but I stand on my seat and applaud them for bringing another alternative to the increasing homogenous information diet. I have no idea what PBS is doing online except for producing the most confusing jumble of microsites and out-of-date program guide I have ever seen. Some of the problems are due to the decentralized structure: Most nationally televised content is produced by a handful of PBS stations who naturally are responsible for digital presence. Still, content sharing, nodal structures and collaboration are the earmarks of the Web, and if PBS stations can’t play together, that’s just not right. The very concept of public broadcasting should be a natural fit with the open source philosophy.
So where is the content collective? Why is former MTV VJ Adam Curry better at building community than radio and television stations that depend on the community for their very existence? Public broadcasting online should be the ultimate long tail of user-contributed content, with a natural geographical cross matrix linking the affinity groups. Web startups kill themselves to create communities and carve space in niches, and here are organizations that have them built-in and are squandering the potential and promise by not giving the public any space to share.
It is almost as annoying as being begged to call now for fifteen minutes straight. Maybe public broadcasting is only interested in our pledges, and not our contributions.
9 Comments Add your own
1. Mindy McAdams | November 14th, 2006 at 7:07 am
And what about the opera programs? I have to turn off my local NPR affiliate every day as soon as Morning Edition ends (like, one minute ago today) because they put on the worn-out greatest hits of dead 200-year-old music. They advertise themselves as being our home for American jazz, but they only play jazz programs in the middle of the night.
The old people’s music is clearly aimed at their favorite donors. Well, you’re pushing me out and encouraging me NOT to become a donor.
It may sound like I’m just whining about music — but this is part of the community mission too. If you want to be a community station, get hip to the fact that the majority are tuning you out as soon as they hear those put-me-to-sleep violins!
2. thedetroitchannel | November 14th, 2006 at 7:47 am
yes, but morning edition is a kick ass show, isn’t it?
i haven’t listened to commercial radio in the morning for a few months now.
3. Emery Jeffreys | November 14th, 2006 at 10:40 am
At one point, NPR claimed that all many of their podcasts were original content — not always stuff that had been heard on the air. In fact, they claimed at one point the only way you could hear some of their content was via podcast. Has that changed?
4. Catherine Stifter | November 14th, 2006 at 3:58 pm
(disclaimer - I’m a former NPR producer and trainer, now independently producing community media)
Interesting rant, but you leave out some critical connecting info, such as the fact that NPR has always employed gatekeepers for their content, in the case of news–editors–while MySpace and YouTube are free spaces for anyone to upload content. Don’t confuse NPR with a free (that is, open) space for public media.
It will be interesting to see what Andy Carvin does to help NPR realize its on-line community building potential.
For now, put NPR in the same box with newspapers, doing top down, on-line experiments, not throwing open the gates to see who is ready and waiting to join in.
5. david johnson | November 15th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Web 2.0 is about two things: community and services. These are things that are compiled into public broadcasting’s kernel.
Actually, I think Andy Carvin has great promise to deliver on the promise. He’s always been one of the “guys-who-get-it.” The real trick is if he can create a culture that trickles down to the stations and then tie it all back together.
The key for established media, be they public, private or corporate, online is to stop focusing on the garden gate and start thinking about the garden. Think of the core content as the hardscape, then cultivate the soil and let the ivy of citizen content grow around it. And as you get ready to type the reply to carry the metaphor into the weeds, remember that the gardener needs to keep tending the garden.
Public broadcasting in all its forms is perhaps the most vulnerable to the challenge of grassroots or community competition because it is dependent upon public funding in both tax dollars and donations.
YouTube may be a public free-for-all, but the cream does rise to the top. The hard thing for the gatekeepers to come to grips with is now that we have the tools to better measure what the mob likes, the gatekeepers may not like the answers. The balance between “editor’s picks” and “most popular” is the sweet spot.
6. Jens Hewerer | November 15th, 2006 at 11:11 am
Regarding audio theater: We produce it for children on CDs. This way they can listen to it again and again, do not rely on a schedule and can have their own CD player and freedom in their room.
But we call them audio adventures and just published the first two episodes of our first series: Billy Brown!
http://www.KiddioAdventures.com
7. Jesse Thorn | November 21st, 2006 at 3:59 pm
I agree completely. I produce a small public radio show that was one of the first to hop on board the pod-train two years ago. I’m glad to see a lot of great repurposing, and I think it serves the public good, but I’d also love to see some of NPR’s resources dedicated to new ideas.
8. rob martin | December 16th, 2006 at 11:39 am
The PUBLIC IS in public broadcasting. They are there and listening by the millions every day. Just because they don’t seem to serve your particular clique as well as you would like them to doesn’t mean they are doing something.
Can public broadcasters do a better job online? No question they can. But why would they waste time, bandwidth and scarce energy on recreating YouTube or MySpace or Gather when they already exist.
Why is it that so many people expect public broadcasting to be everything to everyone yet no one wants to support it (in relative numbers here)? DO they need a new business model ? You betcha ! My suggestion to all those who jump on the “yeah, they should be doing that” ! - get off your butts and help them, your public broadcasters aren’t sitting around staring at the ceiling looking for something to do … just a suggestion ….
9. that girl | March 3rd, 2007 at 2:40 am
Just because the public has voted on an item’s popularity doesn’t mean it’s any good. What NPR and their equivalents world wide (I’m in Ireland) have is their curatorial content. Read Barry Schwartz if you want to know what too much of everything does .. I want a public broadcasting system that is led by journalists with a clear editorial policy who will, in turn, point to what they think is quality radio - then I know what I’m dealing with…if I want to know what “the public” want then I’ll go to my local coffee shop or log online to the world of blogs to find out.
The idea that public broadcasters have to offer both content and the mechanism for “the public” to generate and comment on that content is a curious one - what are independently curated blogs for then?
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