"Beyond Broadcast" represents the Center for Digital Democracy's latest effort to help realize the full potential of public media—including public broadcasting, but focusing especially on a range of new digital technologies—in the broadband era.
With the inability of the mainstream media, now dominated by a handful of multinational conglomerates, to serve the public interest, and the corresponding failure of the established institutions of public broadcasting to create a genuinely participatory system, CDD believes it is now time for more collaborative and community-based efforts. Just as desktop publishing and Internet communications forever changed the media ecology of the late twentieth century, so will the convergence of online and broadcast technologies (desktop audio and video) affect the early twenty-first century. The old rules of production and distribution have changed, and it is not too early to make sure that the new rules are applied in a more just and equitable manner. Technological convergence, in short, must not be allowed to become the latest victim of media consolidation.
This is not the first time that CDD has explored the contours of the new media landscape in search of opportunities for alternative voices to express themselves. Our initial efforts in this regard include New Media Solutions to Old Media Bottlenecks , the Community Cable Cookbook: A Citizen's Guide to Cable Franchise Negotiations, and a pilot Public Media Caucus (part of a series of meetings involving public media producers, distributors, and other programming-related constituencies, organized by CDD consultant Alyce Myatt).
The Beyond Broadcast report is divided into three parts, encompassing ten sections that examine a variety of traditions, technologies, and platforms for an expanded system of public media:
Introduction
I. Edgewise: The Media Landscape's New Geography
II. Back to the Future: Public Broadcasting in the Digital Age
III. "Do-it-Ourselves" Media: New Opportunities for Alternative Voices
IV. Digital Town Squares: Community Bandwidth in the Broadband Era
V. Twenty-first Century PEG: The Future of Cable Access Channels
VI. Web 2.O'Reilly: The Future of Online Communications
VII. Rewriting the Rules: Public Policy in a Deregulatory Age
VIII. Paying the Piper: Funding Opportunities for New Media
IX. Beyond Borders: International Models of New Media Support
X. Next Steps: Ten Keys to the New Public Media
27 April 2005
The far-right-wing majority directors at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have a secret they don’t want to tell the American public. CPB board Chair Ken Tomlinson and his cronies have kept the results of two “National Public Opinion” surveys under wraps. These documents, buried in an annual report to Congress but neither released to the press nor shared with PBS and NPR, reveal that the overwhelming majority of the U.S. public is happy with PBS and NPR programming. Such conclusions are bad news for the GOP-led CPB board, which is pushing an agenda designed to reshape public broadcasting programming to suit their own ideological biases. Consequently, CPB has refused to make the poll data public.
Convinced that the American people were fed up with programming on PBS and NPR that is dominated by what Tomlinson and company believe to be "liberal" in nature, CPB hired the Tarrance Group, a GOP polling firm. Tarrance has worked for such clients as the Bush-Cheney 04 campaign, Republican National Committee, and Sens. Mike Dewine and Trent Lott. A Democratic polling firm, Lake Snell Perry and Associates, was also brought in to help with several focus groups funded by CPB.
Following its initial 2002 survey, CPB ordered Tarrance and Lake back into the field the following year. Their dismay at the results surely explains why this poll was deep-sixed. Conducted between June 29-July 2003 and surveying 1,008 adults, the National Public Opinion Survey #2 showed that public broadcasting had an 80 percent “Favorable” rating; only 10 percent of those polled had an “Unfavorable” opinion of PBS and public radio. PBS "News & Information 'consumers'” were highly supportive of such programs as the "Newshour," "Frontline," "Morning Edition," and "All Things Considered."
More than half of those surveyed believed that PBS news and information programming was more “trustworthy” than news shows on the commercial networks, including ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN (while between 6 and 15 percent found PBS programming less trustworthy). Similarly, more than half of those surveyed believed that PBS provided more "in-depth" news and information programming than the networks (compared to between 17 and 24 percent who thought such programming was less in-depth). Only about 8 percent thought that PBS’s Iraq war coverage was “slanted.” More than a quarter of those surveyed said the reporting was “fair and balanced” (while 63 percent had “no opinion” at all). NPR received similar results. Few respondents believed that PBS and NPR “coverage of the Bush Administration” was “slanted” (a result that no doubt disappointed those at CPB who had formulated the question).
Finally, more than half (55 percent) said that PBS programming was “fair and balanced," with strong support for its “high quality programming” and as “a valuable cultural resource.” NPR received an even higher approval rating for its programming, including perceptions that it is “fair and balanced” (79 percent of respondents). There was also strong support for government funding of public broadcasting (with only 10 percent of those surveyed believing that the annual $1.30 per capita funding was "too much").
The June-July 2003 poll was followed by four focus groups in September 2003--two groups in Louisville and two in Salt Lake City--selected from those who already "believed that news & information programming on PBS and/or NPR has a liberal bias.” The results once again must have disappointed the CPB conservative cabal. Most participants, according to the survey results, “could not cite specific examples of bias,” (although “a few participants mentioned bias in children’s programming”).
The overarching conclusion of the survey #2 report to CPB was that “public broadcasting is important and relevant.” There was also strong appreciation of the wide range of programming, such as documentaries and children’s shows, on public broadcasting.
The CPB board is on a content crusade against the programming now on PBS and public radio. Perhaps it’s time that a new poll be commissioned--one that asks whether CPB should be governed by a handful of political appointees who wish to destroy public broadcasting.
May 19, 2005
Kenneth Tomlinson is a very busy man, holding down the board of directors chairs at two US government-connected agencies. While better known outside the Beltway for his role as chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Mr. Tomlinson also oversees the U.S’s official propaganda arm—the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG). He has served as chair and member since August 2002.
As chair of BBG, Tomlinson oversees all “U.S. government and government sponsored (non military) broadcasting,” reaching more than 100 million people each week. Among the outlets run by BBG are the Voice of America (VOA, which Tomlinson used to run), Radio and TV Marti (broadcasting to Cuba), and a host of Middle East services, including Radio Sawa, Alhurra (“a commercial-free Arabic language satellite TV channel”) and Radio Farda (aimed at Iran’s Persian-language audience). Tomlinson sees the U.S. government international media effort as “our most effective means of public diplomacy aboard and a critical component of the Global War on Terror.” The VOA's professional journalists have been under pressure to conform to the administration's foreign policy priorities, including reporting on Middle East issues.
Tomlinson’s choice for CPB president--Patricia Harrison, the Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs--is also playing a major Bush Administration role in shaping the U.S. global media (and news) apparatus. As reported May 1, 2005 by the New York Times, Mr. Tomlinson “has made clear to the board” that he wants Ms. Harrison, who is also a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee, to replace Kathleen Cox (who was terminated by Mr. Tomlinson and his colleagues after only serving a few months). Ms. Harrison has worked closely with Tomlinson’s BBG to develop the administration’s post-9/11 “Public Diplomacy” strategy.
But the efforts of Mr. Tomlinson and Ms. Harrison to actively shape public perception of the US abroad are exactly the wrong qualifications to lead CPB. CPB is not supposed to promote the official position of the U.S. government. It’s role is to support public TV and radio’s efforts to provide serious journalism, in-depth opinion, and a wide-range of cultural and community programming. Yet Ms. Harrison’s expertise is clearly focused on the manipulation of public opinion. As she noted before Congress, “[M]edia in all of its forms, from the Internet to print and broadcast, is an important component of public diplomacy.” She has said that “[T]elevision and video products … are … powerful strategic tools for bringing America’s foreign policy message to worldwide audiences.”
In testimony before the House International Relations Committee on August 19, 2004, Ms. Harrison spoke of the post-9/11 government plan to use “all the tools of technology” … to … “increase understanding for American values, policies and initiatives.” This work has included strong U.S. financial and technical support to produce programming, including “documentary productions” and what she calls “good news stories on reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan….” She described how the U.S. is “helping Arab and Muslim journalists produce balanced reports and documentaries.” Using services similar to Video News Release distributors in the U.S., Ms. Harrison said the government is working with the NewsMarket service to help distribute “our products to more than 2,000 broadcasters and news agencies worldwide” (and which “provides routine monitoring and placement reports”). She also talked glowingly of new programs targeted at “youth influencers,” including education ministers, classroom teachers, coaches and parents.
In testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee two weeks after then Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out the U.S. case for the Iraq war, Tomlinson called it “beyond doubt among the most important statements in the war on terrorism, one that everyone in the world needed to hear.” We now know, of course (and many did then), that Mr. Powell had not real facts--just U.S.-inspired falsehoods--as the basis for his arguments. On the CPB board at the time, Tomlinson’s endorsement illustrates how incapable he is of making independent editorial judgments. CPB is not a government propaganda agency, although surely that is the intention of Mr. Tomlinson and its proposed president Ms. Harrison. Mr. Tomlinson has, to put it kindly, conflated his role as America’s Propagandist-in-Chief with the running of what is supposed to be a non-governmental agency that “most effectively assures the maximum freedom” of public broadcasters. He has spent his time manipulating CPB to advance a narrow ideological agenda. (http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/HearingsPreparedstatements/us-sfrc-tomlinson-022703.htm)
Mr. Tomlinson has a serious conflict of interest. He should resign from CPB. Nor should Ms. Harrison be endorsed as the next CPB president. The position requires someone whose background indicates real support for an independent public broadcasting service.
January 13, 2005
The second meeting of the new PBS-inspired "Digital Future Initiative," held yesterday in Washington, DC, did nothing to allay fears that public television is facing a serious identity crisis. Desperate for funding, PBS has helped create a committee that is supposed to help "envision the future of public broadcasting." Based on what appears to be an extraordinarily brief and superficial examination of the plans and potential for noncommercial digital communications, the group is to recommend to Congress that some form of "Trust Fund" be established. Despite a serious lack of public participation (beyond the traditional stakeholders of stations and the PBS network), the Initiative plans to present a proposal to Congress in the next few months.
What is most striking about the five-hour meeting on 12 January was the absence of a public interest programming vision. The new PBS "Public Square" plan, which has been touted as public broadcasting's grand plan for the future, is primarily concerned with gaining access to other distribution platforms (wireless, digital cable, etc). Nothing that was presented suggested that PBS is a network committed to a new generation of programming that would advance journalism, public affairs, independent perspectives, community voices, and the like. Nor was there any indication that PBS planned to take advantage of the power of its digital TV spectrum to create a more expansive noncommercial medium. Interestingly, the future of underwriting and sponsorship was never discussed.
PBS president Pat Mitchell said that the three areas that would mark PBS's future were education, civic engagement, and community partnerships. Much was made of the current role PBS plays in providing educational services, especially to teachers and schools. PBS wants to have the resources so it can provide "on-demand, multimedia curriculum" services, a noble goal. But public broadcasting was designed to be an alternative to commercial media, not just a national K-12 and lifelong learning service.
A series of panels featured station representatives and PBS officials. It's clear that this initiative is designed for this narrow constituency of stakeholders. Left out, it appears, are independent producers, community media makers, and a whole range of digitally connected potential programmers. Some stations said that they were beginning to serve as community media "hubs" or "access units." But in a very revealing presentation, it was noted that the stations expected to actually own the rights to the programming made on behalf of the nonprofit groups they choose to work with (groups like the Boy Scouts were mentioned several times).
The biggest news from the event came at the end. The PBS lobbying group APTS announced it planned to join forces with the Digital Opportunity Trust (DOIT) proposal advanced by former PBS president Larry Grossman and former FCC chair Newt Minow. According to APTS President John Lawson, the group's survey of congressional aides had revealed there was support for a "limited" trust fund focused on education. Vowing "no more quixotic crusades" that would try and get Congress to support serious noncommercial funding, Lawson said they would propose a "digital education" fund. APTS and DOIT would present such a legislative proposal to Congress by mid-February, to coincide with the PBS stations' "Capital Hill Day" of lobbying.
The Lawson-DOIT plan may undermine the plans of PBS and the "Digital Future Initiative" to advance a recommendation to Congress that would also provide more funding for the network. But it is clear that if there is to be a debate on whether we can "put the public back in public television," it will have to come from outside the narrow focus of the stations, PBS, and this Trust Fund group.
10 May 2005
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting wants to have greater control over all PBS programming. Despite its statutorily limited role in content, the GOP-dominated CPB board fashioned a “National Programming Service Agreement” that would have give it unprecedented influence and power over PBS’s programming schedule. CPB regularly provides modest annual funding to PBS to help support its National Programming Service (NPS). For the current contract period (FY 2005-2006), CPB has earmarked slightly more than $26 million to help pay for some of the primetime and children’s shows on PBS.
But for the first time in the 14-year history of the NPS agreement, CPB made a series of legal demands designed to reshape PBS programming to its own conservative and non-journalistic ideological perspectives. According to the contract, CPB wanted PBS to agree that its programming would be governed by its own sponsored research and analysis—called the “CPB Needs Assessment Research and Analysis." CPB’s goal was to secure an ideological "straitjacket" over what should be the editorial independence of PBS programmers.
According to the agreement sent to PBS, each year CPB would “conduct, and convey to PBS documents describing key findings and conclusions of, research and analysis necessary to determine public and audience service needs." CPB would send such material to PBS “on an ongoing basis throughout the year.” In addition, CPB insisted that “at its discretion” it would conduct additional studies and a “comprehensive system-wide needs assessment.” One of its stated goals for this research was to help identify “…what good television programming can provide….” PBS would be required to use this research in formulating its national programming plans.
The “good programming” intended by CPB, of course, is a PBS schedule bereft of serious journalism and independent programming. One can only imagine the kind of TV schedule CPB Board Chairman Ken Tomlinson and his cronies fancy--one dominated by programs where Paul Gigot and Michael Medved meet the ghost of Lawrence Welk at an “Antique Roadshow.” Or--since Tomlinson is part of the upper-class pony set of the Virginia countryside--a show starring the talking horse Mr. Ed, spewing forth on trickle-down economics and private retirement accounts.
In what must be a clear violation of its mandate not to be involved in programming decisions, CPB demanded that PBS supply it annually with a list of the national programs to be made, detailing how each reflected its research. CPB could disapprove using its funds for any individual program it did not find “acceptable.”
CPB also pressured PBS to formally change the network's own journalistic standards. It gave PBS a deadline of June 30, 2005 to “develop and adopt revised standards and guidelines” that were intended to undermine the production of investigative and other serious journalistic programming. Each program might be required to be “objective and balanced,” thus eliminating investigative reporting and point of view documentaries.
In a private memo distributed to PBS executives, the network's vice president and deputy general counsel described the proposed CPB contract as intruding “upon PBS’ editorial independence and integrity… and indicates a desire to control the content of all PBS programming.” Thankfully, PBS president Pat Mitchell refused to sign the contract. A less onerous version was agreed to in April 2005, one that PBS believes doesn’t compromise editorial integrity. But CPB’s leaders still intend to control content on public broadcasting, including the use of its research.
CPB board chair Ken Tomlinson has recklessly politicized CPB. Instead of overseeing an independent agency with a mandate to promote public broadcasting, he has abused his power to promote a narrow, self-serving agenda. Tomlinson must resign. His replacement should be a chair with an allegiance neither to Republicans nor to Democrats--but to serving the American public.
24 May 2005
Ever ravenous to swallow up more media properties, Comcast and Time Warner are poised to jointly carve up Adelphia Communications (which currently has 5 million cable subscribers). Comcast and Time Warner, the first and second largest U.S. cable operators respectively--expect to acquire the fifth largest cable company with hardly a whisper of protest from the two federal regulatory agencies responsible for its approval (FTC and FCC) or from Congress.
In their Application and Public Interest Statement (5mb PDF) to the FCC, filed on May 18, 2005, Comcast and Time Warner claim that this deal will “generate substantial public interest benefits…and will do so without producing any possible countervailing harm.” Of course, this is 86 pages of pure fiction--if not outright lies. Comcast and Time Warner hope that their political clout will win favor and intimidate any opponent. Certainly, their phalanxes of lobbyists, bought politicians, and nonprofit groups on their financial dole are already working overtime to grease the wheels of the regulatory approval process.
But a close examination of the Adelphia deal should set off alarm bells, especially for those who are concerned with diversity of local and national video programming, and the future of broadband expression.
First, the deal further concentrates the power of already too powerful companies. With “70% of (cable) subscribers in the top 20 U.S. markets” and more than 21 million customers overall, Comcast has virtual veto power over any new programming ventures. Time Warner currently serves almost 11 million cable subscribers--primarily very large systems with 300,000 or more customers. The two giants not only will control more cable consumers--they will “swap” various systems to help each gain further control over markets and adjacent geographical areas. Called “clustering” in the industry, this practice gives one cable company primary control of a vast amount of electronic real estate. It eliminates competition and ensures that one cable company will be an area’s dominant provider. In what surely is a new contribution to George Orwell’s “doublethink” and “doublespeak” lexicon, Comcast and Time Warner assiduously avoid the use of the term clustering--knowing that it conveys the kind of tight market control they actually seek. To the FCC, they prosaically describe it as “enhanced geographic rationalization.” Of course, it is cable consumers and the public interest that is being “rationalized” here.
Time Warner will be "geographically enhanced" by controlling almost all of Los Angeles, as well as obtaining systems in Cleveland, Dallas and the Buffalo area. Comcast will gain huge territory in Florida, as well as systems in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia.
By extending its “super clusters” (as the industry actually calls them), Time Warner, for example, will be able to determine what new programming can be made available in the Los Angeles market. And Comcast will similarly have greater dominance in the entire Northeast of the US (where it controls most of the major markets from Boston down to Virginia). The two will also increase their individual and collective power to shape programming nationall --including the emerging video-on-demand and interactive TV markets. As John Malone recently told Broadcasting and Cable magazine, “the consolidation of the [cable] business has got to the point where I don’t believe that an independent programmer has any chance whatsoever of doing anything unless he’s heavily invested in and supported by one of the major distributors…. [T]here’s no way on earth that you can be successful in the U.S. distributing a channel that Brian Roberts doesn’t carry….” (Mark Robichaux, “From Darth Vader to Yoda,” Broadcasting and Cable, April 4, 2005).
Even after the deal is consummated, the two companies will continue to work closely together. They already control, for example, the inDemand pay-per-view movie service.
In addition to concerns about the fate of video programming competition, the two companies will further consolidate control over the residential broadband market. Since both companies are opposed to a policy of non-discrimination (as well as ISP competition), expect them to use their high-speed data clout to favor their own content and services.
Finally, one is struck with several ironies about this deal. First, both Comcast and Time Warner tell the FCC that they are just helping the poor Adelphia customers who were left stranded by the financial mismanagement of its former owners--the Rigas family. But it is very likely that in the tight familial world of the cable industry both Comcast’s Roberts family and Time Warner’s Richard Parsons knew exactly how Adelphia was being run. As good cable "costra nostra" soldiers, Comcast and Time Warner (along with the rest of the TV industry) kept their silence, even as consumers and cities were being defrauded (thus setting the stage for the eventual sale of Adelphia).
As for their claims that they are good citizens--tell that to the shareholders and pension funds burnt by Time Warner’s purchase of AOL. Hopefully, someone at the FCC and FTC will actually read the many lawsuits filed against the company. Comcast, of course, is known for a corporate governance structure that gives CEO Brian Roberts and family the kind of control that even Disney’s Michael Eisner would envy. It is also notoriously anti-union.
The stripping of Adelphia by Comcast and Time Warner doesn’t serve the public interest. Regulators actually concerned about it will need to speak out, as will the public.
Clearly, the FCC simply can’t trust Comcast and Time Warner to be honest. Take, for example, their claim that the deal “will accelerate deployment of advanced services on Adelphia systems.” According to the cable giants, Adelphia has “lagged” in deploying broadband, for example. And Comcast and Time Warner--surprise--suggest that only they can fix the problem. Yet, according to Adelphia’s CEO, the company has “upgraded…95%” of their systems so they can offer almost everything that Comcast and Time Warner promises. (Mike Farrell, “Definitive Adelphia Sale Bolsters 2 Top Cable Ops,” Multichannel News, April 25, 2005).
As the United States enters a critical period of transition from old media to new, we must foster the growth of innovative, robust forms of public media. Especially with the emergence of new distribution platforms--digital television and radio, expanded cable and satellite services, and various forms of broadband media--now is the time to build a new, more participatory media system, first by assessing and then taking advantage of these technological advances. Clearly defined and sustainable public space must be part of the foundation of the new media landscape, not merely tacked on as an afterthought, as has been the history of public media in our country. Our communications landscape, in short, requires a media system that offers opportunities for democratic expression and public service applications, restricted neither by government constraints nor by private interests.
The Center for Digital Democracy, accordingly, working in collaboration with consultant Alyce Myatt, has developed a plan to define, promote, and expand the public media. The values of such media--including respect for diversity, thoughtful analysis, community expression, independence, and creative risk-taking--must be a significant part of our media environment. But precisely at a time when we should be expanding our public media options, harnessing the power of new technologies to foster new forms of independent expression beyond traditional broadcast, the concept itself has once again come under attack.
Through a series of “Public Media Caucuses” involving public media producers, distributors, activists and other programming-related constituencies, we will encourage meaningful deliberation and action to help shape the future of public media. We recently launched our first community meeting in San Francisco in conjunction with INPUT, the annual international public broadcasting conference. Meetings have been held in Seattle (October 7) and Los Angeles (October 16), and over the next two years, CDD and Ms. Myatt will convene additional meetings that reflect both the diversity of the country and the breadth of the public media field itself.
Through an analysis of new media opportunities in television, radio, and the online environment, we will help communities make meaningful decisions about how best to ensure the evolution of public media, and then collectively implement those decisions. In this manner, our project will create a framework for a public media movement in the several caucus communities and beyond, engaging media makers; media arts centers; community radio entities; public, educational, and government (PEG) access organizations; media funders; and such consumers of public media as community-based service organizations and agencies, libraries, and educational institutions.
Among the issues for which strategies and tactics will be developed (and which were covered in our initial San Francisco caucus) are the following:
• Infrastructure
• Sustainability
• Governance
• Role of public media in society
• Movement building
After the initial series of caucuses, CDD will play a role in supporting the work of the groups involved to achieve their self-defined goals. Our objective is to help create a healthy public media ecology that includes public television stations (especially in light of their new digital, multi-channel capacity); expanded cable-based public access centers (where many PEG facilities now have digital and broadband functionality); locally focused community radio outlets; alliances with “Indymedia” organizations; and public-interest use of cable, satellite, and new forms of telephone and broadband video distribution.
We are working in concert with other local and national organizations and individuals to elevate the issue of independent public media and its critical role in civil society. We are particularly interested in combining the efforts and good thinking of media makers with the work of media activists and reformers. As the debate over the future of PBS evolves, we believe that our Public Media Caucus project will make an important contribution. Elevating the profile of public media and building an expanded distribution infrastructure are necessary--not just for the future of PBS but for the future of the nation as well.
June 1, 2005
Alyce Myatt, Consultant
Center for Digital Democracy
amyatt@nyc.rr.com
Overview
The Panel
Working Groups
Next Steps and Recommendations
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
— George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
We are a nation whereby the overwhelming majority gets its information from television and radio. The media shapes our opinions about ourselves and others; it informs our actions and inactions. A diverse and independent media is vital to the well being of any democratic society. As technology prompts the evolution of the media landscape, it is imperative that we assess its specific impact on our public media.
Unlike efforts in some other countries, the United States has lacked an open, deliberative process to determine our public media needs and how to meet them effectively. On May 3, 2005, the Center for Digital Democracy convened a participatory caucus to begin a series of dialogues to address this issue. The caucus was held at the Ninth Street Independent Film Center in San Francisco, California.
The aim was to begin outlining what public media should be in the United States and how we, the independent media community, can help make it so. Scheduled to coincide with INPUT, the annual International Public Television conference for independent producers and television professionals, this particular meeting was the first of what is to be a series of meetings designed to engage the independent media community, media activists, public and private institutions, elected officials, and the public at-large in developing strategies and tactics to ensure a vibrant public media ecology.
The three-hour caucus was attended by over 70 individuals representing a broad cross-section of the field of independent media, including television and radio producers; film, video and radio distributors (broadcast, cable, satellite, festival, and educational markets); independent media membership organizations; foundation and government funders; private donors; members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Minority Consortia; media librarians and archivists; educators; media activists; and a representative of the United Kingdom’s Office of Communications.
The caucus began with brief overviews of public media from the perspective of four panelists followed by a question and answer segment. The group then broke into smaller working groups facilitated by the panelists to outline needs and identify strategies and tactics. Finally, reconvened as a whole, the small groups reported-out their key points. This document consolidates that information and outlines specific action steps and recommendations for moving forward.
What this document is…
The information described below is by no means definitive. It offers facts and opinions, suggested strategies, recommendations, and opportunities for further exploration. The report-outs from the working groups are ideas-in-formation requiring research, documentation, and discussion before any implementation can be considered. The frequent use of the term “we” generally applies to members of the field of independent media, although the term, on occasion, refers to “we as a society.”
While primarily a record of the caucus, this document does offer a degree of context and analysis from the author and works to provide a framework for engaging the field of independent media around the issue of public media.
What this document is not…
This is not a strategy document, although there are many seeds of ideas that can be formulated into strategies for establishing a well-governed, sustainable, and accountable U.S. public media sector that serves the needs of our nation.
Moderated by consultant Alyce Myatt (bio at the end of this section), the caucus began with presentations by individuals representing four unique perspectives:
Jeff Chester
Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), a nonprofit organization devoted to ensuring that the digital media serve the public interest. A former journalist and filmmaker, his work has appeared in many publications, on radio and TV.
In the 1980s, Jeff led the national campaign that prompted the creation by Congress of the Independent Television Service (ITVS) for PBS. In 1990, he co-founded the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, which focused on protecting artists' rights. The following year he created Ralph Nader's Teledemocracy Project on cable TV reform. In 1992, he co-founded and served as executive director (until 2000) of the Center for Media Education, a leading force on such issues as Internet privacy, media ownership, and children's TV. At CME he led the successful campaign at the Federal Trade Commission to impose conditions on the merger of AOL and Time Warner. He also co-directed the campaigns that led to stronger rules by the FCC on children’s educational TV, and to the passage of the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Under Jeff’s leadership, CDD co-led the two-year campaign against proposals by the media industries and FCC Chairman Powell to eliminate critical ownership safeguards. His work helped generate unprecedented public support opposing the Big Media lobby. He has also campaigned to maintain the Internet’s open and non-discriminatory architecture, through work in the press, Congress, and in the courts.
In 1996, Newsweek Magazine named him one of the Internet's fifty most influential people. He established CDD in 2001 with the support of a Stern Family Foundation "Public Interest Pioneer" award.
Chester holds an MSW in community mental health from UC Berkeley. He is currently finishing a book for The New Press on the digital media and the public interest.
As a member of the panel, Jeff provided a historical overview of the activism efforts by individuals and organizations that resulted in the creation of ITVS and the Minority Consortia.
Martha Wallner
Martha Wallner has been a practitioner in the non-commercial media sector for many years, working as a producer, programmer, administrator, consultant, and advocate. As the former advocacy director of AIVF (Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers), she organized to win public interest provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and to defend public broadcasting and arts funding from Congressional attack. She co-founded and for 7 years coordinated the Deep Dish TV Satellite Network and has worked with many other media organizations including Paper Tiger TV, The National Radio Project, and Berkeley Community Media. As an active member of Media Alliance, she’s worked on a number of different media policy issues and is currently completing a master’s degree at the Film and Media Studies Program, CUNY.
Martha presented an update on current media advocacy and reform activities and gave a brief overview of public media spaces beyond those represented by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio such as public, educational and government (PEG) access cable channels.
Brewster Kahle
Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian, Director and Co-Founder, The Internet Archive. Since the mid-1980s, Brewster has focused on developing transformational technologies for information discovery and digital libraries. In 1989 Brewster invented the Internet’s first publishing system, WAIS (Wide Area Information Server) system, and in 1989, founded WAIS Inc., a pioneering electronic publishing company that was sold to America Online in 1995. In 1996, Brewster founded the Internet Archive, the largest publicly accessible, privately funded digital archive in the world. At the same time, he co-founded Alexa Internet in April 1996, which was sold to Amazon.com in 1999. Alexa's services are bundled into more than 80% of Web browsers.
Brewster earned a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1982. As a student, he studied artificial intelligence with Marvin Minsky and W. Daniel Hillis. In 1983, Brewster helped start Thinking Machines, a parallel supercomputer maker, serving there as lead engineer for six years. He is profiled in Digerati: Encounters with the Cyber Elite (HardWired, 1996). He was selected as a member of the Upside 100 in 1997, Micro Times 100 in 1996 and 1997, and Computer Week 100 in 1995.
Brewster provided a vision of the future of media distribution by describing the activities of the Internet Archive. His briefing was supplemented by Rick Prelinger, founder of the Prelinger Archives and an archivist, writer and filmmaker. Rick described how he has increased revenues from his archives since making them widely available for fair use through the Internet Archives.
John J. Valadez
John J. Valadez is an award-winning director who has been producing documentaries for national broadcast for the past ten years. His films have been exhibited theatrically, on television in the United States, Canada and Europe, and at major international film festivals and cultural institutions including: the Berlin Film Festival, Cinema Du Reel, The Bombay International Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the High Museum of Art Atlanta, Lincoln Center and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C.
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, John is the son and grandson of Mexican-American field workers from Washington's Yakima Valley. Before going to film school in New York City, John traveled across the United States, Asia, and the Middle East. He taught photography for a year at a small rural village school in central India and worked for the Indian government on a reforestation project in the state of Madhya Pradesh.
John directed the critically acclaimed film Passin? It On, about a former leader of the Black Panther Party who was falsely imprisoned for nearly twenty years. It aired nationally on the PBS series POV. He went on to direct the first hour of the PBS documentary series Making Peace. He directed The Divide, which is the first hour of the nationally broadcast public television series Matters of Race, and he produced for the new PBS series Visiones: Latino Arts and Culture. John was a writer, director, and producer of the nationally broadcast PBS special Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise. John’s most recent documentary, High Stakes: The Battle to Save Our Schools, aired on CNN as an episode of "CNN Presents." He is currently directing two forthcoming public television documentaries: The Head of Joaquin Murrieta and The Last Conquistador.
John provided his perspective as a filmmaker attempting to navigate the changing landscape. He also described an initiative of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers to assess the role of people of color within the PBS system.
Alyce Myatt
Alyce Myatt is a multimedia consultant providing analysis and strategic planning services for independent media organizations and the philanthropic community. Chief among her clients are the Center for Digital Democracy, a media policy organization and Free Speech TV, a 24-hour progressive television network; other recent clients include MediaWorks, a media funder network, OneWorld TV, Emerson College, TVE Brasil, the Heinz Endowments, Roundtable Media, and the Annie E. Casey and Skillman Foundations.
Prior to her return to consulting, she was Vice President of Programming for the Public Broadcasting Service. Her responsibilities included project development and oversight of independent film, PBS Kids, and the Ready To Learn initiative. Previous to re-joining PBS, Ms. Myatt was program officer for media at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation where she administered their grant-making for documentary film and television, community outreach related to media, community-based media arts centers, and public radio. Preceding her work at the Foundation she was president of her own consulting firm, providing program development services, strategic planning, and brand management to a variety of clients in television, radio, and multimedia. Clients included Rainbow Media, Blackside Inc., EchoStar, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Sunbow, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, WGBH, WNET, and WNYC Radio. Ms. Myatt was creative consultant for Sesame Workshop’s cable venture and was previously director of Children's Programming for the Public Broadcasting Service. Her production credits include the Smithsonian Institution, Nickelodeon, and ABC's "20/20."
Alyce Myatt serves as a board director or advisor to Auburn Media at the Center for Multi-faith Education, the Center for Rural Strategies, the Center for Social Media at American University, the Emerson College Alumni Association, mediarights.org, the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture and Witness.
Alyce served as moderator of the caucus and is the author of this report.
The panel presentations were followed by the formation of five working groups under the themes of:
How do we create an infrastructure that ensures the ease of use among producers, distributors, and users of public media; an infrastructure that supports television, radio, the Internet, and other platforms such as gaming, telephony, pod-casting,and whatever other communication platform comes into being?
PBS and NPR are often perceived as the sole components of our public media infrastructure, receiving the bulk of attention and financing. There are, however, additional structures that have or are gaining a significant role in our society and should, therefore be fostered, maintained, and kept robust. The full public media infrastructure comprises multiple platforms, networks, institutions, and individuals. It spans television, radio, the Internet and, increasingly, it is wireless. It is local, national and, with the web, global.
The current infrastructure includes the over-the-air broadcasts of PBS and NPR and their local stations; community media in the form of public, educational and government (PEG) access cable channels; C-Span; direct broadcast satellite channels such as Free Speech TV and Link TV; the radio networks Pacifica, AIROS, and Radio Bilingue; Internet-based outlets such as Indymedia, the Internet Archive, and AlterNet; and the burgeoning infrastructures of Low-Power FM and municipal wireless.
Additionally, there are Internet-only networks in evolution that are aggregating and adapting media originally designed for television and radio. Their aim is to distribute to the public through broadband technology. Examples are undergroundfilm.org and the Open Media Network.
Critical infrastructure issues are threefold: the quality of the content that feeds into the public media infrastructure, access to and ease of use of the infrastructure, and the financial and mechanical health of the structural underpinnings, the plumbing, as we transition to a totally digital environment.
At this moment in history the media infrastructure is a moving target. It would be wise to consider and incorporate a variety of technologies, high and low, to be able to effectively and efficiently go from the creation of content to the consumption of it by the end user.
The public media infrastructure, however, is not simply a matter of platforms – bricks and mortar spaces are very much a part of it. These include television and radio stations as well as community-based media arts and communication technology centers.
The infrastructure is also composed of people. Three primary stakeholders with their associated issues have been identified: producers, distributors, and users.
Producers require consistent funding sources to support the creation of their content. In addition to foundation, government and limited license fees offered by the public media sector, producers and their membership organizations must explore new financing models. These should include revenues derived from educational markets (curriculum development in addition to the sale of the finished product), 2nd and 3rd broadcast windows on competing networks, increased exposure through the Internet and DVD sales, and pitches to non-traditional funders who would value the utilization of the finished product because it supports their interests.
Membership organizations representing producers should take an active role in advancing legislation to secure consistent, unencumbered government support for independent producers supplying the public media sector.
Licensing procedures, including fair use, need clarification. The field of independent media makers should work towards creating guidelines, standards and, if necessary, legislation to ensure that elements needed for creating new works (including music, images, and other limited portions of previously created work) are available for fair use.
It’s imperative that the independent creative community get out in front of the digital transition and take full advantage of the additional channel capacity that will be available.
Distributors who continue to work under conventional paradigms are functioning as roadblocks and are running the risk of elimination. They, too, need to carefully examine the landscape and reinvigorate their portion of the public media sector.
New business models to generate sustainable revenues, including those that incorporate a web component, must be established. This involves a significant change in the perceived value of the Internet and must be accompanied by an aggressive pursuit of market share. The decreasing cost of bandwidth, the refinement of BitTorrent, the advent of content distribution by the telcos, and the growth of media subscription services are all new opportunities for exploitation by distributors.
We need new ideas and we need to create new forms of grassroots distribution. There are 350,000 book clubs in this country. Why can’t there be more audio/video clubs, a cine club movement? (filmconnection.org is an example.) We should promote the grassroots use of independent media – screenings and discussions in small groups, church groups, libraries, social and economic justice organizations related to how they can get involved in issues highlighted by the films. In service of distribution, civic engagement and community outreach activities can be better utilized to reach broader and underserved audiences. Mediamakers should accompany the screening of their work whenever possible.
Technology now allows us to send media to multiple publics, even simultaneously. We should create a high-tech consortium of distributors (e.g., the independent booksellers) and integrate all of our distribution schemes. Proven successes can be found, such as the Public Radio Exchange and documentaries that have been selling straight to the consumer through print, online, and on-air advertisements. We could effectively elevate the profile of public media with critiques posted on MoveOn.org, AlterNet, and through other media outlets. Distribution should fully exploit multiple technologies and develop greater efficiencies for content flow across the media field, not just distribution to the end user.
There are a rainbow of possibilities within the current PBS system that include West Link, NETA, and other program services delivered directly through satellite uplink that bypasses the central broadcasting system. There’s an overstock of programming: programs that have aired nationally only once or twice and quality programs that have had limited local or no release. Free Speech TV, Link TV, Deep Dish, and community access stations could work with PBS stations and negotiate air time.
Political pressure and fear of marginalization must be overcome. The so-called “digital divide” should not inhibit progress in exploring new distribution strategies including unconventional syndication and licensing approaches.
We need to be more open and strategic with each other across the field. We should do better at sharing databases of progressive organizations and the enlightened public sector.
Future stakeholders should be identified and alliances formed. This includes elements of our society that have a vested interest in what a thriving public media sector can offer but have yet to be a part of the discussion.
It is critical that media be available when, where, how the audience wants it. Video-on-Demand programs are becoming more-widely available, personal video recorders (PVRs) like TIVO allow you to watch any program whenever, and a number of programs, like Frontline, are streamed on the web and available in their entirety for free.
The system of delivery has a direct correlation to audience size and can determine the ultimate impact of a particular work.
The “portability” of media is increasingly gaining in importance, whether pod-casts, DVDs, or video downloads to a PC or to a wireless cell phone.
Community members are rapidly becoming media makers. The public media sector can empower this effort by providing training and resource information.
As the world becomes more and more media saturated, finding quality media that is of interest and/or serves a particular need becomes more and more of a challenge. Therefore, the aggregation of content by “trusted sources” and strategic marketing and promotion becomes critical.
How do we financially sustain the infrastructure we put into place? What new models of financing do we need to explore? Should we incorporate multiple models of financing? Should we employ a tax system such as that in the United Kingdom? Can we count on a portion of spectrum sales? Do we institute advertisements in public media?
The current PBS system, with its station membership model, was established during the Nixon era. While a small portion of PBS’s funding comes from the federal government, its primary source of revenue is based on fundraising by the local station. They, in turn, pay fees to national PBS for programming and other services. The studio resources at the local level are under-utilized and generally not open to the public. There is limited interaction with independent community and limited engagement with average television viewers. How does PBS overcome the need to attract wealthy donors vs. meeting its mission to serve all? This requires finding the right strategy, language, and program mix for a more diverse audience that can then be transformed into members.
Financially sustainable public media models exist in the United States and other parts of the world and it may be beneficial for us to examine and adapt them for use more widely. These include models of collaboration on the local level and national government initiatives.
The public media system in the United Kingdom (BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, S4C and the Community Channel) has served its country well, with BBC Worldwide and BBC America extending their reach far beyond their borders. For decades they have provided PBS and other countries with programs and have sold programs and formats to United States commercial broadcasters. They are undergoing a comprehensive review to determine how they will best fulfill their public service mission as they transition to the digital environment. We in the United States should consider studying their review process and adapting several key components to implement a similar review in this country.
Unlike public media in the United Kingdom, until now all public media in the United States has been, ostensibly, non-commercial. This model warrants close examination and, perhaps, revision. Is it possible to have a combination of commercial and non-commercial public media and serve the public interest, maintaining credibility and integrity? In addition to the United Kingdom system, it may serve us well to examine and inventory financial models of other viable public broadcasting systems around the world.
Additional new revenue streams for independent public media could be found with cable operators, including video-on-demand; distribution deals with telcos (the phone companies are rapidly signing-up content producers); and by levying a tax on commercial broadcasters. We must take advantage of the changing market. Whatever systems are developed, however, must have the flexibility to adapt, to mutate, to embrace the larger changes in the infrastructure as they occur.
A key component to sustainability is developing a system that supports creativity. Creativity can be monetized, through license fees, to support the human, technological, and bricks and mortar infrastructure required for a sustainable public media future. Creativity, however, needs to be nourished through exposure to other creative works. In addition to traditional distribution outlets, this creativity exchange can come from new models of distribution such as BitTorrent, microcinemas, a robust public access system, and pod-casts.
There must be a coordinated effort to amplify the issue of sustainability of public media through alliances with traditional public broadcasters, Low-Power FM stations, public access, and other members of the public media sector. There must be more cross pollination between advocates, media reformers, media justice activists and the content creators and distributors.
What standards need to be put into place and how do we maintain accountability? Are there governance systems that we can employ to ensure transparency? What type of governance structure will offer true diversity?
Good governance is fundamental. We are witnessing an encroachment of the federal government into the editorial decision-making of the public broadcasting systems of PBS and NPR. In the current climate money equals policy. The struggle for resources (financing and distribution) often clouds the ability to insist on standards and accountability. We should preserve PBS, but we must also make it accountable. How do we band together to do so?
What would a public media governance structure look like? What can we learn from PEG access as a model in terms of governance? What international models of governance can we review so we don't have to reinvent them? A system of governance for the entire public media sector needs to be developed and adhered to. It must be based on a transparent set of standards and a system of accountability. It must offer true generational, cultural, class, gender, and ethnic diversity.
Who owns public media? Who are the stakeholders in public media? We have to be smart about who has power and influence that might want public media to succeed; people who believe that “If those guys fail, who’s going to be left to tell the truth?” for example, pension funds and underwriters have a vested interest in the truth in order to effectively conduct their businesses. They could become allies. Collectively, the independent media community serves millions, and those millions of people are crucial to what we want to accomplish. How do we unleash that power? Is there a "big tent" where we can all work together to create a transparent, well governed, financially sustainable, public media sector?
What should public media provide society that can’t or won’t be provided by private media? Private media should be held to higher standards than they are currently being held and they must be compelled to meet public interest obligations, but are there particular roles for public media in news, information, public affairs, education, arts and culture, and entertainment?
Public media should be universally accessible and have an unyielding commitment to the public good. This includes mechanisms for informing the public about local, national, and international affairs; the unencumbered ability to investigate and report on uses and abuses of power – devoid of special interests; and a dedication to education, using the broadest and most complete definition, for both children and adults. Public media should be participatory and advance civic engagement. It should present the full spectrum of society, showcasing the arts and culture, history, and the sciences. Public media should be entertaining and fun.
Public media should be representative of local and national populations and offer multiple perspectives. It must be authentic and perceived as such. Public media should respect its audience, viewing them as citizens not consumers.
How we, as a society, use public media in the new media landscape requires study. The process of discovery should be self-determining by the public – locally and nationally.
Historically, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting Service, and National Public Radio were known for programmatic and technological innovation. New, successful formats were developed by public broadcasting and adapted by commercial programmers. Public broadcasting’s commitment to education created distance learning and spearheaded the spectrum analysis process that led to HDTV. Unfortunately, that leadership position has eroded over time. Public media can, once again, serve as a driving force to advance the entire media landscape for content and technology. One explicit role for Public Media could be to foster creative innovation – to take creative risks that the private sector can’t afford but would adopt, and pay for, if proven successful.
How do we form stronger alliances among the media activists and the content creators and distributors, among policymakers and the general public, among individuals, institutions, corporations, and elected officials? How can we use the creative skills of each community to forward an agenda so critical to all?
Inside and outside strategies must be developed and employed. An example of creating an inside/outside strategy is represented by the current situation of CPB, PBS, and NPR. The independent media field must call for federal hearings to examine the condition of those institutions and insist upon de-politicalization, better standards, and greater and more direct accountability to the public. But at the same time, it is imperative that we harvest years of work building alternatives. We must keep strengthening the alternatives as cracks in the traditional public broadcasting system appear.
Those of us who are actively engaged in media advocacy and reform must reach out to media makers and distributors and provide them with information. While independent film and video makers have the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers and the National Alliance of Media Arts and Culture and the radio producers have Association of Independents in Radio, they are not actively and consistently engaged in media advocacy. We must ask ourselves: “What constituencies am I a part of?” We need to inventory the groups in our circle, e.g., Low-Power FM, Public Access cable, Minority Consortia, independent producers, funders, community radio, Action Coalition for Media Education (ACME), etc.
Funders should see themselves as a critical constituency in furthering the full public media ecology: through their grantmaking, through education within their affinity groups, e.g., Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, Grantmakers in the Arts, and the Communications Network, and by educating their grantees and encouraging them to become engaged in the movement to make public media more responsive and reflective of their needs.
Rural parts of the country must be re-engaged as well as urban areas. A central place for information on media activism (the Internet) should be created along with tools to reach non-net users. We must look at grassroots constituencies we’re already working with – start local, or in a particular community (e.g., youth, immigrants, or women).
The independent media field needs to frame media issues for viewers and producers, creating different frames for different constituencies. What’s an individual’s entry point? Do they see themselves as a media consumer? Are they engaged in the digital literacy movement? Are they interested in the preservation of a language group? Are they concerned with their neighborhood? If you’re a media producer, is funding the important issue for you or access to distribution? Everyone has different points from where they can enter the dialogue on public media and how it can best serve their needs. Currently, there is a lot of dissatisfaction with mainstream media. While it’s like herding cats, we must keep articulating our entry-point messaging: “Why public media is important to you…” – we must tell people. And we must reinforce the idea that the public can contribute to finding solutions – increasingly there are spaces for non-professional media makers and “citizen journalists”; their voices can be heard.
Entry points of activism must be found and then strategic communications employed to maintain momentum. For example, information can be posted and linked to websites across the public media sector. We can create media to specifically engage targeted constituencies in public media issues. We can better utilize and cross-promote with the print and online press. We can repurpose our media across media platforms: Democracy Now! is an example of successful cross-media distribution: it’s heard on radio, it’s aired on Link TV and Free Speech TV, its broadcast on public access and public television stations, and it’s streamed on the web.
The Free Press is planning to hold public hearings around the future of PBS. They are very important. They should be nationally broadcast (as should all FCC Hearings – a media “c-span” could be created) and the Free Press should actively engage media makers and distributors in their hearing process.
Why build a movement? Many will say that PBS and NPR are the best we have, but we know they could and should be much better. This can happen if there are more choices – healthy competition within the public media sphere. PBS should be protected, but we must diversify and stabilize the funding for a broader and more vibrant public media landscape.
What should public media be in the United States and how do we make it so?
The ombudsman's column of Aug. 11 dealt with what has been a relatively small but steady number of complaints I get from viewers who are upset at what they see as a steady growth of "commercials," corporate "advertisements" and "sponsorships," as they describe them, on PBS. They feel this undermines the system's basic premise to deliver top quality, non-commercial programming to the public.
The column contained an explanation from a senior PBS official about how funding works at PBS in which she pointed out that public-private funding partnerships — involving individuals, businesses, state and federal governments, foundations and educational institutions — are critical to public television's ability to offer top quality programs, and that corporate funders — operating within restrictive PBS guidelines — have been an essential part of this for several decades now, providing about 25 percent of the total funds necessary.
Some of the most interesting e-mails from viewers referred to in that Aug. 11 column were from parents who were upset that the new PBS KIDS Sprout, a digital channel offered by Comcast to its cable subscribers, contains real commercials — ones that advertise real products — strung between segments of the popular three-hour "Good Night Show," for example. This is in contrast to other popular PBS KIDS offerings broadcast nationally, some of which have "sponsorship" messages, rather than typical "commercials," before and after the actual programs, on PBS-affiliated television stations.
Now, the issue of "commercialism" on PBS has moved, like lots of other things, from broadcast and digital television to the online world of PBS.org.
With PBS seemingly always squeezed for money, the likely move toward gathering additional revenue through at least some online advertising and new "sponsorship" linkages was suggested by top officials in a couple of public appearances last year, although there was no official statement.
But the operation really got started in January when PBS signed a deal with Google, also without any formal public statement or press release at the time, to allow so-called "sponsored links," which are text-only paid advertisements from commercial firms provided by Google, on a small number of its top viewership pages.
Then on Aug. 21, PBS signed a deal with a newly formed online sales division of National Public Broadcasting, LLC, for the sale of display underwriting and digital sponsorships on PBS.org. Beginning on Oct. 1, PBS will allow sale of sponsorship banners on its six major Web categories — Arts, News & Views, History, Science & Technology, Business & Finance and Home & How-To. In addition, they will also allow sponsorship banners, aimed at parents rather than children, on PBS KIDS and PBS KIDS GO! homepages.
So far, I have received one e-mail from one viewer about these two developments, perhaps because not many viewers actually know about them, perhaps because the Google links are fairly subtle, or perhaps because not many people are upset. On the other hand, both PBS actions have stirred up a considerable amount of coverage and comment in the trade press, and among watchdog groups and activists who view them as a violation of PBS's non-commercial charter.
I'll try to summarize these objections at the end of this column, but here are a few links to some of the more comprehensive news accounts about the clash of views on this subject. These include a report in the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 26, others in Communications Daily (no link available) and Variety on Aug. 25, and in Communications Daily and Broadcasting & Cable on Aug. 24. In addition, Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, has been especially active in challenging PBS's actions, and he has also written to me directly about his concerns.
I've written about funding and sponsorship issues on a number of occasions where programs can appear, to me or to some viewers, to impinge on a program's editorial credibility or PBS's editorial guidelines. One example was when several of the funders for a program about Las Vegas had ties and economic interests to the city, even though the program, itself, seemed well done and not under any outside influence. Another was the preponderance of funding for the also well-done documentary about "The Armenian Genocide" that appeared to come from Armenian American sponsors.
In this current controversy, the general debate is over how PBS continues to get its revenue rather than whether this new revenue stream violates, or appears to violate, editorial guidelines in specific programs. So I don't have an opinion at this point on some of these challenges. One further complication is that Federal Communications Commission regulations and PBS's own charter apply to PBS's broadcasting over the airways and not, at this point, to the Internet. So even though communications platforms are merging seemingly every day, this is new ground for both PBS and its critics.
On the other hand, I think the blasts and challenges being aimed at PBS by some of its critics are healthy in the sense that they are forcing, or should force, an airing about how this very important, and unique, public broadcasting service is gliding into a new source of revenue within the online world and whether they are doing so in a way that is consistent with what is widely understood by the public to be their mission and their difference with commercial broadcasters.
For example, one of the things Chester wrote to me, and to PBS, about was the fact that users on the Web site who clicked on one of those Google-provided "sponsored links" would have "information about you collected; a 'cookie' placed on your computer, and that your information may be shared with third parties." Chester said, "I believe such links on the PBS Web site without full disclosure is a potentially deceptive feature of the PBS site."
PBS's Lea Sloan, vice-president for communications, and Kevin Dando, director of education and online communications, agreed. "He asked a good question," said Dando. "We agree there could be more precision in describing what happens to users when they leave the PBS site," said Sloan. Within a few days, PBS provided a much fuller description of its "sponsored links" on its Web site.
It now reads: "Sponsored links are paid advertisements provided by Google. While PBS makes every attempt to ensure that sponsored links adhere to the specific content guidelines, please be aware that when you click on a sponsored link, you will leave pbs.org. These sites may differ from PBS in editorial approach, technologies used, and privacy guidelines. It's important that you make yourself aware of other sites' privacy policies and your browser's security settings when navigating the Internet."
But Chester went further, he wrote that: "PBS should not be engaged in any interactive advertising — on its Website, via its digital broadcast airwaves, or by any method (such as wireless). PBS must not be allowed to become a digital ad-addicted junkie. It should offer the public a totally commercial-free environment as it enters the broadband communications era. We hope that Congress will consider legislation restricting PBS, NPR and other federally supported public broadcasting entities from running any ads at all — including interactive outlets. We believe that PBS's future more fruitfully lies in building up a site that users will financially support — grateful that it will be one of the few places on the planet where they aren't the target of personalized interactive marketing."
"Unlike other public broadcasters around the world that receive the majority of their funding from the country's national government (for example, the BBC receives more than $200 per household through a mandatory television license fee), public television and radio in America must rely on a variety of funding streams to bring the American people the high-quality content and education services they have come to expect from PBS, all the while maintaining our editorial independence and remaining true to our non-commercial mission.
"This is a balance we have successfully maintained for more than 35 years, as evidenced by the fact that the American people have called PBS the most trusted public institution in a national poll for the last three consecutive years." (Ombudsman's note: This refers to a poll taken by Roper Public Affairs & Media. This poll of 1,000 adults between the ages of 25-75 is commissioned by PBS, but Roper says to maintain objectivity, the questionnaire does not identify PBS as the sponsor.)
Sloan continues: "PBS has always received revenue from a variety of sources, including corporate sponsors, individual donations and foundation grants, among others. PBS is approaching online sponsorship in a cautious and responsible way, and will carefully review sponsorship messages on pbs.org to ensure that all messaging is consistent with PBS's non-commercial nature. Particular attention will be given to message elements such as superlatives, overt calls to action, and competitive claims. Additionally, sponsorship messages on sites with children's content will be targeted to parents and caregivers, not children, a practice that also follows our broadcast guidelines.
"In order to keep our renowned content and services available to all citizens, in the last several years PBS has taken innovative steps to develop and build on other revenue generating sources, such as creating the PBS Foundation and supporting Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Major Gifts Initiative.
"It's important to note that our non-commercial mission goes beyond whether or not we allow limited sponsorship messaging. PBS content is based on its mandate as the nation's public broadcaster. Programs and services are chosen independent of their commercial value. This stands in the starkest contrast to other broadcast networks, which make commercial appeal the greatest consideration for all their decisions, across all platforms. More and more, their content is judged on its ability to attract viewers in demographic categories that advertisers find desirable. PBS will continue to uphold a strict firewall between editorial content and sponsorship messages as it has since its beginning."
Aside from Chester, some others views expressed in the trade press about the new PBS moves online include a station manager in Idaho who sees potential problems with state entities with respect to linking to commercial sites, and others, such as Steve Bass, the president of Oregon Public Broadcasting, who was quoted in Communications Daily as saying that "the whole notion of commercializing the kids service" is a concern. He would prefer to see PBS treat its children's services as a "public service and leave it at that. There isn't much money in it anyway," he is quoted as saying.
Susan Lynn, co-founder of the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, said the action would mean there was "less and less difference between PBS and any other commercial children's station," and Gary Ruskin, executive director of "Commercial Alert," was quoted, also in Communications Daily, making a similar point.
On the other hand, Patti Miller, vice-president of "Children's Now," said that her group also worries about the "increasing commercialization across the media." But, she tells Communications Daily, PBS is in "a tough place" because of the decrease in government funding in recent years. "I think this [advertising] issue points to the need for increased federal funding for PBS kids programming. The big question is how do you fund quality educational media for kids? There has to be a business model." PBS, she says, is the leader in providing quality educational content for children and the government should invest more in PBS.