PBS announced this week that it will add video, including previews from its award-winning series and specials, as well as exclusive online features and program excerpts to its YouTube channel.

The broadcaster currently offers more than 700 videos to its 3,000 YouTube channel subscribers and said that consumer demand led to the decision to add more content. PBS said that Bill Moyers Journal featuring interviews with two candidates seeking party nominations for the presidential election (Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich) drew more than 11,000 views since they were posted on the PBS YouTube channel two weeks ago.

The expanded offerings will help broadcasters reach a global audience and it will assist in fulfilling their mission of spreading awareness, unlocking mysteries, and exposing truths, PBS said.

“Our channel on YouTube has enabled us to have a meaningful dialogue with viewers,” John Boland, PBS chief content officer, said in a news announcement. “It’s critical that we engage as many people as possible with our programming. Posting PBS content on YouTube has helped us drive viewers back to watch the entire programs on our local stations’ broadcast, and has helped increase usage of these programs’ companion Web sites on pbs.org.”

This is great news. Now the work is to make access easy and to build community around the content. For having content online is the starting point. The objective is to use both the “Air” and the Web to enhance each other.

Imagine having a Jane Austen community built around the Jane Austen offering on Masterpiece Theatre? Imagine a Dog lovers community built around Nature’s material on Dogs? What would such a community do to add more to the content? What would be the depth of the commitment to the producer and to the station as local mashups took place?

More later.

My point is one of commitment – online is the future. A key barrier of a direct channel are the interests of the stations. A way of offering the best of PBS in its full form has to take these interests into account.

There has to be an underlying business model that has a hope of helping both the producer and the station – this is what I am concerned about.

In the end it will not be as simple also as merely making it easy to watch what I want online and having a price that makes sense for the system.

By 2009, all of TV will be available that way. The deeper issue is to add the power of community to the programming. I will say more about this shortly.

Thanks for pushing back – In a short post I have not done justice to the issue and will do better over time
Rob