TV and Radio and the web

December 31, 2009 at 9:35 am · Filed under Apple, Hulu.com, PBS, Public TV, Video, YouTube

I have cancelled my cable and have been connecting directly to the web for 2 months now. I am not alone.

I am nearly 60 – I am in the slowest group to do this and look at what is going on with the old farts! For the young, the choice has been made.

Why do I use the web?

• What I see is in my control
• There is loads of what I want on the web – mainly documentaries and music
• The pathways there – iTunes, Veoh, YouTube are good enough and getting better. In the US even more choice.
• The better content producers are going there – PBS is a long way along
• No Ads!!!!!!!!!!
• No paying for stuff I dont want
• I would pay for a better experience too

I use a simple mini connector on my MacBook to link to my TV set and use the screen management feature to synch the screens. In 2010 even these simple technical hurdles will go away. A better Apple TV? The new iSlate?

The point is for all who are in TV – the web will be THE channel by 2011.

PS – Radio is going web too (New York Times)

FM tuners are passé. Why include tuner technology to play a few dozen stations when you can harness thousands of radio stations over the Internet?

Unlike standard broadcast radio, Internet radio stations can be heard virtually anywhere (copyright restrictions aside), as long as you have a device that can go on the Web; that can be a PC, a smartphone or a stand-alone receiver.

An Internet radio station may have started out life as a traditional local broadcast outlet, and then management decided that it would be great to let people hear it everywhere. Or an Internet radio station may be nothing more than one person in a basement uploading music or talk to the Web, hoping that someone out there will listen.

Literally thousands of genres of Internet radio exist, from oldies, classical and religious to ultraradical talk, from the right and left. The first trick is finding them, and the next is playing them. Fortunately, with a little information, both tasks are rather easy.

TUNE IN To find an Internet station of a particular genre, start with the basics: a Web search. Type in “60s,” “NPR” or “Catholic” and the words “Internet radio” and you’ll come up with a list and links to those channels.

Another useful source is streamingradioguide.com. The Web site lists more than 14,000 stations that can be searched by genre. While extensive, the list is not complete.

Internet radio hardware and smartphone apps that offer radio transmissions don’t typically accumulate station offerings themselves; rather, they use aggregators, companies that create a selection of channels. On the Web, you can access radio channels directly from those aggregators as well; they include Reciva.com,Radiotime.com, Vtuner.com, 1.fm and Freeradio.tv.

In addition, Apple’s iTunes software (Mac and PC) offers hundreds of Internet radio stations.

So this is the reality – 2010 will be the Tipping Point when Radio and TV move to the web.

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2.0 Another View – A way to deal with the biggest threats to your enterprise

September 16, 2009 at 12:35 pm · Filed under 2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Bryant Park Project, Business Model, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, NPR, PBS, Platforms, Public Media, Public Radio, Public TV, Relationships

I was talking yesterday to a CIO of a major financial services firm. He and his colleagues have been wracking their brains over how a 2.0 view would make a difference. Of course a lot of their discussion revolved around technology and the social aspects both in the organization and outside it.

I bet that many organizations are also having the same internal conversations and being as frustrated as he is.

Looking at where the death threats are is a more productive area of discussion.

For public media Death lurks here – We have to have a much wider based and much larger public that thinks that we are not merely important but VITAL to them. If we don’t we wont make it.

“Wider based” means that we have to break out of our current demographic – of on TV being over 50, mainly white middle class and well educated – on radio of being over 40 and the same.

The challenge of doing this has been the restrictions of our “Air”. We have only 24 hours and one place on the dial.

So to change programming enough to bring in a very different demographic is to piss off the existing foundation with no real chance of adding the new. Example, the CBC have quite good show on the Native Canadian world – my bet is that most of the traditional audience switch off immediately and that First Nation’s people are not going to be tempted to become enthusiastic listeners of the CBC based on one program. This type of programming is lose lose. For NPR it was a new hip morning show called Bryant Park. What station in its right mind will drop Morning Edition for a new entrant aimed away from its main audience?

So long as Public Radio and TV have a secure foundation on their Air – they cannot expand their audience.

Also loyalty and more important financial and voting support merely based on liking content is no longer enough. When I came to Canada in 1972, I was used to the BBC and became a fanatic PBS watcher. There was no other source of good content then. Now there is tons of great content elsewhere. The old tie to content is much weaker.

So how then can Public Media avoid DEATH? How can it expand its reach to a much wider and diverse public? How can it deepen the connection beyond the relatively weak one of content?

An answer is appearing in the work of 70 plus stations working in the 32 worst hit markets in the US where the Economy is destroying the middle and lower classes. In this project – called Facing the Mortgage Crisis – stations are working with each other to pull together/convene groups of community support into a platform that can help people cope with this the greatest crisis to hit most Americans since the 30’s.

This is where the DEATH threat can be answered and this is where Social Media and the whole 2.0 perspective is invaluable.

Here stations are helping people who do not and will NEVER watch our mainstream Air. BUT they do interact with our specialty Web Sites that are focused on this issue and hence on them. More we do a lot face to face. Sometime at the station and many times in libraries and other places of trust such as churches. More, we give the community partners a face and a voice too.

It is the 2.0 web that is at the heart of this ability to offer something meaningful to people who will not connect to our traditional content on our traditional air. Ironically, as the crisis affects all, many of the white middle class are now in the same boat. They too use our 2.0 world as a new resource. In time a common crisis, as in war, brings all together. All people share a common fear and grief. All wonder what to do and how to keep going? All worry about their kids.

I predict that something great can emerge from our web – but it is not about getting more people to watch Nova or listen to All Things Considered.

So what then was my CIO’s Death fear?

I offered up this to chew on. They are in the mutual fund business. Their funds are sold by brokers who do not work for them.

Trust in Brokers, in the market and even in the idea of getting rich by punting in the markets has been weakened. Fund managers still tout their ability to realize performance that can only be achieved by taking huge risk.

What would happen to their business if we had a 1933? After the crash in 1929, the market recovered as it is today. But like today, the market came back independent of how people lived and how the economy at the human level existed. It was a second bubble. The market crashed again and the great depression hit full force. Employment did no rebound until 1941. Stock prices and activity in the market did not return until 1954.

What if we have another 1933 in 2010? Would such a collapse end all faith in the current financial system? What is the risk of that happening – 10% – 30 % – 50% – 60%  – whatever the risk is substantive and worth planning for.

My idea of his DEATH threat was that if they did not do something to show that they could be trusted, that if we had a 1933, they would disappear as did most people like them in 1933.

So how could they become legitimately trusted? How could they hold onto to a public that had lost trust in the system? My advice was this.

Most people are fiscally illiterate. Most know nothing about household economics in the Greek sense of the basics of the human financial life cycle. People know nothing about how to save and why, borrowing, cash flow, how mortgages work, compound interest. Most know nothing about the value of and how risk works. Why you can take risks early but not late in life etc. If they did most would not be in the trouble that they are in now. Most think that it is normal and to be expected that they can get Maddof returns year after year not seeing that such returns imply impossible risk.

The entire fund business is like the food business – we have been trained to seek something that is not sustainable – double digit returns for ever and cheap food forever. Can we train people to be more real? I think not but people can train each other.

Most people now are waking up to the fact that they don’t know enough about money and how it affects their life. They are hungry to learn more. To take control over their financial lives, just as many today are using the web to take control over their health.

What if this firm was to set up a foundation to act as the Trusted Place on the web where people could teach each other all these things?

Here is where all the rules of 2.0 would come into play. The web, interactivity, social groups, partners – the whole gamut of 2.0 is here. By learning how to do this here, the old firm will also then see with new eyes what else they can do back in the mainstream.

I asked in closing what would this mean in terms of the brand and the industry if they were to do this? What if they did a really authentic job of providing the trusted space where people could help each other take back their financial power?

He could see in a heart beat that this would change the relationship – just as I am seeing signs that FTMC is changing the relationship with Public radio and TV.  At first the two worlds of the “Academy” and their traditional business would be separate. But over time there would be some kind of convergence. For who of us knows as much as we should and who of us does not have something to offer?

In time the very nature of the business would change too as will in the end mainstream TV and Radio – but this way the change would be shaped by the active participation of millions of people formerly known and “audience” or “Clients” who right now don’t even have a name.

For what is the label for a person who is part of the ecology that is the new wider enterprise?

So what do you think? Can you radically change your foundation offering without killing the golden goose? Think GM or the Newspapers – all their cash flow came from the old – but DEATH was waiting for sure. How could they have found another part of life where they could have added real value and so attached a much bigger group of people to them?

I am sure that there is an answer. Do you have one?

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Time for Public Media to think about building a web distribution alternative

September 1, 2009 at 9:26 am · Filed under PBS, Public Media, Public Radio, Public TV, Web 2.0

The largest costs for newspapers is of course the paper itself – the paper, the printing and the distribution PLUS all the entrenched union issues. Many are advocating that the only way the “Papers” will make it will be to drop the paper or at least most of the paper as say the Christian Science Monitor has done.

So here is my heresy for the day – maybe this is what Pub radio and TV needs to consider – dropping the reliance on the Air or Cable!

Before you think I am mad, here are three bits of news that you can knit together into a pattern to support this view.

• KCRW – is now going global and is offering a a 24/7 web based radio show – a Curated site! It starts Labor Day! They have the brand and they have the beginnings. of a global audience
  “Santa Monica-based public radio station KCRW today announced the launch of Electic24, a new Web-based music station that promises to “encompass the whole scope of the public radio station’s musical footprint over the last 30 years.” The station will run 24 hours a day and feature picks from the station’s music library, selection of live in-studio performances, and interviews.

  The station, curated by KCRW music director Chris Douridas, is set to premier on Labor Day at 9 AM PST. After launch, users can access the stream by visiting KCRW’s site.”

• KCET is covering the big fire in CA – its transmitter is at risk so it is going full tilt to offers news to its LOCAL audience via the web. (The Current) Back in the day KPBS lost its transmitter during the San Diego fire and had to use one donated by another station. The point here is that everybody in California can access the site via the web

• There are signs that the cable companies have it in for Public TV and are pulling Pub TV channels off the offering – far be it for me to wonder why (maybe pub TV tells the truth?) but there is no doubt that this is a trend and with the shift to digital – Pub TV is vulnerable.

(NYT)“Cable television systems across the country, wielding their new power to pick and choose the programs they carry, are dropping public television stations or switching them to less desirable positions on the cable dial.

Public television officials, who have been protesting this trend, assert that some three million viewers have been lost as a result of the cable-system actions, which have involved more than 200 stations. They also contend that the loss of audience has damaged the fund-raising efforts of the stations. The protests have in some instances spurred cable companies to reverse their decisions.”

Part of the key to the future for pub media is not to get web revenue to match their old Air revenue – that. is the same faint hope that newspapers had. It is surely to transform their costs. Air – like print – is the killer cost.

“Oh we could never do that” – but that is what the news papers are saying. As we can see above there are signs!

There are a number of other events that can help.

• Nearly all the best programs on the PBS system will be available on the web as of next week. NPR has its API and its Mobile platform

Why not take a few stations as an experiment and put as much of the schedule on the web locally as possible and see what happens. The components are there both in terms of content and distribution.

Plus the audience is there – video online is well past the Tipping Point.

Try it – please

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Future of News – Why it has to be web based

April 4, 2009 at 8:21 am · Filed under BPP Diner, Bryant Park Project, NPR, News, PBS, This American Life

Last week, the Giant Pool of Money, won a Peabody award. This was a breakthrough program on many fronts. First of all it was a collaboration between two rivals – This American Life and NPR. Secondly it was web based. Thirdly it was long form. Lastly it took the POV of mystery – not only for journalists but for ALL concerned – including the regulators and the Treasury.

The show shed light for the first time on the complex crisis that confronts us. It gave birth to an entirely new kind of news show, Planet Money, that is extending all the lessons learned by the initiating show.

Here is a video of one of the co hosts – Adam Davidson (The other was Alex Blumberg of This American Life) Where Adam does his best to explain how making this show is changing his perspective on how journalists cover complex stories.

I think that in these few minutes, Adam explains the real revolution that has to take place in news.

He tells of his problem with space and time in conventional journalism. How can you talk about say a problem in mortgage backed securities in just 3 minutes when most know nothing abut them. But this is what people have to do in the time constraints of a audio or Video news program or in the space constraints available in a newspaper. Conventional news simply does not offer the time or the space to cope with complex things.

Linear news cannot inform us about complexity and complexity is our world now.

He talks about the problem of the “Authoritative Voice” the voice of God that is used. As a correspondent in Iraq, he and his wife could always tell the newbies – they were the ones who knew what was going on! It is now quite clear that even Henry Paulson did not know what was going on. So why should any journalist pretend that they did? Adam is saying that the right place for a journalist is to be a seeker on behalf of the public.

Top down voices of authority cannot illuminate complexity either. Only an invitation for conversation can unpack complexity’s meaning.

In the first few weeks of Planet Money, I talked with Adam and Laura about their plans and how they might be able to use a web based show. Here in summary is what he told me. In essence they were going to prepare a a big all you can eat buffet. It would suit every taste and would be open 24/7. (BPP was a diner)

• Daily the team would offer up nuggets, small dishes, of current and topical news that they found or that an ever expanding circle of “fans” as per BPP, would send in

• 3 – 4 times a week they would offer up a podcast, a longer form piece – a small audio magazine – this could be and is sliced and diced and added into the main magazines such as All Things Considered, News Broadcasts, Local shows, Morning Edition – what they learned with BPP is that it is better to add great new content into the blockbuster items rather than try and compete with your self. This way PM builds a wide audience by using the network effect. Adam also is a regular guest on the New Hour – thus PBS and NPR are getting closer as well

• Every 6 weeks or so – a long form show such as Giant Money in collaboration with TAL.

• The POV was always going to be – EXPLAIN! The presenters of the show would be representing us. They would start from a position of NOT KNOWING and not understanding the jargon. The irony is that even the so called experts have told Adam that they too have learned from the show. The problem being that they often know a lot about a little but also cannot see the larger whole. So the “VOICE” that we hear is a questioning, uncertain voice. When I say “Voice” I mean literally the timbre of what you hear. The deep profundo voice of God is not allowed on the show. I think key to this voice are Laura and Caitlin who sound like your favorite sisters and not your mother or some Amazonian know it all with power hair. The guys are quizzical and sound a bit like your bright university guy friend who is helping you understand calculus or statistics.

Of course everything is online so it is all available at any time. Hence the “banquet” metaphor.

I find all the hand wringing of conventional journalism a bit lame. 3 minute sound bites, 8 inches of text and the VOICE from the burning bush is actually making the world harder to comprehend.

Don’t all the problems that confront us fit this new kind of treatment? For do you really know what do do in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you really have the answers to health or to energy? Do you know anyone that really has the answer to our education system?

Is not part of our problem that conventi0nal journalism makes it all but impossible to get to the root of these issues?

I think that the limits of “space” and “time” on conventional media do make it worse. These limits reduce all to bits and bites and give a stage and power to rabble rowsers – look at the cheerleaders in the financial sector!

Planet Money will look like the Model T Ford in 30 years time. But it will I think be seen as the Model T, as the expression of an entirely new and appropriate way of approaching the world that we now inhabit. A world that is made so complex by its vast array of interconnections.

As with all things on the web – the real shift is in relationship and hence POV.  The time and space contraints of traditional media drive the top down expert/god POV. This fitted a less interconnected and hence less complex world. But with a hyper linked world, we live in much more complex times. Only a hyper linked way of gathering and offering the news will fit.

That is the revolution.

Hats off to Adam and Alex – to Ira Glass and to Ellen Weiss

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News – Context or Commodity?

March 30, 2009 at 8:45 am · Filed under CPB, NPR, PBS

The reasons for the death of Newspapers and Network TV are many. But one thing is for sure – that more and more people don’t read papers or watch Network news. The excuse given by those who work in both is mainly that they have put all the good stuff on the web for free. They go on to lament the fact that the public are losing their connection to Quality news.

I think that this is self serving rubbish that is simply not born out by the facts. Are the newspapers and is Network TV really the quality source of journalism that they all claim?

When I saw this chart the other day – my little grey cells began to fire big time. What might it mean that NPR’s audience may have increased by nearly 100% over the last 10 years and newspapers decreased by 11.4% and network news by 28%? These are staggering differences and surely demand an explanation?

Here is my hypothesis. It is my observation that most papers and most of the Network News organizations have given up offering context and have made News into a disconnected stream of soundbites and headlines. NPR’s rise has been driven by a focus on providing people with the context and the deep understanding of what is going on.

• For all the claims for investigative journalism and getting to the truth and the bottom of things, Network TV and most papers follow the adage “If it bleeds – it leads” Loud disconnected headlines. Almost no seeking for a context. Almost never asking why or what is really going on. In fact they have made the news more and more confusing by not offering up the bigger picture.

• Generally the papers and the TV networks got the two biggest stories of our time wrong! They generally bought the whole deal about going to war. They generally missed warning signs of the financial disaster that has unfolded. Most still have nothing helpful to say about both today. Most still offer only today’s headlines. Most still confuse the people even more.

• NPR and other Public radio Producers (WBEZ, WBUR etc) and PBS (Newshour, Frontline. Bill Moyers, Charlie Rose etc.) on the other hand have made a conscious effort to help us understand what is going on. Planet Money has become THE Show on the financial crisis with over a million downloads of its podcasts a week. Margaret Warner is becoming an expert in her own right on the complexities of Afghanistan. It was a special moment to see the regard that Ambassador Holbrooke and General Petraeus gave her last week. She knows as much as any westerner can about what is going on there.

I think that it is this POV – to find the context – that has pulled NPR and Pub Radio away from the herd. I think that there is a hunger in America to understand and that Public Radio and TV are on track to meet that hunger.

Yes the web is important – NPR’s podcasts reach a new un-served audience that is 15 years younger than the radio. Yes most of PBS news is now online and free. But many papers and the networks have most of their news content online too.

In complex times CONTEXT is surely what has made the difference?

Now I see even more exciting moves as CPB realizes that if the resources of Public Radio and TV News and Opinion are aggregated and made even easier to obtain that the lead in audience will widen further. This is now being worked on.

In 2010 Pub Media will go beyond offering context as content but will find the best ways of aggregating this and making it very easy to access and to participate with.

As they get closer to being able to do this I think that the economics will come.

In the next post in this short series, I will talk about the last leg of this stool – the participation aspect of the work. I will look at how the voice of the citizen can be brought in and how Pub Media is planning to transcend news itself and help citizens return to the great tradition of America – of citizens solving their own problems locally.

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