How can NPR and PBS reach a much more "diverse" audience?
The debate is currently framed as reaching more people who fit the classic definition of "Minority" in America.
My response to that POV is that it misses the core of what NPR and PBS are about in their broadcast aspect.
Their programming - I will come to their other aspect in a moment - has a POV about inquiry. This POV is limited to the number of people in America who share the value of inquiry. Inquiry as we can see from the rest of the media landscape is a large market but it is not the mass market.
For NPR and for PBS's programming - I use this word carefully - to expand beyond "Inquiry" as a value would mean that it risks losing all its audience.
Imagine the New Hour as an ET POV? Or keep the New Hour and run a Celebrity ET kind of show next to it. Imagine a section in ME that has NPR's version of Rush?
This POV of Inquiry is not a race, gender, or religious feature. It is a personal value that transcends all these surface issues. To be clear, most white Americans do not value this value!
So how to reach all Americans and how to reach a much larger audience?
In the Facing the Mortgage Project we are facing all the people who live in the cities where the project is operating. The key is to understand that a station that is part of this work to help all in its area who need help with the financial crisis is that the main connector is NOT THE PROGRAMING!!!!!
Stations connect via all sorts of channels many of which are provided by our partners. They use the web on a very focused basis - the local website is becoming THE INFORMATION resource for the community - people who have no interest in All Things Considered or the News Hour or Masterpiece - will use the web site and many now are contributing their own stories to it.
In the FTMC project, we are creating a new relationship with ALL PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY - by a focus on helping ALL. This is not part of the traditional programming. But is does draw on the value of our traditional programming which is that we are trusted. No other organization in the community has the trust that public radio and TV has and so this gives us the ability to play this role as community convener.
Our programming has to have a POV that meets the POV of inquiry. If we dilute that we lose it all. Our work as Community Convener enables us to meet our obligation to serve all. The economic crisis that confronts Main Street America gives us the opportunity of a life time to meet this obligation.
So how then can we stay in our POV of Inquiry and expand our traditional audience?
If we do our job of Convening all America, then we have the right to go beyond the borders where there are millions who do not have programming that is trusted and that has a POV of Inquiry.
There are two places to start that I see. Canada and the Diaspora.
The CBC, a centralized bureaucracy, is retreating from local to a central factory. All along the border are communities of Canadians with no local presence. Take Kingston - a university town with a area population of 150,000 people. KNPR is just across the river. The nearest CBC station is Ottawa - hours away by car.
There are many Kingstons now. In 5 years my bet is that the CBC will only broadcast from a few major cities. already the local stations such as my own on PEI have no local budget or autonomy.
Taking NPR's figures for Inquiry Audience of about 30 million, The norms of conversion in Canada would suggest a potential audience of 3 million. The audience is there as WNED Buffalo knows who gets significant support from Toronto.
Getting this audience is not a matter of using the signal and merely offering the current offering to Canada. The CRTC will not allow that.
I think that the offering will mainly be via the web and will have to include a big local effort in the cities involved. There will be a "bureau" in Kingston. The Kingston Offering will be wrapped around the content from the traditional offering. Over time more and better Kingston and Canadian Content will appear. For as more border towns join, the Canadian network emerges with the ability to cover all what is going on in the country.
My second and related expansion would be to link the Diaspora - link the Indian, East African, Mexican - whatever groups in America to home and back.
Let's look at one group as an example. The Ethiopians and Sudanese.
When you get into a cab in Washington you notice two things. The Cab driver comes from this part of the world and he is listening to one station - WAMU the NPR local News Station.
Many conversations with many cab drivers in DC have given me these insights:
- All were brought up with the BBC World Service - they are seriously into Inquiry and Radio that they can trust - they trust no state media at home. On a wider note not much of state media or any media in many places can be trusted
- They all speak English - On a wider note the number of middle class English speaking people in the wider world is likely in the billions now - in India there is a middle class who all speak English of about 300 million - more than the total population of the US. China will be graduating about 30 million university students a year about the size of the total population of Canada.
- Many listen to NPR also to improve their English. Being fluent in English and knowing what is going on the wider world is the key to employment in the developing world - So a trusted English speaking global media also helps those who seek to learn better English - a huge market
- The community is spread all over the US and Canada - many have family members spread all over and back home - staying in touch is very very very important. There is a soccer league that is part of the glue that offers games and hence meetings all over the continent
- Ethiopian food, music, literature, history are vital links in keeping the diaspora healthy - they are also making inroads into the local non Ethiopian culture. In England Tikka Masala has become the national dish - showing how a culture from away can affect the host culture - there is a huge opportunity to build on the cultural traditions and to use them as a bridge.
- All the Diaspora have family back home. Staying in touch and knowing what is going on is very important - there is not much trusted context and news on a day to day basis
As with looking at Canada, making progress with the Diaspora is not as simple as offering up the existing content.
As with Canada, I suspect that the web is the key as is enlisting the active participation of the community both in America and Canada for that matter and the community back home.
Each Diaspora will develop their own "Voice" - most of the material that they produce will be added to the traditional content of NPR and PBS - some of it will be used nationally and globally. Something happens any where in the world and NPR and the News Hour have access to local Bureau that they could only dream of today!
All this fussing about diversity in the classic sense is a huge distraction.
If stations get behind serving their community as conveners, then all are served. All are served in a much more important way than merely offering a program.
If the system serves Canada, the border stations become very successful and the system gets millions of nee members.
If the system serves the Diaspora everyone wins. Local stations, the communities, the news service and freedom and truth in the world.
Is this going to be hard to do? I suspect not.
As we are learning - start in a few places and discover how to do this. Get 2-3 border stations to think this through and invest as the CPB has done with KETC and FTMC a modest sum to get it going.
Try with one Diaspora - why not WAMU and the DC Ethiopians.
If we get the model, then we can roll it out more easily with every new group.
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