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. 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. (Via Stowe Boyd - from a report he found on Josh Young's blog, Networked News. The report build a compelling statistical picture of the shifting nature of Americans' media involvement. [via Tracking the Flow of Information Into the Home: An Empirical Assessment of the Digital Revolution in the U.S. from 1960 - 2005, by W. Russell Neuman, Yong Jin Parkm Elliot Panek (pdf)]
Try it - please
