Robert Paterson's Weblog

Network News - A cancer - The Opportunity for Public Media

Tom Shales was disgusted by the pettiness and mean spirit of ABC's anchors in the debate last night. Here is Tim Robbins' view of what the press has to do now. (Here is the video and the whole thing) ABC sink to new lows last night.

In all seriousness folks let’s face it we are at an abyss as an industry and as a country and I know that saying we are at an abyss isn’t the stuff of keynote addresses but all sarcasm and irony and rude pithiness aside, we are at a critical juncture in this nation’s history.

This is a nation divided and reeling from betrayal and economic hardship and you, the broadcasters of this great nation have a tremendous power and a tremendous potential to affect change.

You have the power to turn this country away from cynicism

You have the power to turn this country away from the hatred and the divisive dialogue that has rendered such a corrosive effect on our body politic

You can lift us up into a more enlightened age or  you can hide behind that old adage ‘I’m just a business man ... I provide what the audience wants.

Well I’m here to tell you that we don’t need to look at the car crash, we don’t need to live off the pain and the humiliation of the unfortunate, we don't need to celebrate our pornographic obsession with celebrity culture.

We are better than that  [applause]

Some of you are trying ... some of you are inspiring people [laughter] towards altrusim and compassion with your programming

Some of you are trying to lift the civic dialog into a more responsible and adult arena

But I know you do so at the odds of ratings and job security

It is really up to the leaders in this room ...it is up to you -- the scions of this industry, to leave behind forumulas and focus groups and your own fears of job security ... only with your courage and your vision can we begin to imagine a world of broadcasting where the general consensus of those with real power say ‘enough is enough’

Now is the time to move away from our lesser selves

Now is the time to stop making money on the misfortunes of others and the purient and salacious desires of the public

Now is the time to admit and recognize that we aren’t just businessmen, but the guardians of the human spirit with a responsibility to the health of this nation.

That we can lift this  country up with our programming. That instead of catering to the gossips, and the scolds, and the voyeurs, we can appeal to the better nature in our audience -- the better nature of what this country is all.

This is a country filled with people of great compassion and tremendous generosity
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This is a country that has survived dust bowls, and depressions, that united to defeat Hitler and fascism and communism. We are resilient people and a tenacious people ... and we are ready for change.

And we are ready to imagine a new broadcasting industry aesthetic, that respecting the better nature of the American people that produces shows that promote strength instead of fear. That does not divide, but inspires. That does not promote hate, but unity. That will not tear the weak down, but build up their strength.

Imagine a world of broadcasting where the American people are encouraged to reject despair and distrust. And when they turn their TV’s and radio’s off at night and go to sleep, they possess strength and unity and compassion for those they disagree with.

That’s not out of the question ... You can make that happen.

It will be difficult ... and will fly in the face of conventional wisdom and standard operational procedure.

Do we have any choice? The road we are on is leading us to a corruption to our former selves. We are better than that. You can help us reclaim our better nature. Our perfect union. It isn’t necessarily a matter of country before profit. Or of patriotism and truth before personal comfort. There could be money to be made in appealing to our better selves. [murmur and laughter]

Wouldn’t that be great.

And if there isn’t and we came out of it a little less rich but more unified and healthier as a nation, wouldn’t that be something we could all be proud of.

Thank you.

Blackwater Kills New York Times Dog

Read all about it here

Social Media and Politics

Senator Allen was taken down by his own behaviour captured by video, placed an YouTube and not responded to until too late.

Warning to all those in politics - if you miss this and your opponent does not you will lose. Warning to all business leaders - same deal!

Here is the Times today with the details -

But for those who’ve been sickened by the Bush-Rove brand of politics, surely the happiest result of 2006 was saved for last: Jim Webb’s ousting of Senator George Allen in Virginia. It is all too fitting that this race would be the one that put the Democrats over the top in the Senate. Mr. Allen was the slickest form of Bush-Rove conservative, complete with a strategist who’d helped orchestrate the Swift Boating of John Kerry. Mr. Allen was on a fast track to carry that banner into the White House once Mr. Bush was gone. His demise was so sudden and so unlikely that it seems like a fairy tale come true.

As recently as April 2005, hard as it is to believe now, Mr. Allen was chosen in a National Journal survey of Beltway insiders as the most likely Republican presidential nominee in 2008. Political pros saw him as a cross between Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush whose “affable” conservatism and (contrived) good-old-boy persona were catnip to voters. His Senate campaign this year was a mere formality; he began with a double-digit lead.

That all ended famously on Aug. 11, when Mr. Allen, appearing before a crowd of white supporters in rural Virginia, insulted a 20-year-old Webb campaign worker of Indian descent who was tracking him with a video camera. After belittling the dark-skinned man as “macaca, or whatever his name is,” Mr. Allen added, “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”

The moment became a signature cultural event of the political year because the Webb campaign posted the video clip on YouTube.com, the wildly popular site that most politicians, to their peril, had not yet heard about from their children. Unlike unedited bloggorhea, which can take longer to slog through than Old Media print, YouTube is all video snippets all the time; the one-minute macaca clip spread through the national body politic like a rabid virus. Nonetheless it took more than a week for Mr. Allen to recognize the magnitude of the problem and apologize to the object of his ridicule. Then he compounded the damage by making a fool of himself on camera once more, this time angrily denying what proved to be accurate speculation that his mother was a closeted Jew. It was a Mel Gibson meltdown that couldn’t be blamed on the bottle.

The end of TV - The Mid Term Election

The New York Times says it all -

Cultural footnote … One other piece of conventional wisdom that can R.I.P.: Election night would be a do-or-die test for the three new network anchors as they squared off for the first time.

With only an hour of prime-time air time for Brian Williams and Katie Couric and 90 minutes for Charles Gibson, they were all also-rans.

By the time they came on at 9:30 to 10 p.m. E.S.T., cable and Internet election coverage had already captured the most engaged audience (and, I suspect, that younger demographic prized by advertisers). Worse, it was too early to project the crucial outstanding races. The anchors were left with little to do but recap and pick over what much of the audience already knew by that hour.

All three prime-time election specials were more about network branding than what viewers really wanted by then — fresh election news, ASAP. My guess is that many in the audience quickly surfed elsewhere.

UK First Blog TV Station Begins

Well it had to happen.

(Via Sacred Facts)Two of the UK's leading conservative bloggers - Tim Montgomerie and Iain Dale - are planning to launch a political TV channel on the Internet next month. 18 Doughty St TV will launch on October 10th and broadcast for four hours a night.

The Youtube trailer is here

Surely this is just the beginning of a Multiverse like we have never known. It reinforces my growing belief that Content itself will not be enough. Content will move to infinite and to free.

I think that all those in production - NPR!!! Need to question the belief that people will continue to pay for content when they will find so much of it and for  free.

So what then? We have to look for building engagement and attraction. As Michael Goldhaber says - all economies are based on something that is scarce. In ancient history it was land. Recently it was capital. Content is not SCARCE. It is a commodity. What is scarce is attention and meaning.

In the Tipping Point - Gladwell talks of the need for "Stickiness". We see in games today that it is the ability to co create and to participate that is the most sticky attribute.

Participation is not a feature of the new media - it will be the centre piece.

This is why I like the Robin Hammam idea for the BBC so much. His plan is to use a wide filter of bloggers to screen for both meaning and engagement. In his model we see BOTH a filter to create meaning and also Participation. We also see the work has potential to enable the community to get together to do things together - the media is really a call to community - a community that can be local or of interest. But most important a community that wishes to act together. We see this in Guilds in gaming.

Warning - DO NOT OVER INVEST IN UNIQUE ONE WAY CONTENT. Soon no one will pay you for it

The New Newsroom

Jeff Jarvis picks up what the Telegraph will do to set up its newsroom of the future. The full article is in Roy Greenslade's piece in the Guardian.

From a trend perspective does this not apply to any newsroom in Public Radio?

No split between print and web and less editorial steps - Snip follows -

"For the journalists, this means that there will be no split of functions between print and web. And, in addition to providing text, they will also transmit audio and video for podcasts and vodcasts. And many staff are already building their new skills, appearing on camera to read their own scripts - downloaded on to a self-operated auto-cue - and cutting their own footage after barely an hour’s training.

Oh, good, my students won’t think I’m crazy when I push the end of the monomedia journalist.

Roy also reports that they are reorganizing their output into separate products.

Instead of producing articles once a day for a printed newspaper, they are going to work to four deadlines - in the jargon, “touchpoints” - throughout the day. After what appears to have been exhaustive research of modern audience needs, the paper’s team - led by Will Lewis, the managing director (editorial) - have come up with a round-the-clock schedule of differing “products”. Mornings are for text, so the concentration will be on supplying stories online. Lunchtime into the early afternoon is for video and audio. Late afternoon, drive-time, will see the production of PDF pages, what Lewis calls the “click and carry” service. This allows people to download sets of pages and then print them out, in colour or mono, in various sizes to read on their way home. Evening is then the time for “communities”, with material aimed at the bands of enthusiasts for football, gardening , travel, whatever floats their boats."

The Times is Up To Something Important

The Times has started a Fantasy Football Blog. This is part of their Convening Community Strategy.

So what? You may say. My bet is that they have put a toe into a very important area - Convening Social Space.

At the moment they have a bunch of staff that are now free of the Time editorial grip who can fantasize about football. They are building a "Social Amplifier" into their mainstream coverage of Sport. I bet that soon you will see big names from outside the Times join in.

Think more my friends in Public Radio. This is the way. Using the web as a Social Amplifier for the mainstream things that you do. Some of you are so close in your thinking already to this idea of creating the sticky relationship with the audience.

I was talking to a friend last night about the Salons in France in the 18th Century. This was the place where the Enlightenment was born. Is there a need now for an Enlightenment in America? Is there a need to tackle the social and political malaise in anew way?

Is not Public Media the only possible place trusted enough where such discussion could take place?

You can do this. Imagine a section of your station web page where your staff, as real people not formal staffers, or a local expert "Hosted" a conversation on say Gardening that brought in all the best gardeners in your state. Imagine on NPR a section on the Environment - with guest blogger Al Gore. For NPR he would come as would others like him  who really have something to say in fields that are important. What about the burning issues in your region - education, health, race etc?

In Public Radio and TV for that matter - you have the trusted brand. Those that have something real to say about how our children are growing up, who have insight into the real issues of health are shut out by conventional media and a quick story doesn't work to make change. The topics don't have to be serious - look at the Times! The great gardeners, environmentalists, cooks, commentators, writers, musicians, experts in any field would feel great about being with you.

So would your audience. They are longing to get engaged. This way they get attached to you in a way that conventional programming can never do - they become part of you. Imagine a spark lit in your state by the growing obesity or child behaviour problems. At first the audience question with you what is going on. Then they start to meet in person. Then they start to see a way and then they have a plan. Then they raise funds. Then they act. Then change occurs. All the time they work with you on the web, on air on TV as the momentum builds. Do you think you will have strong support this way?

Would this be expensive? Would this involve a gigantic new investment in technology? of course not - It's just some simple blogging tools.

The block is, I fear, your fear. Your fear of not owning and controlling the resource. Your fear of allowing some of your staff to have their own voice. Your fear of no longer talking at them but of conversing with them.

I think that this issue of fear is why the Times have chosen to kick off so gently in an area where no one will be fussed if an editor - yes they identify each member of staff by position - says something odd about football.

So dear friends why not step gently also into this field. Try something simple. The only players could be the Times and you and the Times have started. You are the only two who have the Trust and the type of audience who would like to start this. It's all there for you to win or lose.

The New York Times - Convening Communities

The Times online is on a roll. Here is an excellent review on CNN Money by John Heilmann (Business 2.0 Magazine).

A lesson for us all - success on the web is about coming to grips with that the web is a social place. Community is not a feature of the new web. It is its heart. It is not important. It is central.

"Nisenholtz, 51, dates the turning point to early 2005, when, as he explains it,

"the executive committee of the company created a strategy that said we're in the business of convening communities here; we're not just in the business of pushing information at people."

Behind that strategy, Nisenholtz adds, was a recognition of "the importance of the social Web - that the center of the universe is moving to our users, and that our users want to remix and use the content that we have in ways that are suitable to them."

Thus began a dizzying flurry of Netcentric changes at the Times - some financial, some technological, some cultural: The purchase of About.com in March 2005 for approximately $410 million. The integration of the print and online newsrooms. The dabbling with blogs and podcasts.

The launch of premium service TimesSelect, which placed the work of columnists and various features, such as e-mail alerts and multimedia, behind a pay wall for users not subscribing to the paper. And, most recently, the top-to-bottom redesign of NYTimes.com, complete with an array of Web 2.0-fueled innovations.

On a strictly green-eyeshade basis, the two most significant items on this list are About.com and TimesSelect. The former, Nisenholtz notes, "is blowing the doors off the business," with second-quarter revenue rising to $19.4 million from $12 million last year-a 63 percent increase that puts About on track for an annual run rate of more than $80 million.

As for TimesSelect, the service had roughly 513,000 subscribers in June, 190,000 of whom were paying the Web-only rate of $49.95 a year, thus contributing about $9.5 million to the bottom line.

When I ask if TimesSelect has been successful enough to suggest that more material be placed behind the wall, Nisenholtz replies, "The strategy isn't to move more content from the free site to the pay site; we need inventory to sell to advertisers. The strategy is to create a more robust TimesSelect" by using revenue from the service to pay for more unique content. "We think we have the right formula going," he says. "We don't want to screw it up."

Nisenholtz is equally bullish about the Web 2.0-ification of NYTimes.com. "We've got some really interesting blogs, from basically a standing start only six months ago," he says. "We've got 10,000 topic pages on the Internet waiting to be populated."

Still, Nisenholtz admits that some of the site's more forward-leaning features have yet to take off. On the Most Popular page, while the Most E-Mailed feature is, as he puts it, "the big kahuna, a significant driver of interest," Most Blogged and Most Searched are catching on more slowly. Tagging hasn't caught on at all.

And even RSS newsfeeds, which the Times adopted early, are still "a niche," Nisenholtz says. (In June, RSS feeds generated 12.2 million pageviews for the site out of a U.S. total of nearly 295 million.) "RSS is still very techie," he says. "Most people outside the business are totally unaware of it."

The Future of Media & Public Radio - What Perspective?

Here is an excellent article in the Times today on the end of the Knight Ridder Group. The deep warning is that using only a financial perspective will not save old media from the slide. You cannot cut your way home.

The dismantling of Knight Ridder is a study of the hurdles facing publicly traded newspaper companies in a time of seismic change in the industry. The migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet, as well as rising costs and falling revenue, are threatening the financial well-being — even the very existence — of some of the industry’s most storied brand names.

A review of the dynamics behind the Knight Ridder sale and the aftermath of its breakup also offers a cautionary tale: that deep cuts in expenses to satisfy Wall Street will not necessarily save a newspaper company, and may not even bring financial gains to shareholders or buyers.

“Financial restructuring is not the answer to what ails the newspaper industry,” said Peter P. Appert, a newspaper industry analyst at Goldman Sachs, which advised Knight Ridder during the sale. “It’s not a panacea that’s going to create value from a shareholder point of view.”

The Economist is even more clear about the risk and the way forward.

But in the rich world newspapers are now an endangered species. The business of selling words to readers and selling readers to advertisers, which has sustained their role in society, is falling apart (see article).

Of all the “old” media, newspapers have the most to lose from the internet. Circulation has been falling in America, western Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand for decades (elsewhere, sales are rising). But in the past few years the web has hastened the decline. In his book “The Vanishing Newspaper”, Philip Meyer calculates that the first quarter of 2043 will be the moment when newsprint dies in America as the last exhausted reader tosses aside the last crumpled edition. That sort of extrapolation would have produced a harrumph from a Beaverbrook or a Hearst, but even the most cynical news baron could not dismiss the way that ever more young people are getting their news online. Britons aged between 15 and 24 say they spend almost 30% less time reading national newspapers once they start using the web.

So what is the way? What is the perspective? What does Public Radio have to acknowlwdge in this context?

I think that the choice is about power in the engine room. The risk is always that the folks who are embedded in the traditional mindset will have the power to kill off the new. Clayton Christenson  suggests that this fight between mindsets is at the core of an organization's dilemma when faced with a really new and disruptive alternative. In this context he is clear. Firms need to provide experimental groups within the company a freer rein.

“With a few exceptions, the only instances in which mainstream firms have successfully established a timely position in a disruptive technology were those in which the firms’ managers set up an autonomous organization charged with building a new and independent business around the disruptive technology.”

This autonomous organization will then be able to choose the customers it answers to, choose how much profit it needs to make, and how to run its business.

Furthermore, the firm must quickly develop the new technology to compete with smaller, more mobile firms while maintaining its core business.

Finally, even if engineers successfully develop a working product, they must find an appropriate market to target, a difficult task given the unpredictable nature of markets. In short, there are many variables involved in solving the Innovator’s Dilemma with few lifelines along the way.

"Discovering markets for emerging technologies inherently involves failure, and most individual decision makers find it very difficult to risk backing a project that might fail because the market is not there." -Clayton Christensen, The Innovator's Dilemma.

The Long Tail and Why there is so much crap on TV

I don't think I am imagining a rosy past - but there was a time when there was a lot on TV that I wanted to watch and that was a time when the choices were few. In England there were only 2 channels. There was also a time when the network news was excellent. So why is there almost nothing worth watching now with hundreds of channels and why is network news today so pathetic and sensational? (Great moments of the state of Network News displayed by Jeff Jarvis)

I think that the Long Tail can help us.

In the Murrow/Cronkite era, CBS News still saw itself as serving America as a source of Trusted News. But once ABC moved Roone Arlidge from Sports to News - the race for ratings and hence to the bottom began. My sense is that CBS News was happy to be in the middle of the Long Tail. But when ratings and ad revenue became the mantra - programming had to move to the left up the power curve to crap. News had to compete with all the rest of the schedule.

It's the same today for the CBC. If the CBC feels that only ratings matter, then they too move left to Crap - this is why they pre-empted the news for a Idol show. This is why now they are worried sick about a bid for Hockey Night in Canada. Why should a public broadcaster be there? Does Public mean Pander to Crap? I fear that CBC has no idea what it should be and drifts to the left.

When Public broadcasting began, it did not see itself as Mass Media. This is why when in England there was only the BBC and ITV - there was tons of interesting shows - because the BBC saw its mandate as to both entertain and to uplift. As a Public Broadcaster they did not Pander. They do a lot now but not then.

That is why when the History Channel, the Learning Channel and Discovery launched - they beat the pants off PBS. They started by taking on Public TV but now they mainly show crap. They rushed to the left. Discovery has become the Biker Channel, LC the home reno channel and History the War Channel. All have major contracts with P & G. Watch closely nearly every ad in prime time is for P & G.

So if you go to the left, where all the numbers are who is in your camp? Are these the people that you really want to reach. Who are these people? What is it about their profile that may be useful? I will let you answer that question.

Now who is the Public Radio audience now? Are they the kind of audience that is worth having?

A word of warning to Public Radio - if your model is all about "Underwriting" be very very careful.

Today you are like the BBC of the 1970's or CBS News of the late 1960's. If you let the underwriters pull you to the left - you risk losing it all. It's not just the move to crap but also the loss of independence. The other night on PBS there was a half hearted piece on Ethanol. There is a strong case to be made that ethanol is a wheeze. It costs more energy to make energy with corn. The piece was half hearted because surprise ADM is a major sponsor. ADM is THE promoter of Ethanol.

PBS gets major funding from Mobil, ADM and GM. If PBS was to explore the issues of the environment and energy could it?

So the risk is you lose both ways by moving blindly to the left. You offer crap to people who live for crap and you find yourselves helpless in the embrace of people who have an agenda that cannot be questioned. So you lose your innate quality and the trust that you had. You lose it all.

There is surely a very good living to be had both economically and ethically in the middle or to the right of the Long Tail.

Now the opportunity for all public broadcasters - this includes my beloved but sick CBC - Think of who lives in the middle of the Long Tail. Who are they? What is their profile. What may be the value of having this group as your primary audience and body of support?