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PBS and iTunes - It's happening!

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TV as we know it is dead now - It all about the economics

John Proffitt's blog Gravity Medium is fast becoming the "Well" where you can drink lots of good ideas about the future of public media. I was simply blown away yesterday when I saw his showcasing of Michael Rosenblum's view of why TV as we know it today is dead.

It's all about the essence of an economy. Limited dollars chasing infinite content.

Many have told me that I have too aggressive a view of when the money will fall away from TV - Now I think that there may be even less time. The money will leave before the viewers. Rosenblum shows us clearly the forces in play and why the money has to go.

Do not the same forces apply to sound and hence radio as well?

KETC - Making Local TV Work - Part 2 of 4 - The What

So what did KETC do? How did we offer the kind of invitation that would lead to a response? What kind of response did we envisage and realize? How did we organize ourselves to do this?

Let's start with organization

First of all have a look at this picture. Notice anything a bit odd? On the right, in a power position are KETC's interns. Just as maybe your kids are the in home IT administrators, at KETC last summer we gave the people who knew the new world of social media the most - our "kids" - a leading place at the table. I had such a chuckle to drift into a meeting say in the production area and find a 20 year old teaching a 50 year old how to post on a blog.

This decision to place our interns in the front rank was one of the best we made. Not only could they help us older folks lose some of our fear, but they also could speak with our vets as if they were their grandchildren - which of course, they were. There is something tender and wonderful that happens when you skip a generation. Here is how Mike, our Web King, thought of them:

300 and Counting…

That’s how many World War II memories we’ve recorded on the Your Stories site. And we aren’t done yet by a long shot. We are adding more stories just as fast as we can, whether they are submitted online, by email or good old U.S. mail. In fact, by the time I finish this post we may be at 301 or 302…

So in case you hadn’t heard: we aren’t done yet. We still want you to share your stories with us.

And once again, I have to say a big thanks to our interns who have kept this project going. They’ve made it possible for Your Stories to become success it has. So thanks once again. We can’t say it enough.

Mike 

Put the young up front was a big part of what we did.

Second - notice anything else about the picture? Who is at the head of the table? In this room was every department at the station. All the stove pipes were at the table. Many, at first, were suspicious of the entire project. Many at first, were suspicious of each other - there was history as only public TV and Radio can know.

Now look at the energy in the room. See a lot of ice and barriers? No it's very warm.  Something remarkable is going on. The dreaded silos are breaking down. A Trusted Space is emerging. An organization that can build a Trusted Space inside can offer one outside.

It is this Trust that is the key. No tool is worth anything without it. It's NOT about the TECHNOLOGY! It's all about the Trust.

In part 3, I will tell more about this key issue of internal integration - for how can we offer a voice to those outside if we have not given all a voice inside?

So what about the tools?

We decided up front that we were not going to build any proprietary tools. We were instead going to go to places where people already lived online and we were going to use the simplest tools available. We had no choice - KETC's total web team is ONE over worked man - Mike Bauhof. Many other stations have that kind of web resourcing. In a way our constraint was a benefit - we did it all and we spent no money. Mike has aged a lifetime but is still going.

Go where the people are. Use well proven public tools.

We knew that we also had to find the people where they lived as well. It was the monthly newsletter that was the icebreaker. We called for stories in the letter. We called for stories on air. We started not on the web - where we end up - but in the traditional channels. Thousands responded.

Much of what we received was on paper. How could we receive this and still acknowledge that we respected the gift? We are in the process of creating a permanent memorial.

How could we show the greatest respect? We would give back what KETC knew how do the best - the 6 minute epic. A feature of KETC's local work is a show called Living St Louis. Every aspect of the city is covered in 4-6 minute films. Nova or Frontline in miniature. Synchronistically KETC had a band of brothers and sisters that had become expert in making the length of film that fits the web best.

They made over 200 mini documentaries of St Louisans' stories of their war. What did this mean?

Imagine not only having your dad or mum tell you for the first time their wartime experiences but having their stories supported by master producers. Imagine that you now have this record for your family and your friends. What do you think has happened to the relationship between that family and the station?

KETC could never have put all these stories on air. The web gave KETC the ability to have a huge inventory that they could not have on air - the Long Tail in action. The web gave the station the endless shelf space that could enable KETC to have a limitless inventory of personal stories that would mean something to the Key Niche of ONE Family.

One family? One family probably includes 30 - 50 people once you add in friends. It also includes all the young. 200 films could touch 10,000 people directly. Oh you say - that's not a lot. But you missed what I said. I said "touched". I mean that 10,000 people have had a special gift of meaning like no other given to them by their station. When I talk in part 4 about the future, I will show you more about how KETC is using this critical idea of Meaning Making - about connecting at a heart level to the community it serves.

At this point a reminder. The web is the fulcrum to KETC's strategy - but their approach is broadly based as well. KETC did not rely only on the web. The web informed the air. The air the web. The Print informed both - it was all a self-supporting continuum where each point of contact with the St Louis Community reinforces the others.

On reflection I think that this broad approach has a lot of merit. It introduces our older demographic to the web via the air and print and it brings in the young to the air via the web. Both the young and the older people help each other.

But what about face to face?

We learned how to leverage that as well. Ken Burns came to town. The original intent was that he would speak to a select audience. But we asked ourselves - can we use this new technology to ensure that he could be seen and heard by anyone? Anyone and anywhere. So KETC arranged to stream the show on the web thus linking the face to face with the virtual.

So here then is a glimpse of the what. But as many know, it is not the tools that make the carpenter but the person who uses them.

In this new world, where we have to give up our traditional power and authority, what separates success from failure is culture. What determines culture is leadership. The energy behind it all is values.

In part 3 we will explore the secret sauce of all of this work - how a group of people who share a set of values can transform simple processes into life giving forces.

KETC - Making Local TV Work - Part 1 of 4 - The Result/Vision

Just as it is clear that newspapers are in trouble, so many now fear that TV might be in the same kind of death spiral.

But what can you do? What can you at your station do that is in your control. What can you do that does not require a miracle? What is in your control that will give your station a real lift? Give you a real lift now?

A year ago Jack Galmiche, then newly appointed as President at KETC, Channel 9, St Louis and I met at IMA07 and asked each other that question.

This, a year later, is his story. No miracle, no Mrs Kroc, no magic technology, no new hires but something remarkable a new relationship with St Louis. The hard metrics look like this

• A 43% increase year over year in prime time viewership in September. The average increase in September for the system was 11% based on the bump of The War

• This has held and KETC remains the #1 Public TV station in audience in Jan 08

• This gain has been achieved not by merely promoting The War but in engaging the community. Engaging them mainly on line and in person. KETC asked for and played back the War of St Louis. There were 47 million impressions of 2821 messages. 200 local stories online - 10 featurettes on air and other supporting material both on air and online.

• Of the 47 million impressions, 5.6 million were people aged 12-34 - Engagement like this has broken the youth barrier

The soft measures:

• A vet came into the station and asked to see Jack. He had come to give the station his medals as a token of his gratitude for being given the opportunity to tell his story before he died.

• KETC met with a doctor who is heading up the research effort to explore a very rare set of brain diseases. The hope was that KETC could give his work and his patients a larger voice - not just a promo but a voice. Amy Shaw found herself struggling to tell him what this meant, suddenly he broke into a smile - "You mean like you did for the war?"

• Many children of vets have told us that their fathers had never been able to speak a word about their war experience. But once KETC gave them a chance, a dam broke. Telling their story has shaken them to the core and changed their relationship to their families. In the twilight of their lives, they have been able to enlighten those they love the most with a glimpse of that part of their lives that they had had to keep hidden.

• There is a shift in the nature of the relationship. Channel 9 still broadcasts great TV but it now also gives voice to its people and so connects St Louis to itself and to the station. This voice is still small but it is growing fast as we will see later. The separation is closing. The goal of integration with the community is in sight.

• With integration with the community it serves, the economics change.

So what happened? How in less than a year did a local TV station make this shift?

In the next post I will tell you a bit about the "What". None of the "What" is on the surface difficult. None of it cost any money. All involve tools and technology that are remarkably easy to use and cheap to free to acquire.

But the hard work will be in the third part. It is the "How" that is the challenge. The "How" is all about culture and leadership. How do you see the world differently and act differently in it. What are the changes that "you" have to make? How can you change the habits of a lifetime?

In the last part I will give you a glimpse of the future. What are KETC doing in a tangible way to build on what they have learned in 2007. What new voices are being given their turn? What are the emerging organizational issues?

But first the beginning.

All voyages of discovery begin with a vision that needs proof. Columbus, "knew" that the world was round. Most others believed something else. Arguing the case would not change anything. Only a voyage would establish the truth of his theory.

Jack knew that the world was not flat. He knew that "Please support us because it is only by watching our channel that you can get the great programs that you like." Is a failing proposition.

Jack knew that the world was round and that a way to riches lay in another direction. His intuitive bet was that what people would really value was being given their own voice.

He "knew" that he had to find a way to offer the 'megaphone' of TV and Public Media that only the great and the wealthy could now afford to the people. His big idea is that Our Stories are the Stories that mean the most to us. Could we learn to give the public their voice? To redefine "Public" from "Ownership" to "Being".

Just as Columbus needed a vehicle, a ship, we needed some vessel to take us the new shores of a new world of relationships.

Our Nina was The War. We chose to use The War as a catalyst to awaken the voices of our vets and to make our first attempt to find out how to become an enabler of their voice rather than speaking always to them.

I cannot be more clear - working on process or skills alone will not get you anywhere. If you want to learn French - live in France for a year. If you want to learn how to give voice to others then you have to try to do just that. The project gave us the pressure and the focus. You have to set sail and you have to risk a lot together to get that wonderful glow of accomplishment. You have to to come close to the edge to learn to trust and to love your colleagues.

So Jack's true greatness was that he had a hunch that the Indies were out there but he could not be sure. Being not sure, he prepared the best he could, he reduced the risk as much as he could. But he sailed. He sailed with all the crew. Failure was definitely a possibility. But he sailed. he sailed not along the known coastline but into the deep.

So what did we do? See part 2 - "The What"

The Future of TV and Dumbo

Johnnie sparked my attention today with this sweet and telling post about how sometimes you need a bit of magic to give you the confidence to try something extraordinary.

I'm an enthusiastic participant in the whole "social object" conversation.  (Hugh crystallised it first here.)

I just want to add a caveat before we all get carried away, and talk about Dumbo.

In the film, Dumbo stops believing he can fly, but his only friend, Timothy Mouse, improvises to rescue him. Timothy plucks a feather from his hat and persuades Dumbo that with this magic feather , his powers will be restored. It works a charm, and Dumbo soars to glory. Later on, there's a turning point where Dumbo has to fly without the feather.

So the feather is not really magic, it just catalyses the magic. It might be convenient at times to put your faith in the feather but the deeper truth is more exciting.

So don't let all the talk about social objects make you think that marketing is all about the props. The props are great if they spark relationships, and they may look important as markers of relationships... but they're not the real magic.

The point that I would like to add is - Don't pay too much attention to the Crows

We have Time? - The Future of TV

There is an interesting debate going on at Dennis' Blog about whether the shift to online TV is being overhyped.

Dan Rayburn, executive VP for StreamingMedia.com, writes:

... I have over 60 season passes in TiVo. Going through all of them yesterday, more than 90% of the shows I watch are not available online anywhere. And the ones that are, like content from CBS and NBC, do not show up right after they are broadcast and typically take days if not longer to appear on the web. And in the case of something like 60 Minutes, one story alone is chopped up into 10 different video segments on their website and encoded at a pretty low bitrate. And sports, well forget that. No NFL games are available on-demand the next day online and while the MLB games are, it requires a subscription.  ¶  The demise of the TV is overrated and many in the industry keep saying the same thing as if they have to say it just to be cool. I keep hearing people in our space says things like "I don't even need a TV anymore, I'll just watch all my video online". ...

John Proffitt responds by saying:

Ah, but he doesn't watch TV! He watches video collected on his TiVo, and that TiVo is hooked to a cable or satellite service. Besides, the demise of traditional TV will not occur in one monolithic thump -- it will be a death by a thousand cuts. He's already participating in two technologies that are turning TV into something new, something different. Perhaps the real question is what constitutes TV anyway? When can we say that TV has transformed so much that it's no longer TV?

I think that John is right - Time shifting is a critical issue - not broadcast. The Tyranny of the schedule is being challenged. I also think that the lessons of the music industry will soon apply for TV.

In the music area, while it was technically difficult, only the geeks like my son downloaded. But the moment Apple made it easy and legal billions of download took place - regular folks like me were now downloading - my bet is that this will happen in 2008 2009 at the latest. Then the delivery system will have tipped.

How fast can this happen? Now there is  not much to see online - but recall in the early days of DVD's there were not many titles - how long did that last

Lastly "Follow the Money" the advertisers are already shifting to online. They are going online because all the best demographics are decisively moving there for news, comment, shopping - just getting connected. What kind of people are these? The curious and the interested?  Which is the fastest growing group? Seniors! Who watches public TV?

When the shift comes, recall small cars vs trucks in Detroit, it will be too late to move

You have to be Toyota and not GM. You have to have built a brand around the new.

The Future of Public TV - Seth Godin Nails it for me

Many who watch public TV are curious - this is an attribute that extends beyond income. Here is Seth in a tour de force making the case that taking the risk to act to go where the curious are is less of a risk than waiting. (Nic Askew) Not only a great argument but another example of what "Quality" can be in video.

The 6 minute epic

Time on the web is compressed. While I now look forward to watch entire seasons of the Wire on my home TV, on my iTouch, I want short. 6 Minutes seems to be the limit that is emerging.

Telling a complete story in 6 minutes or less is not easy - I think that those who master this form will do very well.

Here are two examples. The first is a complete reedit of Fly Away home set to Mary Chapin Carpenter's evocative music for the film - 10,000 miles. This video is an example of an entire genre on YouTube, where people re-edit conventional films to music. In this example - the essence of the entire film has been captured.

The second is a masterpiece of less than 2 minutes made by KETC in support of their "War" project. In 1.38 minutes we have an epic - a story that transcends time and reaches the hearts of all.

Rob's War Stories - A New Look at TV

Here is a new site of mine - Rob's war Stories - I have set it up as an experiment. I have 3 topics right now and will have 20 or more in a week or so. I am trying to find out what TV will be like when:

• Content is all but infinite
• Content is free
• Content is available any time
• Content is all over the place
• When it is quite feasible to watch it on the web
• When the Computer - I have a 19inch iMac offers an acceptable image

Of course that time is now!!!

So if I was a Public TV channel what would I do? My bet is that making sense of all that is out there may have a value. My sense is that having an informed point of view may have a value.

My sense is that the more niche the better - I have chosen War in general - but if I had chosen a sector such as the German Navy it may be even better?

What do you think? Think of a topic that you really like - would you like a group of mavens to offer an in depth niche channel?

PBS on iTunes - What might this mean in Dollars?

So the iTunes Store just sold its three billionth song. Wow. That’s a lot of anything, regardless of what you’re counting. (OK, if you're counting grains of sand on the coastline of the United states, perhaps it's not a lot.) But more interesting to me is the pace at which Apple reached its latest billion-song threshold. It took the company a little less than three years to sell the first billion iTunes downloads. Then it took less than a year to sell the second billion. Now, just over six months later, the store has passed the three-billion song mark. (Playlist)

What if Public TV did a deal with Apple? Moving more and more inventory into the iTunes Store? What if there was a billion downloads in 5 years time? What if Public TV's share was 50 cents a show? What would half a billion dollars mean to the system? Is this a conservative or low ball estimate?

Online Video is already mainstream. (Pew)

The widespread deployment of broadband combined with a dramatic promotion push by content providers has helped pave the way for mainstream audiences to adopt online video viewing. The majority of adult internet users in the U.S. (57%) report watching or downloading some type of online video content and 19% do so on a typical day.

• Three-quarters of broadband users (74%) who enjoy high-speed connections at both home and work watch or download video online.
• Looking separately at those who have access to a high-speed connection at home, 66% report online video consumption, compared with 39% of home dial-up users.
• Yet, some online video viewers who have dial-up at home are able to supplement their access with broadband connections at work. Among those who are truly relegated to slow connections at home and work, just 31% say they have watched or downloaded video online.

Who Watches

Young adults (those ages 18-29) are among the most voracious video viewers. Three-in-four young adult internet users (76%) report online consumption of video, compared with 57% of online adults ages 30-49. Less than half (46%) of internet users ages 50-64 watch or download video and just 39% of those age 65 and older do so. On a typical day, young adults' video consumption also outpaces that of older users:

• Roughly one in three (31%) internet users ages 18-29 said they watched or downloaded some type of video on a typical day during the period of this survey.
• By comparison, 18% of internet users ages 30-49, 12% of those 50-64 and 10% of those 65 and older watch or download any type of video on the average day.

Many would like an easier way of getting higher quality video than YouTube (Can't get the Quality). Many don't want to use Bit Torrent - Many, as in music, are happy to pay. A deal with Apple could enable this.

What about the loss that stations might suffer to their pledge week fund raising if their content was available online? A lot of it is there now and soon all of it will be there.  Very soon, the model of asking people to pay for a commodity that is scarce when it is in truth plentiful will fail. So the issue is to work out a revenue sharing deal for national content. There will be more than enough money around.

Some stations such as Oregon with great material in inventory, open up a new store of value if they shift from their current method of selling DVD's to selling material directly on the web. Stations such as KETC with a large and excellent inventory of 6 minute epics in Living St Louis can now get value from a format that is ideal for the web.

PBS have a large collection of Tasting the Content on their channel on YouTube now. Frontline has all of its material available here. Nature streams tasters here. Nature sells videos here. Materpiece Theatre has its shop here. The News Hour streams here.

Aren't we just a step away?  What would it take?