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"
