aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Old Guard Broadcasters JUST DON’T GET IT!!!
UPDATE: See my later further thoughts. Is it me who doesn’t get it? I am somewhat reassured. STILL LATER: And ABSOLUTELY listen to Haarsager on this NewsGang podcast.
I am very, very worried about what we’re about to see happen to NPR in the wake of the Ken Stern firing. I’ve been out of the biz for a while and always on the (cable) periphery anyway, but my 2¢ is that they’re really invested in their model and will find it hard (impossible!) to break out of it.
Jeff Jarvis is my jumping off point:
It appears that the stations did him in as they gun for his digital strategy because they fear the internet will hurt them.
Well guess, what, local yokels, hate to tell you this but… You’re screwed! You bet the internet is going to hurt you. There is no need for you as a distribution arm anymore. Unless you add valuable local content and service to the mix, you might as well tear down the tower now. Or in a year or two. Getting rid of Stern et al won’t get rid of reality.
This is the problem I see in all media: They think that protection is a strategy. It’s not.
I like the reverse syndication model Jeff proposed for newspapers as a local support model applied to NPR by John Proffitt:
Local public TV and public radio stations today pay hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions to NPR, PBS, APTS, PRI, APM and other content providers (with NPR and PBS being the most obvious). This has stifled the local public media companies’ ability to produce local content. They blow all their cash paying the networks.
Reverse syndication in this world, to my thinking, is to have the networks sell their content to the public (ads, membership revenue) and give all the content to the local media outlets for free — with the caveat that embedded ads pass through with the content. Local outlets could then produce local media and still pick from the best national media and arrange it into locally-relevant streams/blocks on the web, on transmitters, etc.
And I especially like these observations from Robert Patterson:
In a forest, when a big tree falls, light pours in and there is a huge growth burst. Such an event is taking place at NPR. The press say that this event is because the board is anti media. We all know that the opposite is true
In the light of the press’ view of what is happening, I feel compelled today to offer up a few attached insider’s views of what a new CEO could find in this clearing.
First of all some issues that are now visible in the environment:
- NPR cannot go it alone - Go for the "System" - Networks trump everything that is not a network. We were maybe not sure about that after New Realities but many had that insight. There is now abundant evidence that this is true - look at Senator Obama’s fund raising - so a public media system that is a real network including NPR and producers and the stations that pulls in the full creativity and energy of the public will trump any other system. The best way forward is together. Not because it is "Nice" but because it is the best! The resources that are latent in a system are vast. In a system that includes the public - are stupendous
- The money will dry up really fast - Our economic model is now as bad as for newspapers or the music industry - The shift to the web is faster and more complete than many thought in 2006 - By 2010 the web will be the centre of how life is lived and the economics for those that rely on other ways of connecting will fall off the cliff. Inaction is a decision to die. Action means a huge push to 2.0. No one is able to do this right now.
- We are all stuck. We know where to go but can’t even take a first step to get there - the participative person centered system - the destination is no longer in doubt - BUT we don’t know how to get there. Most are completely stuck - the Friction of the current world is overwhelming. At the moment death is very likely.
So we know where the "City on the Hill" is. We know that we have to get there. But we are stuck.
I close back at Jeff’s post with a comment from Dennis Haarsager, interim CEO:
Seldom do you get it from the horse’s mouth, and this will be short, but go to my blog sometime tomorrow and I’ll publish a longer version. Until mid-day yesterday, I was chair of the NPR board, and since yesterday afternoon, I’m the new interim CEO. The scenario you outlined in your opening paragraph is dead wrong and so was the first part of the Washington Post story today. It’s what happens when speculators become sources. If station management wanted to kill off or slow down emerging media, their board picked the wrong boy. Read my blog archives for the past four years. More to come Saturday at http://www.technology360.com/. Regards, Dennis Haarsager
I’ve been watching Haarsager’s blog and have yet to see his promised post. This has got to be one of the most fascinating media stories of our era.
