System/Policy
Tech tools and guidelines to help public media staff work from home
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A veteran of remote work shares advice on how to quickly set up a dislocated team.
System/Policy
TV spectrum auction enters next stage with new bidding, lower prices
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With an oversupply of astronomically priced spectrum offered in the auction’s first stage, Public Media Company analysts predict what’s ahead.
Tech
Analysts call for change in pubTV workforce, culture under ATSC 3.0 standard
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Under the new standard, television will become “a key part of a network infrastructure in the home,” according to consultant Vinnie Curren. The change has implications for “the kind of people we hire and the culture that we’re building.”
System/Policy
Public television spectrum valued at up to $6.8 billion in FCC auction
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A simulation predicts that the most significant payouts will be limited to the 10 largest markets.
Programs/Content
Music stations aim for wider audience with VuHaus, a hub for videos
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VuHaus gathers in-studio music videos already being produced by Triple A–format stations onto a single platform.
System/Policy
Database for public media looks to standardize, simplify station metrics
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The Public Media Company is looking to drum up support to pilot the Public Media Database, an all-in-one dashboard to help stations track finances, audience ratings and the impact of their journalism on listeners. The concept is to cull data from a variety of sources, reach agreement about which metrics are significant and weed out the less important information. Each station would maintain a database of measurements, to be displayed in a dashboard for easy access and review. Uniform metrics among stations would help them compare performance and make presentations to funders. PMC, a nonprofit based in Boulder, Colo., hopes that adding participating stations will enable more meaningful comparisons of metrics across the public radio system.
System/Policy
WHYY prototypes dashboard to measure audience engagement
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An attempt by Philadelphia’s WHYY to measure the impact of its news website has its execs asking bigger questions about the best ways to gauge success in public media. In July 2013, WHYY needed an accurate and effective way to measure the progress of NewsWorks, the station’s digital news venture, launched in 2010. The station talked with CPB, a primary funder of NewsWorks, about integrating an R&D budget for site analytics into the next phase of NewsWorks’s grant. “At some point during that conversation, we got to talking about Google Analytics and how many phantoms Google Analytics make people chase,”said Chris Satullo, v.p. of news and civic dialogue at WHYY. The popular analytics service provides data that, according to Satullo,“sound really important but [are] really set up for e-commerce” rather than public service.
System/Policy
Pubmedia symposium examines how to define, quantify impact
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“Impact” is a feel-good media buzzword of the moment, increasingly required by the funders of many projects and invoked by some PTV stations, news organizations and documentary producers as key to demonstrating the social good derived from their work. But defining the concept and then measuring whether a media project has demonstrated its value remain elusive challenges for many. During “Understanding Impact,” a two-day symposium convened last month at American University in Washington, D.C., participants explored a number of the ad hoc systems for tracking impact that are taking form. Organizations including the Center for Investigative Reporting in Emeryville, Calif., and KETC, the Nine Network of St. Louis, have developed their own methodologies and hired staff members to measure the impact of their work.
System/Policy
Public Radio Capital rebrands, launches new projects
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Pubmedia consulting company Public Radio Capital has rebranded as Public Media Company and announced a pair of upcoming projects that reflect its desire to expand its client base. The 12-year-old Denver-based operation announced the name change April 22, along with a website redesign. Public Media Company will also grow its operations with Channel X, an online marketplace for public media video content, and the Public Media Database, a performance-metric platform for stations. “The scope of our work has broadened pretty dramatically,” said CEO Marc Hand. Public Media Company had been working with joint licensees and pubTV stations for years before its name change.
Development
Foundations favor grantees with digital, local news chops
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By giving two seminal news-related grants last year, the Pittsburgh Foundation broke from what chief executive Grant Oliphant described as the foundation’s history of “generic support” for public media. Answering the call from the Knight Foundation for matching grants to address gaps in local news coverage …