More than I can recall in the past, the changes in our political, competitive and technological environments have been yielding for many colleagues a chronic uncertainty and an underlying anxiety about the long-term future of public service broadcasting.
You can see this by tracking the past two years. If you had come to a final conclusion about our future at an early point in this period, it would surely have been utterly negative.
Start with the strident and sweeping proposals to eliminate federal funds for public broadcasting because it was cited as overbuilt, expensive, irrelevant and inconsequential. Then remember the remember the internal calls for elimination of stations that weren't considered viable ("survival of the fittest," it was called by those bold souls who called for others to be cut).
Move on to a vision of the future driven by the policies and plans set forth by CPB for downsizing and operating efficiencies, which remains a much more complex task than first appreciated.
Recall the inappropriately maligned Earned Income Initiatives Group, advancing new financing proposals. Whether you fancied the particular strategies or not, the effort at least revealed the necessity of identifying and analyzing potential new revenue lines.
Remember, too, that a Public Broadcasting Trust Fund was actually being considered in formal legislative planning in the House, but don't overlook how unprepared we actually were — and remain to this day — to describe or advance any widely acceptable version of it.
Look now to the future and anticipate the digital television era where there is talk of more everything — channels, costs and content. If you came to a conclusion based on today's evidence, it would be full of promise. There is much less talk about "glide paths to zero" and much more about mission and purpose, efforts at collaboration, and a renewed confidence — in roles defined by broad educational purpose, in the importance of not-for-profit institutions and the services that can be provided by integrating information with communication technology.
And much of this is reinforced by public support — community-wide, statewide and nationwide.
Throughout this field, there are concrete, pioneering examples of new initiatives that, when seen together, foretell growth in which all can share and participate.
They constitute what Andrew Grove, president of Intel Corp., cites in his new book Only the Paranoid Survive as a "strategic inflection." Such a moment is "a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end."
If we see these developments as unrelated, accidental occurrences, the result will be piecemeal and ineffectual and it may well be the beginning of the end. If, however, they are organized as integral components of a growth strategy, the opportunities are quite affirming and exciting.
Here is what this observer sees as the ingredients of a Public Telecommunications Growth Strategy.
Expanding roles in education: A number of public television initiatives show the potential. The Utah Education Network, reaching throughout the state, serves education at all formal grade levels, helps train teachers, uses libraries, school buildings and other education centers and offers adult and continuing education. It regards media and technology as problem-solvers for education. A leading university official in Utah says "it couldn't operate without the central role played by public television."
Elsewhere, the illustrations are persuasive and growing. The Iowa Communications Network, the expanding Georgia Education Network, the massive efforts of the Ohio education interests, functioning through the Ohio Educational Telecommunications Commission — all of these have their roots in and their operating efficiencies linked to public television. This is not merely an expansion of instructional television services; it is a broader concept involving multiple technology systems and distribution capacities. Every station does not have to play the same role in the state; resources are used efficiently through division of labor.
Not incidentally, this is also where the major new expenditures are occurring.
Developing stronger national programming: The PBS Station Equity Model is one strategy that has been set forth to attract new program funding by sharing after-market proceeds with upfront investors. While it has some detractors, it remains a practical means of attracting certain kinds of resources.
Another new initiative, with the working title "P2," is a program financing and development plan set forth by former PBS president Lawrence K. Grossman (earlier article, Nov. 25, 1996). The plan would use a limited number of of advertising messages to finance a new program service package for public television.
For some the P2 idea is instantly controversial because it is conspicuously commercial in a field that offers "noncommercial" — the word, if not the practice — as one of its virtues. That premise needs reexamination in an era when corporate underwriting is so extensive and yet so difficult to attract and sustain.
In the presence of Mobil Masterpiece Theater and Reader's Digest World — to cite only two easy examples — a new look at the "corporate connection" is in order. That is what Mr. Grossman proposes and his idea should be analyzed and shaped to the point where it can be effectively pursued or responsibly abandoned.
Extending service in children's programming: Public broadcasting properly claims a special competence and commitment in programming for children and youth. If it produces only for its own broadcast schedules, however, it may unnecessarily limit its service to the public and its accumulation of experience.
In view of new FCC requirements that commercial broadcasters provide at least three hours of children's educational programming in a week, public television would do well to explore production partnerships. The Children's Television Workshop, not surprisingly, is showing the way with some of its new partnerships, but local stations and state networks working in their own contexts have additional opportunities. The Get Real series pioneered by Wisconsin Public Television and the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association is a very practical illustration of what can be done to benefit all parties, especially the young people.
Helping to build our communities: You may have heard this question in the last couple years: "In the age of DirecTV and national networks, what's the point of all these local stations and state networks?"
The traditional answers about local control and local programming are right, of course, but they are incomplete and they do not dispose of the question as persuasively as they need to.
Many stations are unmistakably integrated into their communities and others need to be — and not merely so that they're able to choose between the edited and unexpurgated editions of Moll Flanders.
The opportunity is much richer than that. It involves using public broadcasting to support and advance community institutions and civic initiatives that are important to the quality of cultural, educational, business, political and personal life in the areas they serve.
The need is to launch a major professional initiative to offer community-building skills and components for public broadcasters in each state. Not every station needs to do the same things; together the whole will benefit from its many collaborating parts.
A multiyear plan is required to undertake the work appropriate to this new task. Such public broadcasting leaders as Robert Larson and Jack Willis have shown some of what can be done in Detroit and Minneapolis-St. Paul; Bill McCarter has offered different but effective examples in Chicago; Mike Ziegler in Binghamton, John Morison in Norfolk and Ted Krichels in Boulder-Denver have caught the idea and are also pioneers in this work. The MacArthur Foundation in Chicago sees this potential and other supporters could probably be encouraged to follow their lead.
Community building through public broadcasting now needs to become part of a growth strategy so that this is more nearly the rule and less the exception to it.
Rethinking federal support: The field would seek agreement on a five-year ceiling on federal funding. The number now being discussed is $325 million. Go for it: a flat but reliable sum for five years. After that time, Congress could reauthorize and appropriate a suitable amount for another five-year interval. This keeps the basic line of work in place.
Any increase in federal funding should relate to increases in reach and quality of service, such as might be defined by digital services.
To help finance the hardware for the digital transition, for instance, Congress could approve one-time appropriations through the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program in the Department of Commerce.
Funding for specific services described above could well come from other federal programs, such as the humanities and arts endowments, the Department of Education and other public-policy areas where public broadcasting's digital-era capacities can help solve problems.
If there is agreement that the P2 plan deserves an experimental period, the auhtorization bill could include a special waiver permitting the use of advertising messages as required for the demonstration.
We have yet to build on a pertinent precedent: the Land Grant Act, which made it practical to extend college-level education to nearly everyone who wants it. The federal investment in public telecommunications should be seen as a modern manifestation of the same principle.
Improving system efficiency: "How big are we?" vs. "How efficient are we?" We need to quit boasting about a public broadcasting enterprise that has "over a thousand stations." This grandiose self-promotion claim is actually self-defeating for it enables detractors to cite our own figures in arguing that we are overbuilt. To equate a transmitter and a station is the first problem. To think that large numbers are impressive misses the point of technology: to accomplish progressively more with relatively less.
By contrast, imagine this claim: "Look what we are able to accomplish with only (your number here — my number would be 150 or fewer) separate but collaborating organizations!"
Toward that end: within two or three years, we must arrange to develop city, state or regional plans, as appropriate in each area, that identify the number of operating entities required for the digital telecommunications era into which we are headed.
In some cases, there will be benefits to combining radio and television operations; in other circumstances, it will be possible to create new umbrella organizations that provide shared core services, with subsidiary groups that handle distinctly local functions.
As a starting point, the field already has 22 state-level entities, many of which incorporate radio and television as well as newer telecommunications technologies.
Two key points:
a. The work suggested here needs to be done situationally in concert with indigenous interested parties. There would be no national formula. Planners need to know the historical circumstances, functioning liaisons, state lines, jurisdictional issues and other real-life conditions — both those that impede collaboration and promote it.
b. Remember that the goal is to expand and extend services, not to build more station-type organizations. The spirit must be one of partnership, not downsizing and confrontation.
Planning for the digital transition: There is general agreement about the need for this function, but controversies remain about where it should be located and how it should be governed.
The resolution should favor the arrangement that is most directly useful to the licensees and serves their interests in building digitally based public telecommunications systems. In the right setting, the expertise gathered in such an office could be available for fees to commercial broadcasters as well, helping to pay for public broadcasting's needs. Beyond the technical work associated with such an office, there is substantial need for planning the content and services associated with a digital telecommunications future. Such work permeates virtually all of the other items in this overall strategy.
Providing comprehensive professional training for the field: Though it has financed several studies of training needs, CPB has missed opportunities for a comprehensive initiative for so long that it may have lost interest altogether. That would be a mistake, for only CPB can provide the core funds required to develop curricula, assess needs and manage such a service over time. It could well provide a modest continuing grant over time to an appropriate agency to manage the overall effort. Yet another empty "needs assessment" without a plan for implementation should not be tolerated.
Developing an independent research and planning capacity: We continue to encounter questions that urgently need the sustained attention of a planning office independent of the major forces in our field. This competence could, among other practical tasks, design and review options for a Public Broadcasting Trust Fund. Now the need for a research/planning capacity is surfacing in discussions led by BMR Associates under contract with APTS to examine various decisionmaking strategies for public broadcasting's future. One basic proposal for such an activity has been laid out by the Hartford Gunn Institute in "An Agenda for the Second Generation of Public Broadcasting."
The initiatives and the tasks described here come from every corner of the public broadcasting enterprise. With a clear vision, you can see how readily and comfortably they relate.
Please keep in mind, however, this is not a menu; it is a strategy. It won't work if you try to pick and choose. These components, each with its own advocates inside and outside of the field, add up to a more comprehensive workplan for its future than we customarily pursue. But it requires shared commitments; all the parts are needed. Think it through, talk it up and adapt it where improvements are needed.
At the time of publication, James Fellows was president of the Illinois-based Central Educational Network and the Hartford Gunn Institute. He founded Current in 1980 when he was president of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, and he and remained chairman of the Current Publishing Committee until a near-fatal accident in 2003.
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posted Jan. 10, 2007
Copyright 1996 by Current Publishing Committee