In our quest to identify ways that PBS can cut costs, we will offer regular "Efficiency Idea" posts. Today's deals with distribution.
The Pony Express was a private endeavor founded just over 150 years ago to allow expedited communication with the West. At its height, the Pony Express had over 100 stations (by some counts as many as 157), 80 riders, and between 400-500 horses. The completion of the Pacific Telegraph line on October 24, 1861 rendered the Pony Express obsolete, and it closed after a little more than 19 months of operation. Though the Pony Express served a vital need, its three founders closed the business without ever achieving financial success. Upon closing the business, the partners filed for bankruptcy.
http://www.ponyexpress.org/index.php?page=History
Imagine the US government decided to take over the Pony Express after the completion of the Pacific Telegraph line. We need the Pony Express, they would argue, to make sure the West can receive high quality information (handwritten letters) that telegraph communication just can't offer. They would spend money keeping up the stations, paying the riders, and caring for the horses. Wouldn't that be a waste of money?
Certainly, the above example is not a spot on analogy for PBS's member station model (no one on horseback is showing up in your living room with a DVD of Antiques Roadshow), but PBS does spend money to keep up an antiquated system. Why are we helping to fund local stations so that they can broadcast content when there are much more efficient ways to deliver television programs? Why have tax-payers helped pay for digital upgrades to these local stations? (The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is now accepting applications for a new round of grants of up to $750,000 for stations to upgrade their analog equipment.) Why do we put up with local stations soliciting pledges to help pay for bricks and mortar (not to mention expensive equipment and the salaries of those who operate it), when technology allows for more efficient transmission?
Leaving aside for today the argument that local stations are needed for local control (don't worry, we're coming back to that one), why can't PBS deliver its signal in the same way TBS or any of the other cable/satellite channels do? The cable/satellite companies can pay for the distribution. PBS can spend its money on content, the most important value they offer.
But what are we to do about those people who can't afford cable and need PBS's educational programming most? (We will also return to this subject when we can more fully explore who really uses PBS and how they get their content.) In some markets, PBS stations already share towers with local network affiliates. Why not just send these local network stations the feed and let them operate the channel for those who wish to continue watching television with good, old-fashioned rabbit ears? The local affiliates would be happy to have the steady revenue which could be negotiated at a fraction of what it costs to run a member station.
Just like the USPS contracts with commercial airlines to carry mail rather than pay for its own fleet of planes, PBS should go into business with local affiliates and cable/satellite providers.
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What you may not know is that PBS has provided a fully-integrated program stream to stations via satellite for some time. Using that feed (called Schedule X, last I checked), a local station can do a direct pass-through of that signal right onto the local transmitter. However, for regulatory reasons, stations must insert local branding and broadcast details in their signals, and many want to sell local adverti... err... underwriting which must also be inserted into the program stream.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, PBS also supplies satellite TV providers with a non-local "station" for those areas of the country covered by satellite but *not* covered by a local broadcast signal. People in those areas can opt for the national feed or the nearest local feed.
I worked at a station that, for cost reasons, opted for the pre-programmed feed from PBS. We had tremendous fears that fundraising would suffer dramatically, as we essentially gave up a great deal of local control over our schedule and what programs were included in our stream. However, we found donations were stable for 2+ years under this model. We still had to do local "traffic" to localize the signal and insert some locally-produced shows, and our systems weren't nearly as automated as they needed to be, but it worked.
The current local station model -- as opposed to something more like C-SPAN -- is a holdover from a past era, in which local stations actually produced a lot more local content using local talent and resources. As the cost of running these nonprofits has risen over the years (technology costs, aging workforce, healthcare costs, etc.) and as government support has fallen (especially at the state level), local capacity has dried up. Many stations (there are more than 300 nationwide) raise enough money to maintain a barely-local presence in the hopes that someone will save the day at some point in the future.
So far, no knight in shining armor on the horizon, but there are plenty of new threats to public television, the biggest being the disruptive effects of the Internet upon distribution and consumption patterns and ratios.
There are many of us in the public media world that look at this situation and believe there must be a better / smarter way, and the notion of centralized national programming has strong appeal for the efficiency gains alone.
But efficiency can't be our primary goal. If all we do is make the public TV system more efficient with its cash, we'll only postpone the truly troublesome problem, which is one of purpose or of mission. Why are we here? What can we do to serve our communities? Is broadcasting enough? If it's not enough, what should we be retooling to do to make a 21st century difference?
If the call for efficiency in the old distribution model is combined with a call for new services tuned to the needs of our communities today, I'd say you've got a revolution worth joining.
You make several good observations which we will try to address in future posts, but we seem to be on the same page here. RevolutionPBS believes in public media and wants it to continue to be the valuable gatekeeper it is. We believe in public media engaging communities and becoming more local. We believe there is a way to provide excellent national content to communities in a new way, a more efficient way that would shift from the member station model. We believe that technology allows us to reshape this model.
ReplyDeleteWe appreciate hearing your story. RevolutionPBS wants feedback. Keep the comments coming.
It would be easier to get behind your "revolution" if I had any idea whom--or even how many--I was addressing. Is the anonymity because you're a pubmedia insider, or because you want us to assume that? And is there really a "we?"
ReplyDeleteSo, your revolutionary idea is to get rid of the local stations? I can't say that I'm in favor of that, and not just because I work for one of those beleaguered outlets.
*Of course* PBS could deliver its content in the same manner as TBS. That model already exists; it's called "Discovery." If all you want to do is pump "Nova" into households nationwide, then yes, it's much more "efficient" to do away with the duplicative infrastructure.
However, it's misleading to suggest that PBS is financially supporting the upkeep of local stations. Stations are supported by a combination of CPB, state and university funding, plus grants, bequests, local corporate support and (more than any other source) viewer contributions. In turn, stations pay PBS for the programming and services it provides.
You might argue that by removing the stations from the equation, CPB could directly fund PBS. But it's not a zero-sum game. The downside of doing away with the stations is that you also do away with most of those non-CPB funding sources. I'll be honest here, I don't know enough about the system's finances to know how much of a net gain there would be for PBS.
You brush aside the issue of local control, but that's not the only advantage of having facilities in every television market. John touches on locally-produced content; while there's not as much of it as there used to be, it still happens. Local stations are incubators for programs which may have a regional rather than national appeal. We help distribute the works of independent producers whose work might not be of interest to PBS Arlington.
Furthermore, while I can't speak for other stations, I know that mine isn't just about broadcast. We send book mentors into area schools to extend the impact of PBS kids' programming. We're at the center of a coalition tackling the issues of childhood obesity and healthy eating in our community; these various groups wouldn't even have been talking to each other if we hadn't brought them to the same table. These are things that a strictly national program provider could never accomplish; they don't have the boots on the ground, nor do they have the personal connections.
While I know that many see the network of local stations as a problem, I've always seen it as a net positive. That so-called inefficiency is also a breeding ground for innovation, with the best ideas getting passed around.
There are already dozens of top-down, nationally-programmed television channels in the U.S. There's only one of us.