Pubcasters Seen as Struggling to Maintain Online Services
Public broadcasters haven’t fared well in capitalizing on new online platforms and services, said Mark Fuerst, exec. dir. of the Integrated Media Assn. (IMA), a group counting NPR, PRI and about 30 public radio and TV stations as members. Among reasons for the failure to profit from the 2nd Internet boom, Fuerst said in an interview, is lack of a strategy, demands from the broadcast side to reduce budget outlays for services and the noncommercial nature of public broadcasting. Despite some success with online operations such as NPR.org, he said, “there is a sense that the industry doesn’t have a strategy that can provide a sustainable [online] service.”
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Fuerst said there’s “consensus” among networks such as PBS and NPR, and stations, about the future “dominance” of online services and their “potential financial sustainability.” But because online operations haven’t demonstrated they're providing “clear value” to the public or the stations, there’s pressure from the broadcast side to divert online resources to on-air programming, he added. An example, he said, was a recent petition by stations asking PBS to reduce funding for PBS.org in favor of national programming. “They were questioning the priorities of national investment, and on-air and online found themselves in competition. And I think it is going on in every station.” This “financial tension” affects public radio as well, he said, but the issue hasn’t emerged there so sharply because NPR and its member stations are in better financial shape than PBS.
Public broadcasting spends 2-9% of its budgets on online operations, he said, and that doesn’t “threaten” the broadcast side. But stations haven’t seen the return on online investment, he added. And it’s hard to determine how PBS.org returns value to individual stations, he said. Local stations can at least point to their online operations being used to raise pledge money and increase listener or viewer loyalty, Fuerst said: “It’s a little harder to make the case when you are looking at national sites” like PBS.org and NPR.org. Public broadcasters aren’t alone in that, he said: “That probably is true in newspaper chains and in commercial networks.”
Public stations are beginning to look for more corporate support for their websites, he said. The statutory ban on advertising doesn’t extend to public broadcasters’ online operations. Pursuing ad revenue brings its own problems, he said, because most stations will have difficulty increasing traffic to the websites unless they produce more content, which is “very expensive.” So, he said, “we are caught in a cyclical process that is going to require either reorganization or continued investment if you can’t achieve it on the cheap.” But the “optimistic” side is that there’s “money out there,” he said.
Public broadcasters haven’t even begun discussing the impact of new forms of online publishing such as blogging and podcasts, Fuerst said. Commercial TV stations and public broadcasters such as BBC and the Canadian Bcstg. Corp. have begun to position their services and their sites to “invite this level of community participation into a highly institutional structure.” U.S. public broadcasters must “come to grips with that in the next couple of years. That is a huge challenge in front of us right now.”
Another issue that needed to be tackled is public broadcasters’ response to the emergence of new platforms like Google Video and the Open Media Network, Fuerst said. Many producing stations would like to take advantage of the new platforms, he said, but public broadcasters would have to ponder the wisdom of the dispersal of their content and its impact on its “wholesomeness as an industry.” Unlike Disney or even BBC, U.S. public broadcasting is a coalition of stations that share costs, content, federal money and policies, he added. The industry’s survival will be in jeopardy if the coalition breaks up as a result of producing stations going their own way, Fuerst said: “There are stresses on the public broadcasting industry that are different than stresses on owned and operated companies.”
Fuerst said he believes public broadcasting should stay together as the “national broadcasting system of the United States. I think we need to look for ways to sustain the system, not just the individual parts.” He advocated a strong, centralized approach to online operations for public broadcasters similar to the Major League Baseball site, MLB.com. The league’s site is a composite: Every team has its own site within it, and a separate company runs the operation, providing valuable expertise, Fuerst said. He said public broadcasters should consider separating their Web operations “a little bit” from the “trials and tribulations of broadcasting.”
The past 2 years, station executives have asked PBS to reallocate funds from interactive services to “traditional” TV programming, Dir.-Online Communications Kevin Dando said. PBS.org is launching new services to make interactive offerings more feasible financially, he added: “Our target is to cover start-up and operational costs for our new Internet businesses. Once we launch these new services, we are targeting [revenue] increases during future fiscal years.” Among new offerings is “premium games” -- play for pay on the popular PBS Kids site. PBS.org also intends to “re-enter the sponsorship business” that National Geographic and NPR have exploited significantly, Dando said. The initial focus will be on sponsored links, such as those provided by Google, on PBS.org pages such as PBS.org search, he added: “We'll also be launching expanded sponsorship opportunities, as we go beyond the standard underwriting tile offered on PBS.org pages, and we plan to offer PBS.org sponsorships such as NPR does on its home page.” Also being considered is return to ads similar to the banner ads that the network abandoned in 2001 in the dot-com bust.
About the reported “financial tension” between on-air and online, Dando said “the extent that they are all in the same budget and that there are increased financial stresses placed on all aspects of public TV” isn’t surprising.