Court Indecency Ruling Eases Many Public Broadcasting Concerns
BEVERLY HILLS -- PBS CEO Paula Kerger said the ruling by the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals that struck down FCC’s indecency policy has removed a burden of uncertainty for affiliates. “The ruling obviously was helpful to us because we've operated under the uncertainty of putting content out there and not being a hundred percent clear on whether our stations would then be vulnerable to potential fines,” she said at the summer TV critics press tour. Public broadcast stations and lawyers have said the ruling points out the chilling effect on programmers of censuring a show for having a single curse (PBR July 16 p2).
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
Stations had the option of bleeping language in documentaries, especially those dealing with war, Kerger said. But “there are moments when it is tremendously important for the programs to air as the filmmaker has created them,” she said. “We obviously put a lot of effort into curating the content that we bring forward, and I think that the ruling was cognizant of that. And as we air programs that have language, we always put the disclaimers around them so that the viewers know what they'll be experiencing so there [are] no surprises on any side.”
Much of PBS’ current focus is using emerging technology to strengthen its brand and to extend its reach to younger audiences. Media is in a “period of unparalleled technological advancement,” Kerger said. “We can fit our personal music libraries into our pockets, and last month Amazon announced for the first time in its 15-year history that the sale of eBooks exceeded their sale of hardback books. As a society, we've blown the limits off of media and technology."
To keep pace, PBS is innovating on multiple platforms, Kerger said. “For four decades, we've demonstrated how television can be used, not only to entertain, but also to enlighten. Now we're doing for digital media what we've done for TV, which is using it as an instrument for expanding horizons and personal growth."
This includes developing iPhone apps for the preschool set. “Research shows our Martha Speaks iPhone app helps kids improve their vocabulary by more than 30 percent. As a result of this success, Adobe, Smart Technologies and other partners are now in turning to PBS, seeking our help in creating educational children’s content for their platforms,” Kerger said. “We're not suggesting that parents are buying iPhones for kids. It’s the parent’s iPhone that the apps are being stored on.” Some PBS apps are available free, and some of them go for $1.99.
With smart phones increasingly becoming many consumers’ main computing device, devices like the iPhone, Evo and iPad are yet another opportunity to reach the public, Kerger said. “For us, it just escalates the learning experience from a very passive experience of sitting at home and watching a program on television, to something that the children can actually interact with and, while they're playing the game, learning. I always like to think of it as sneaky learning because kids are enjoying the games, and at the same time, they're taking away an experience that helps shape their brains."
It’s not just the kid set PBS is targeting. “We've done some apps connected with some of our broadcast programs and are looking to expand that at the same time that we have brought video onto our online, both through pbs.org and through the station sites, through our video player,” Kerger said. “I'm not sure that people will watch an entire Masterpiece Theatre on a small screen, but as the technology evolves, it’s not impossible to contemplate. And obviously shorter pieces of video work quite well."
Digital technology has also added a new dimension to fundraising, Kerger said. “As media is shifting, philanthropy is also shifting. I think there’s a whole other opportunity for us as other organizations have made connections with donors through online. So we actually have a big initiative that we have started a few months ago working with our stations to really create a space where people can make contributions, but also can connect with their stations in a very different way than they've been able to do before."
The concern over online and emerging digital media leaving broadcast TV a wasteland seems to be largely over. “People are now watching more television than they ever have before,” Kerger said. “By creating all of these different opportunities we are bringing our work to new audiences. The heaviest users of online content, they do tend to be younger. And a lot of people come in to us from search. Our ratings are up not just for the kids’ space but also in the primetime because we are bringing in a large audience from online. So it seems to all be additive."
Having multiple digital channels has also been a boon. “We are just starting to truly analyze the audiences that are coming in from those channels but it does appear that that is part of what is contributing to the rise in our viewership,” Kerger said. Each station has been able to gear their multicast services to their community, she noted. “Some have built services that are workforce training, some have built out services that are focused on the arts or whatever,” Kerger said. Multicasting “has given us an opportunity to truly do the kind of service that stations have wanted to do, and that, to me, is what public broadcasting is about.”