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On Public Media

What was once public broadcasting has now seemingly become public media.

Once upon a time there were these two groups, the public television folks and the public radio folks. Then Al Gore came along and messed everything up for everyone with his new internet thing.

Since then, the world has changed for public broadcasters, who were once accustomed to the world of the one-to-many relationship of broadcaster-to-broadcast area. The intervention of cable and subsequently satellite TV changed some of that anyway, but the internet has certainly put an incredible new spin on things for all broadcasters, public or commercial or otherwise.

The new many-to-many internet environment has offered many opportunities, but also many challenges for broadcasters. Furthermore, the always-available model of internet content is a far cry from the available on schedule model that TV and radio used to be. No longer can we think in linear terms when it comes to production. Where traditional broadcast content was based on productions with a beginning and middle and end, web content has none of the above. Web designers in the late 90's tried really hard to emulate this effect by tuning their interfaces to have only one door in, one pathway through and then what ended up being (unbeknownst to them) many doorways out. Needless to say, that sort of web interface wound up being a pretty unsuccessful one as people would either not find the in-door or not travel all the way through the path.

So how do public broadcasters cope with this world? I hope they do so by calling on some of us who have dedicated our professional lives to figuring out how it works.

My company, Haenel Communication Technologies, works with public medioa organizations of all types to understand things like interface design, traffic habits, visibility and loyalty. We try to understand all the many hidden methods of monetizing web content so our clients may make use of those methods.

We also work closely with the Integrated Media Association, an organization which focuses on all things new media for public media, to create, develop and manage programs that might help those who are in public broadcasting to become those in public media.

There are so very many issues to discuss on this topic. If you're interested in knowing more about public media, its past and its future, please feel free to contact my office at Haenel Communication Technologies. We're always anxious to talk over great ideas and concerns on the subject.