Mar 7, 2011
Give pubcasting three more years of funding to migrate to Internet-only, digital wonk says
Shelly Palmer, host of NBC's Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, a weekly half-hour show about living and working in a digital world, writes on his blog that public broadcasting needs just three more years of government funding to see it through to its next incarnation. "I have listened (and been drawn into) many cocktail conversations debating whether or not Public Broadcasting should be an Internet-only service," he says. Now is the time for that decision, he contends. "Would an online, broadband, app-centric, wireless, wired, fixed wireless, over-the-top, IPTV, Internet-Television, 4G, WiMax, Digital Tier ATSC, MSO Public Channel, LPTV, Web, Blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Social Media-ized version of Public Broadcasting work?" he ponders. "If it can’t – then the content and the concept is not worthy of survival." Palmer also is a six-time Emmy nominee for his "Hi-Tech" TV specials for Fox 5 in New York.
This is the first intelligent idea from the defunding camp I've heard. Of course, you're kicking out all the elderly pubTV viewers and kids TV users also lose out. But the rest of the system could use a shock like this to get back to the core mission in a way that matters to the future.
ReplyDeleteAny local station that wanted to continue broadcasting could do so, they'd just have to pay for it themselves. News and information don't need radio or TV any longer.
I'd write more, but I'm on the iPhone. Checking the news. Not listening to radio or watching TV.
So says the pundit who makes his living on TV?
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, maybe it's a commercial network or two that needs to go Internet-only. Who needs duplication on broadcast?
Such a silly argument.
While I agree that much of the future promise of pubcasting is about the mobile internet, it's important to keep in mind the power of the broadcast tower. Perhaps the most important part of that power is the ability of local stations to present a hyper-local community focus.
ReplyDeleteI know it is fashionable to think of the broadcast tower as antiquated, and a waste of spectrum, but in a world where people are abandoning cable for a hybrid of local broadcast and internet, perhaps there is a place for local content creators.
Also, there are options for our spectrum that are not outdated, and truly innovative. Very soon, we may be broadcasting or serving data to devices in ways that we are not presently considering.