Digital's $ promise for public TV stations

'We have a hard time raising funds through a single channel of analog. We need a mix of funding sources to fund the new digital content for our stations. Digital transmission
allows us to do that by offering a variety of services.'

Digital's $ promise
for public TV stations

Additional channels for ad-supported programs

By David Everitt

   Advertising opportunities might be opening up soon in some unusual places.
    Public television stations are increasingly willing to compromise some of their noncommercial purity as a way to hang onto the core of their broadcast mission. And they’re not the only ones who think this is a good idea. Federal regulators have recently given their stamp of approval to the idea.
    Like so many things these days, though, it’s all got to do with the digital transition, not issues of ideology.
    The powerful digital signals that public TV stations are starting to use will allow them to do more than transmit just a single channel. There’s electronic room to offer other channels and services, too.
    A new policy approved by the Federal Communications Commission will allow the stations to offer their extra services on a subscription basis, some of them incorporating ads.
    "We have a hard time raising funds through a single channel of analog," says John Lawson, president and CEO of the Association of Public Television Stations.
    "We need a mix of funding sources to fund the new digital content for our stations. Digital transmission allows us to do that by offering a variety of services."
     APTS has been lobbying for this plan for several years. Other groups, though, have been opposing the idea of any commercial intrusion into public broadcasting.
     "We’ve been litigating this issue for two years," says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president of the Media Access Project, a public interest law firm, "and we’re disappointed by the FCC decision, and we’re going to take them to court."
     The subscription services that public TV may offer have not been clearly defined yet, but Lawson believes they will be data-oriented, "the internet on steroids," as he puts it.
     "One model could be business news and earnings information streamed to people’s PCs. There’s also been some talk about educational services. Schools might subscribe to a digital platform of streaming media, piped into classrooms on demand to supplement textbooks."
     Advertising on these services, Lawson says, could "look like banner ads."
     According to Schwartzman, the APTS-supported plan approved by the FCC is "bad law, worse policy, and self-defeating politically."
     It’s bad law, he says, because it doesn’t conform to the applicable statutes that establish the rules of public broadcasting, and it’s worse policy because "it’s like eating the seed corn. The spectrum has been reserved for noncommercial use. The effect will be that these public TV stations will be ignoring the niche markets that they should be identifying."
     It’s self-defeating, he contends, because "once you make public broadcasting competitive with commercial TV, you’ll be jeopardizing funding.
     "In Congress, when they see public TV stations generating advertising revenue, they’ll say, ‘Why do they need federal funding?’ Ad revenues will also alienate many contributors who count on getting public broadcasting without commercials."
     Lawson counters by saying that the new plan will actually improve public broadcasting’s standing.
     "For us, digital changes everything," he says. "The FCC’s decision allows us to increase the number of noncommercial services we provide in addition to ad-supported services. And the more we can do for the community, the stronger we’ll be politically.
     "Any advertising revenue we generate will be plowed back into our basic noncommercial mission and will increase our ability to help the community. That will make us more appealing to people on Capitol Hill."
     But Schwartzman is also troubled by the current vagueness of the plan, especially the loosely defined subscription services that will be offered.
     "Essentially, the public TV stations have asked the FCC for a blank check," he says. "No matter how well-meaning they are, the history of public broadcasting is littered with technology plans and business plans that don’t work. And if that happens this time, then it’s on to Plan B or Plan C, which could be even worse."

-David Everitt covers technology for Media Life, writing from Huntington, New York.

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