Public Broadcasting Seeking Partners in Telecom, Media
Telecom and media companies should look for partnerships with public broadcasters to face the challenge created by changes in technology and the recession, said Larry Sidman, Association of Public TV Stations chief executive. “You and your companies are searching for ways to survive the downturn and emerge stronger,” he said in a speech to the Media Institute. “Let us build upon our personal and professional friendships and seek new ways to work together.”
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In the worst-case scenario, public TV stations could end service, Sidman said. “With the expected continued decline of the economy though 2009, some local stations may well disappear entirely, undermining the universal service mandate of the Public Broadcasting Act.” All of public TV’s traditional funding sources are hurting, he said. State funding is “under attack” as governors and state legislatures look to trim budgets. Corporate underwriting is also strained, as evidenced by the General Motors’ decision Monday to end its arrangement with film producer Ken Burns, he said. And individual contributions are dropping sharply. Add it all up, and it’s worse by half than the $200 million cut to federal funding Congress proposed in 2005, he said.
Public TV could partner with Internet service providers who are in need of content to put on their networks, Sidman said. One way he will measure his success as CEO of APTS is by the amount of public TV programming that’s carried on other mediums, he said. “We don’t envision public broadcasting to continue to be a series of transmitters doing point to multipoint communication.”
Sales and profit are not the primary motivations behind such partnerships, but there’s no reason why the motives of profit and public service can’t coexist through them, he said. The main spur is to deal with the changes in the industry, he said: “Everybody is facing challenges,” in their core business and the “the old configurations are gone.”