Greetings from Camp DDC!
8/10/2006

As many of you may already know, Public Interactive is participating in the Digital Distribution Consortium (DDC) Working Group. When NPR's new realities retreats wrapped, several organizations banded together to form a working group, charged with exploring collaborative opportunities for increasing public broadcasting's relevance in the digital environment, and enabling engagement with a wide range of audiences and partners within and beyond the system. The working group committed to spending 6 weeks together this summer.

Think of this note as my letter home from summer camp. As of this writing, I'm not asking you to come rescue me, but some home-made cookies would be nice!

So what exactly does increasing public broadcasting's relevance in the digital environment mean?

We all know what a profound impact our signals have on the public. We are an important part of their lives on air. But I do not believe our web presence has the same level of impact. Ask around your station, ask your family members, your friends – where do they start their day online? Is it with you? When you travel, you turn that radio dial to the left and hunt for the local public radio station. Do you do the same online?

Let's face it, in a world where people want their media to go, any place, any time, on all sorts of devices, from iPods to cell phones – our service model is being challenged. And what about local station relevance? How can local stations have increasing impact if their listeners can access national program content with a one-time subscription (ie: podcasts)?

These are not easy questions to answer, and frankly, no one organization is poised to capture the market, which brings us back to why I decided to take 6 weeks of my summer, leave my day job (sort of) back in Boston, and sit around the camp fire with the DDC working group to explore opportunities, see what organizations in the commercial sector are thinking, to argue, to agree, to fight for a stronger, more unified public broadcasting experience online – all delivered at the local level.

Campers include:
Mike Bettison: Minnesota Public Radio, APM
Jay Brodsky: NPR
Debra May Hughes: Public Interactive, PRI
Todd Mundt: Iowa Public Radio
Tim Olson: KQED
Jake Shapiro: PRX

Our camp counselors are Michael Kleeman and Julie Gupta, outside consultants to the group who keeps us focused and remind us to wear sunscreen and bugspray.

Campsites so far:
Washington DC -- CPB, NGIS, Content Depot, Mindshare
Boston – WGBH, The Berkman Center, Audible, Nelly Moser, Digitas
San Francisco – KQED, PBS, interface designer of the iPod, Technorati, Lucas Films, Open Media Network
Los Angeles -- Creative Artists Association, Fox
New Orleans -- PRDMC, Tarot Card reader (alas, no easy answers revealed)

Still to go:
Minneapolis
Washington DC wrap up

What to expect:
The counselors suggested that we frame our work by drafting a business plan. At first I was strongly opposed to this concept, thinking the last thing I wanted to do was enter a process designed to create yet another entity, adding more fragmentation to this market. In practice, drafting a business plan is keeping the group quite grounded. It is providing a way to examine current challenges, market opportunities, competitive forces and infrastructure costs. Think of this plan as a potential road map, one that will illustrate the opportunities that exist to expand:

•Mission
•Service
•Audience
•Revenue

I can't begin to predict how the entities within public broadcasting will decide to embrace or reject this plan. But I can say, the fact that key organizations have offered time and personnel to participate illustrates a recognition that the DDC working group is embarking on a worthwhile journey.

Still confused about what the DDC will do? Think of the DDC as a repository of content (audio, video, text, and graphics) from known content creators, local stations, and independent producers. What if you could aggregate and search this content? What if you could deliver this content locally? What if you could opt in to let your content be distributed on emerging digital channels? Open up new revenue potential? Create new relationships with local or national underwriters?

We use the expression: innovate at the edges. And I believe in that. I'd hate to see one entity controlling the fate of the DDC. By aggregating content and enabling innovative stations or networks to develop pioneering use for this content, delivering it to a broader more diverse audience, everyone wins. Stations and producers wouldn't be expected to use the DDC as their only content repository. We would not expect stations to throw away sizeable investments that have been made to digitize archives. The DDC would simply offer a way to give that content new life, and hopefully, to generate new revenue streams shared with content creators.

We are trying to make this process as transparent as possible. We created a wiki web site where you can follow along.

http://digitaldistribution.wikispaces.com/

Both Todd Mundt and Jake Shapiro are blogging about their experiences. Clearly Todd and Jake are vying for the best camper award!

What Do You Think?
And then there's you! Spend some time on the wiki and tell me what you think: the good, the bad, and the ugly. I've already received a number of calls and emails on the subject. Some optimistic, and some very distrustful of this process and the very need for such a group. As someone at the table keenly concerned about raising the bar for station web sites at the local level – I want to hear from you.

Thanks for taking the time to read this note. Oops, I hear them calling. It's time for my archery lesson.

Debra May Hughes
President & COO
Public Interactive LLC
25 Kingston Street
Boston, MA 02111
617.423.4499 x127