Welcome to the Future… PBS Digital

By Todd Mundt • April 6, 2007

I had a great chat today with my favorite manager in public television… and while our chats tend to cover acres and acres of territory, we spent most of our time today on the subject of HD and TV’s digital bandwidth.

I’ve already offered up my snarky remarks on the 24 hour PBS HD feed - that it looks great in a Best Buy store, but once it convinces you that you must own an HD set, it offers very little. My bias is toward multicast; or more choice, rather than more pixels.

This manager takes a ~~somewhat different~~ smarter view:

1) People really do watch that 24 hour HD channel. It’s mostly anecdotal, I think, but he’s probably right. There is something mesmerizing about programs like NOVA, or even Smart Travels, when you see them in high definition. It makes you want to watch more TV. I’m not sure how long that lasts, or whether it means that public TV should devote 24 hours a day to eye candy across the majority of the digital bandwidth. Especially when the HD channel schedule is repetitious, and often the series episodes shown don’t match what I see on my regular, old-fashioned PBS channel. But maybe this doesn’t matter. If I used to watch 3 hours of public TV a week, and now I watch 6 hours because the HD channel is really cool, that’s a good thing, right? Hmmm… maybe I should see a high definition TV personality occasionally, asking me for some more money.

2) How much HD you offer should be tied to how much HD you produce. It’s silly of me to ask my public TV station to stop transmitting all those bandwidth-sucking vistas; my public TV network here has made a huge commitment to HD. For a few years now, it’s entire production capability in the field has been HD. (Remember the Monty Python sketch where the guys are shot on video indoors, and they grow curious about why every time they look out the door, they’re shot on film?) The field makeover is to be followed by a makeover of its three studios, the first of which is likely to debut this fall. The reason for all this? The network is committed to preventing our small midwestern state from “disappearing” in the digital future. It’s a core piece of the network’s overall strategy. It goes without saying that a network that is churning out dozens of hours of HD programs a year can make a stronger case for a significant commitment of bandwidth to it.

3) Multicast is damn expensive. Even networks like Create that repackage stuff we’ve already paid for cost money. I hear that one planned multicast service is asking stations to sign 10 year contracts. That amazes me, but it’s the stark reality of maintaining the service.

So what do you do?

Our network here is investigating low cost ways to find existing content, which few ever see, and make it available to a much wider audience. This is a smart move. Research Channel dramatically increases a university’s ROI in lectures and presentations. When taxpayers help make all of this intellectual content possible at the universities in their state, they should be able to get access to more of it than they do, and public TV can be a conduit for it, and catalyst for the creation of more of it, at very little cost to itself.

What other content is there? Ethan Zuckerman writes compellingly about Al Jazeera English. Why can’t my public TV station offer it for a few hours a week on multicast? My PBS station already offers BBC World News. Slap an hour of BBC World News next to an hour of Al Jazeera, or (as the PBS manager says) next to an hour of TV produced for external consumption by our own Broadcasting Board of Governors. Put fixed cameras in public radio studios and offer up talk shows and other programs on TV. A few hundred thousand people watch Imus on TV every day. Follow the TPT or CET models and find partners who will help you create content. I still really like the idea of giving over a small portion of digital bandwidth to retransmit public radio stations. Your channel becomes a portal to a wealth of public media content, whether audio or video. (btw, at present, can you do this? Public radio network number one: no; public radio network number two: maybe; public radio network number three: yes. Streaming rights? Don’t even ask.)
Are three cameras always better than one? No. C-SPAN has shown us that an event recorded with one camera, can result in compelling content for those who are compelled to view it. I watch Merlin Mann’s “The Merlin Show” religiously. It’s shot with one camera that never moves. Is it an amateur video podcast? No, it’s well produced and soon it will be available in 720p. Does it need a second camera? No. Why? Because the production doesn’t require it, AND it’s great content.

People far smarter than me could come up with many more ideas than that, and are. I can live with big, jaw-droppingly beautiful HD images, if there’s still some room for innovation and experimentation in multicasting. In a way, this is like the first days of television all over again. Once again, we have a medium that almost no one is watching, a space to try anything that we can think of, for little or no money (relatively speaking), a space in which to fall flat on our faces, or perhaps to rewrite the rule book for TV.

Categories: publicmedia
Tags: hdtv, pubtv

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Jim 1 year ago 1 point
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Is it by mere chance that a campaign is pursued to deny the American viewers get the other side of the picture that doesn't usually make it on US media some of whom either co-opted by corporations and/or corruption?

Instead of educating the American people and exposing myths surrounding matters of real American security, Why some circles wish do NOT like the public to have alternate sources to crosscheck facts so vital to Americans?

One would expect media activists to ask the major US channels draw adequate attention to matters that are of vital priority and concern for the protection and well-being of American lives. But many are found silent on most occasions.

Some are observed busy to attract attention on irrelevant and insignificant issues.

Media activist should encourage even wider access to channels like Al Jazeera that provides objective coverage of critical foreign policy and security issues, while many US media organs tiptoe around issues in fear of not to over step their boundaries. The following examples serve as a litmus test:

According to Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor and Nobel laureate, so many soldiers are being injured that the costs of caring for them over their lifetimes is likely to be $350 billion, or up to twice that, depending on how long the war lasts. The high cost is the result of huge advances in military medicine that have greatly reduced the chances that a soldier injured in Iraq will die. As a result, the ratio of injuries to deaths 16:1 by his estimate is higher than in any other war in U.S. history.

The White House budget director, Rob Portman has asked, in the new budget, basically for another $365 billion over the next few fiscal years. This comes on the $433 billion that ’s already been spent, a total of nearly $800 billion.
And what a lot of people are asking: Is this good money going after bad given the current situation in Iraq? Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the other day: It ’s doubly shameful because we’re trying to restore places like New Orleans and the Gulf Coast here in this country. That’s been held up, and this money’s being wasted in Iraq.

Media outlets ought to probe the cakewalk crowd who promised a casual march to victory in Iraq. Media activists should campaign for accountability of the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming “measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.”

The Self-pronounced champions of accuracy, fairness and honesty in media should think hard why they remain indifferent and unwilling towards Americans getting a pluralistic picture on ground. Those who call for restricting plurality of opinion deny the option of diversity and deprive the US audience to judge the facts for themselves.

All Americans have a right to alternate opinion. More so, when owing to movement restrictions on US media in Iraq, security risks and language barriers for American expatriates and diplomats there is limited interaction to gather facts. This is for a country spending $8 billion a month to win hearts and minds in Iraq. The self-pronounced champions of accuracy, fairness and honesty in media should think hard why they remain indifferent and unwilling towards Americans getting a pluralistic picture on ground.

Those who call for restricting plurality of opinion deny the option of diversity and deprive the US audience to judge the facts for themselves. It is the absence of and NOT presence of accountable media that is injurious to American interest.

Let's imagine that there is no Aljazeera any more. Would it solve the challenges US faced prior and after the appearence of this tiny 'matchbox size' outlet. Is our public diplomacy confident of getting a clear and accurate picture in areas of diplomatic and security engagements? One can get two possible responses. One from people who are away from the trouble spots and have no direct contacts with those in the field of action. It may not be difficult to ascertain what is the source of insecurity and hostility to US interest in, say, Iraq.

The US government has 1000 pair of eyes on ground at their mission in Baghdad. Are they any closer in getting the exact picture on the ground despite spending $ 2 billion a week?

Owing to movement restrictions on US media in Iraq, security risks and language barriers for American expatriates and diplomats there is limited interaction to gather facts, says an ex-Press attache. Robert J. Callahan told AJR that out of 1000 personnel at US mission in Baghdad, only 7 are fluent in Arabic: "Add to this the inability of most of us to read Arabic newspapers and understand television news programs.”

Those advocating for accuracy in media should clarify if they put their weight behind supporting the Americans in getting a pluralistic picture on ground. Those who call for restricting plurality of opinion (by restricting channels like Aljazeera) keep US deprived of the option to ascertain the accuracy of facts for themselves. To borrow Callahan's term, the Americans in Iraq worked in "a communication twilight. Nothing ever appeared in sharp focus." It is time to open new windows and let the alternate views in.

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