Mermigas: you can monetize quality public media
Diane Mermigas has a great piece exploring ways for public media to monetize its content and generate new revenues – something a lot of us are thinking about… well, right about now.
Her strong opening line: Nonprofit public media–and most especially public broadcasting–will embrace interactive Web tools that connect companies, producers and distributors of content and their target consumers in ways they once considered “commercial.” Three words of advice: Get over it.
She proceeds to list a number of those “formerly commercial” opportunities, each of which arises from either the quality content we’re already creating, or new initiatives we have underway to explore other platforms.
Her recommendations include better systems to acquire and process donations and contributions, stepping beyond the traditional concepts of membership, perhaps even a central fundraising mechanism; monetizing the connections we’re building with new tools like twitter and Facebook; and getting content out to third parties like Hulu and iTunes, where people can purchase it.
Mermigas offers only a couple examples of ways we’re currently generating revenue from our content, but in truth, there are only a few. She notes there are a lot of interesting things we’re doing that could be revenue generators, from our social engagement on twitter, to signature content we create.
And: An estimated $3.5 trillion of available investment funds are on the sidelines in the U.S.–as much as $40 trillion worldwide–as a result of the credit crunch, cautious lending and economic turmoil. There is a precedent for conditional, nonprofit investing that simultaneously advances social goals and business interests.
Mermigas isn’t giving us all the answers; her post encourages us to think again about what we’re doing and how we might pay for it.
Dennis Haarsager has introduced me and perhaps many others to the excellent analysis of Diane Mermigas through his blog Technology360. Some of you will remember Diane from her appearances at the Public Media Conference, most recently this last February.
Note: Here at WFPL/Louisville Public Media, we’re pleased to be listed among her examples of public media engagement.
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Since the digital technology emerged in the 90′s there have been many producers that won’t follow those three words “get over it”. A great deal of old school non commercial broadcasters will miss out on an opportunity. The problem is this opportunity isn’t a one step and you are there. It’s a process of discovery that involves a great level of colloboration and many different sized boxes that often one does not get to see until they are in a box only to be given another similar but different box to jump in minutes later. Across the system flexibility is required and a lot of, “well that wasn’t it let’s try it this way” moments.
Exactly – thanks for the comment!