Collaborative partnerships with like-minded nonprofits have been bruited
about in public broadcasting since the last millennium as a way to sustain
local programming, but Twin Cities Public Television has moved beyond the
talk.
It’s walking the walk with its Minnesota Channel, now approaching its
second birthday and preparing to go 24/7 this fall.
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By airing taped events such as a university lecture by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, the Minnesota Channel enlarges the partner's audience and strengthens the partnership. |
TPT had the luxury of a second analog channel, Channel 17, to begin its experiment
one evening a week in April 2003. With the help of more than 80 partners—the
likes of the Mayo Clinic, St. Olaf College, the Science Museum of Minnesota
and the state’s Agriculture Department—the station has produced
148 programs to date. The Minnesota Channel now airs 11 hours weekly, on Saturday
and Sunday evenings. (At other times Channel 17 carries state legislative
coverage and the previous day’s primetime schedule.)
Jim Pagliarini, president of the station, had long had a vision of creating
an “I-SPAN,” or intellectual C-SPAN, to serve a niche audience
in the splintered digital channel world, said Bill Hanley, executive v.p.
That meshed with dialog in the system about sharing stations’ DTV capacity
with other civic groups, amplified by such voices as Benton Foundation consultant
Richard Somerset-Ward, which filtered into a formal business plan for walking
the aforementioned walk.
Economics and technology also insisted on change. Business as usual was barely
supporting TPT’s main channel while the oncoming switch to DTV held
out a dream—or nightmare—of four, five, perhaps eight or more
channels to fill with programming.
“The basic thought was that in sharing editorial control with partners,
we would also ask them to share the cost,” said Hanley. “. . .
There had been little individual [partnership] projects, but not this notion
of a business model on which you could create a whole service, promote around
it, give it a name.”
For people with a taste for paradigm shifts, it’s a sexy occasion, risky
and exciting.
Translated to electrons, much of the Minnesota Channel is unsexy, C-SPAN-like
coverage of panel discussions, academic lectures and town hall meetings,
supported
with the nonprofit partner’s contribution that, Hanley says, averages
$12,000 to $15,000. Less frequent are higher-end productions such as a St.
Paul Chamber Orchestra concert or a documentary that can run to $150,000 or
more. A nonprofit can join in a bare-bones program for as little as $5,000.
What’s the partner get for its money? A guarantee of at least three
broadcasts the first year and rights to do whatever it wants with the tape.
In its first year, the Minnesota Channel brought in $347,000 in revenue.
It more than doubled the amount in year two. This year, it’s expected to
top $1.3 million and Hanley predicts annual growth closer to 10 percent after
that. However, the operation isn’t making money yet: TPT is contributing
roughly $400,000 a year to the channel (a big chunk of which is covered by
grants from the McKnight Foundation and Saint Paul Foundation), much of that
going toward production, promotion and management.
If you’re thinking the Minnesota Channel could degenerate into infomercials,
TPT is ahead of you. The station developed strict editorial guidelines, said
Keith Parker, senior partner manager of the Minnesota Channel. Partners are
informed that programming can’t be used for lobbying purposes, for example,
and that partner interests will be fully disclosed.
To clarify his point, Parker gave two examples: The Courage Center, an organization
devoted to helping people with disabilities, wanted to acknowledge its 75th
anniversary by doing a program on the social history of living with disability.
The program got made. Another health institution, in honor of its round-number
anniversary, wanted to do a program on its own history. TPT rejected the
project
as too self-promotional, Parker said.
He believes viewers recognize that the programming they’re seeing during
the block is different from wholly local TPT productions because the partnerships
are prominently identified, and the look and feel of the Minnesota Channel
is different from other programming. “People recognize it as a brand
of TPT,” said Parker.
TPT’s plan was to be running the Minnesota Channel full time by year
three. Hanley said that is tentatively scheduled to happen in September, when
one of its multicast channels will be devoted to state-focused programming.
Hanley estimates about a quarter of households in the area will have access
to digital-tier cable channels; TPT is trying to broker a similar agreement
with Comcast. The analog channel will likely continue to air “best of”
Minnesota Channel programming on weekends, Hanley said.
What works outside the Social Capital Belt
TPT may be singing the virtues of its partnership programming, but is this
a viable model for other public TV stations?
Maryland PTV Senior Vice President Eric Eggleton said he’s talked recently
with Parker about the workings of the Minnesota Channel but doesn’t
see MPT doing anything similar in the next year or so.
“It’s good to know how they’ve worked it in their shop,
but it would not be a cookie cutter for us. The Twin Cities are a unique market.
As [Bowling Alone author] Robert Putnam put it, it’s in the
high social capital belt. . . . Minnesota is a remarkable community. There’s
a great deal of support for public media in general.”
WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., likewise couldn’t move as fast as TPT. “We
have a single analog and four multicast channels,” says Gary Walker,
v.p., television. “We don’t have the luxury” of the second
analog channel that TPT has, he says.
Nonetheless, WXXI is developing a one- to two-hour block of weekly programming
branded as Community Rochester to broadcast on its analog channel. Launch
is tentatively set for June. Walker didn’t want to name potential community
partners because projects were still in the negotiation stage.
Because Community Rochester will be sharing the same channel as the rest
of the station’s local and national programming, Walker said producers
will give the partnered efforts a distinctive look and separate it from news
and public affairs programming. “We may use a split screen to say this
is Community Rochester; breaks and interstitials will say this is a different
service, that we’re partnering on content,” he said.
“Part of the reason TPT has been successful is they are building on
their strengths, which is local production. If your station hasn’t done
a lot of local production, you may need to lay a little groundwork first before
considering trying this model,” said Cindy Browne, a former TPT executive
and now a Twin Cities-based consultant specializing in public broadcasting
strategic partnering, change and organizational renewal.
She said she couldn’t judge how well viewers distinguish the Minnesota
Channel from TPT productions, but says area nonprofits she regularly works
with “are very aware of this effort,” thanks, in part, to aggressive
wooing by the station.
South Carolina walks a different walk
South Carolina ETV has chosen a different community-centric model. Its South
Carolina Channel has been running 24/7 since fall 2003. A teeny number of
programs are produced with partners like Clemson University and the state
Department of Natural Resources, but most are local productions the station
has financed through underwriting, said President Moss Bresnahan.
Underwriting for the SC Channel, with its coverage of high school and college
sports, the state fair and legislative goings-on, has been relatively easy
to attract.
“Our statehouse coverage is practically sold out. One of our most popular
shows is a live, weekly press briefing by the speaker of the House that makes
news every week. It’s must-see TV. We think we’ve found a pretty
good business plan,” said Bresnahan.
The local sports events coverage is also tapping into a new audience base,
he noted.
“There’s definitely a place for collaborations, and we have done
them, but I think we’re looking for the punch-through programs that
draw audiences and really make a difference. And those programs come from
TV professionals,” said Bresnahan.
As Donald Browne, professor of communication studies at the University of
Minnesota, notes, TPT’s second analog channel doesn’t get nearly
the viewership its main channel does.
The un-slick production values “are not going to be sticky to channel
surfers” but Minnesota Channel fare “will have a strong synergy
with TiVo for the niche communities to grab and watch at their convenience,”
said John Forde, a Twin Cities independent producer and media watcher whose
series Mental Engineering is going to be feeding this summer on
the PBS satellite.
How narrow is narrowcasting?
As Hanley and Parker see it, the Minnesota Channel isn’t looking for
programs that draw a general audience and ratings closer to the size attracted
by PBS shows. Hanley points to an example of narrowcasting with intense value
to a partner’s public-interest mission: a lecture produced with the
Minnesota International Center. “They get 350 people in the audience
to see the Chinese ambassador speak. We put it on the Minnesota Channel and
13,000 people watch it. Now that’s less than a point in the ratings,
but they are absolutely thrilled at the spectacular increase in impact and
outreach. They can go to their funders and say, ‘Look at how many people
we reached.’”
And to be clear, not every show on the Minnesota Channel is a joint editorial
effort of TPT and a partner. A couple of hours each week are filled by acquired
community programming — magazine-style programs serving Hmong, Vietnamese,
Middle Eastern, Latino and other audiences. These shows originate on cable
access channels but TPT carriage makes them available to viewers who don’t
have cable. Some aren’t in English.
“They produce the shows themselves and they’re serving niche communities
we haven’t been able to produce programs for,” said Parker.
Still other programs fall into the public service category. TPT paired with
state and local health agencies to produce ECHO — for Emergency and
Community Health Outreach — programs containing public health advisories
and emergency alerts in Spanish, Vietnamese, Hmong, Lao, Khmer and Somali.
Topics have included
fire safety, flu awareness and household poisons.
Serving the community is exactly what community access channels have been
doing for decades, said Mike Wassenaar, executive director of St. Paul Neighborhood
Network, a community access television organization. Of TPT he says, “I
welcome them to our world. I hope they succeed, but when they lose interest
and move to another [funding] model, we’ll still be serving the community.”
Some of the community programs that TPT airs are produced at SPNN, so he
sees TPT as both “a collaborator and a competitor.”
The number of area nonprofits with sophisticated development departments
that can raise five- and six-figure sums for a show is limited, said Wassenaar.
When informed that some Minnesota Channel productions could be financed for
as little as $5,000, he countered, “If you went to the average community
nonprofit and said, ‘raise $6,000,’ they would look at you like
you’re crazy. They’re struggling to keep their doors open.”
Cable access can produce programs for one-sixth to one-tenth for what TPT
does, he says. “They’ve got revenue goals. This isn’t a
charitable exercise.”
Web page posted March 17, 2005
Copyright 2005 by Current Publishing Committee
EARLIER ARTICLES
Benton Foundation fellow Richard Somerset-Ward laid out a "Strategy for digital TV: making channels a community asset" in a 1999 speech reprinted in Current .
Connecticut Public TV systematically searched for partners and joint projects.
Boston's WGBH has been working with nonprofits at a lower budget-level, putting lectures online in streaming video. Four other stations plan to join the Forum Network this year.
LINKS
TPT's Minnesota Channel schedule plus 15 streaming videos for examples.
An environmental group publicizes its series on water resources, including the threat of an invasive shellfish species co-produced for the Minnesota Channel.
EmbraceOpenSpace. org promoted its Minnesota Channel co-production "The Last 6%: Treasuring Our Open Spaces."
Collaboration with nonprofits is a key part of initiatives involving public broadcasters, including the Benton Foundations' Sound Partners, which backs partnerships between pubradio stations and health groups, and a new CPB-IMLS grant program Partnership for a Nation of Learners encouraging stations to ally with local museums and libraries.
TPT'S PARTNERS
Affordable
Comfort Inc. American Cancer Society Ballet of the Dolls CARE Center for Animal Health & Food Safety Children's Initiative
Courage Center
Cover the Uninsured Week Family & Children's Service
Freshwater Society
Givens Foundation for African American Literature Guidant
University Hamline
University Hazelden KWCM-TV
(Pioneer Public TV) Landmark
Center Lawson Software League
of Women Voters Life
Source Macalester College Minnesota
Board of Animal Health Minnesota
Dept. of Agriculture Minnesota
Dept. of Health
Minnesota Dept. of Health & Human Services: Childrens Initiative Minnesota
Dept of Human Rights Minnesota Dept of Natural Resources Minnesota Health & Housing Alliance
Minnesota High Tech Association Minnesota Humanities Commission Minnesota International Center
NAACP - Mpls Branch Ramsey
Action Programs Ramsey
County Ramsey County
Family Support Committee St.
John's University St
. Olaf College U of
M Carlson School of Mgmt U
of M College of Veterinary Medicine U
of M Design Institute U
of M English Dept. U of M Humphrey Institute
WDSE-TV (PBS eight)