WSPR
Board White Paper on State of Our Internet
The
WSPR board of directors has been discussing the strategic state of affairs for
our stations and our network on the internet for the past several months. Mark
Fuerst has joined as our internet consulting expert. We have initiated
conversations with NPR as well, and engaged with representatives from a number
of WSPR stations. Our concern is that after ten years or more online, we do not
come close to matching on the internet the public service impact on the nation
which we achieve over the air. We find ourselves in this position despite a $40
million investment each year, diluted by the lack of coordinated investment
policies. Yet little urgency and thus little priority exist to change the status
quo.
Our
position is that the current state of affairs is neither effective nor likely to
change significantly without a major alteration in the way in which stations and
NPR:
For
years, talk in the system has emphasized the strengths to be gained through
broadcast consolidation and aggregation. Consolidation themes are historically
supported and encouraged by the CPB. Many of our colleagues on the local and the
national level have agreed with this assessment, and the CPB has included
incentives in the CSG program to this end. Yet talk of internet aggregation,
consolidation, and joint ventures bogs down at the station level with concerns
over loss of identity, control and direction. At the network level, fears kick
in over the political costs involved in even proposing to discuss such matters.
We
face a contradiction and choose to accept it: Aggregation, cooperation, and
integration in broadcasting have worked to the system’s and the public’s
extreme advantage. This is the source of the massive majority of our identities
and our service impact lie. Yet stations and NPR have zealously guarded their
prerogatives and independence on the internet, where only minor impacts have
been made with little effect on our identity and our public service…and
extremely negative ROI.
TABLE 1
New York, NY - July
14, 2008 – Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, reports June
2008 data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Brands.
Table 1: Top 10
Parent Companies/Divisions for June 2008 (
Parent Unique Audience
(000) Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1. Google 128,029
1:50:16
2. Microsoft 123,021
2:12:38
3. Yahoo! 113,439
3:07:47
4. Time Warner
(Division*) 99,494 3:23:24
5. News Corp. Online
80,606 1:55:40
6. InterActiveCorp
63,935 0:20:22
7. eBay 62,767 1:47:53
8. Wikimedia
Foundation 52,836 0:21:09
9. Amazon 52,060
0:28:03
10. Apple Computer
49,911 1:08:33
*Time Warner division
excludes Turner Network’s audience.
TABLE 2
The following is data
from Nielsen Online on the top 30 sites in the “News” category based on
February 2008 traffic. This data takes into account
Nielsen Online is
providing these data sets to the Newspaper Association of America on a monthly
basis.
Top 30 Online Current
Events & Global News Destinations, ranked by Sessions per Person
Brand or channel;
sessions per person; unique audience (000)
1. drudgereport.com;
19.9; 3,445
2. Daily
3. Fox News Digital
Network; 8.3; 10,177
4. CNN Digital
Network; 7.9; 37,181
5. AOL News; 7.7;
21,119
6. Yahoo! News; 7.4;
35,274
7. MSNBC Digital
Network; 6.4; 34,013
8. ksl.com^; 6.0; 796
9. Breitbart.com; 5.3;
2,674
10. Google News; 5.3;
12,050
11. Gannett Newspapers
and Newspaper Division; 5.1; 13,998
12. NYTimes.com; 4.9;
18,975
13. Netscape; 4.8;
2,709
14. Townhall.com; 4.7;
1,152
15. Media General
Newspapers; 4.6; 1,761
16. GTGI Network 4.5;
1,345
17. Star Tribune; 4.3;
2,108
18. TWC News Websites;
4.1; 840
19. NewsMax.com; 4.0;
4,054
20. Zwire^; 3.9; 1,089
21. Cox Newspapers;
3.9; 5,197
22. washingtonpost.com;
3.8; 10,441
23.
24. The
25.
26. MediaNews Group
Newspapers; 3.5; 5,850
27. USATODAY.com; 3.5;
10,571
28. WorldNow 3.5;
10,588
29. IB Websites; 3.4;
7,565
30.
^ Indicates Home
and Work audience duplication projections did not meet minimum sample size
standards. Combined home and work audience estimates for these sites may exhibit
increased variability month-to-month as a result.
Public
Radio emerged as a major national service in large part as a result of the
decision to establish and liberally fund a central production center,
functioning also as a membership organization of participating radio stations.
While NPR offered a variety of services, “All Things Considered” became the
nationwide common thread and focal point for audiences, live at five every day.
Following on that success, “Morning Edition” was designed from the ground up
as an integrated local/national content vehicle aimed at the heart and soul of
American radio: morning drive. Major audience and fundraising growth were not
the only successes for the resource intensive show. Member stations’ local
news departments now had a direct means to showcase their contributions
alongside the nation’s most heavily produced and increasingly respected radio
newsmagazine. And NPR began reaping the benefits of a national pool of reporters
who worked not only for their local audiences, but whose work became part of the
national service, every day.
The
outcome of the local/national partnership is the most listened to radio network
news show in
Neither
NPR nor its member stations have yet had a Frank Mankiewicz defining moment with
regard to the internet. On line goals at the network and at stations remain
ill-defined, the results meager, and the financial picture at best a negative
return on investment. Minnesota Public Radio, arguably the most dedicated and
heavily invested station on the internet, recently reported it was making a
return of only 40 cents on every internet dollar spent. To date, public radio is
underscoring the sad tale of many businesses on the internet, “turning dollars
into pennies.”
Nigel
Chapman, of the BBC World Service, on its vision: "We have started by
being clear about our core aim. It is: ‘to be the world’s best known, most
creative and most respected voice in international news, thereby bringing
benefit to the
Chapman
does not make a distinction between the BBC’s broadcast and internet vision.
It knows what it is and what it stands for, and has funded that vision
appropriately. Today, neither NPR nor most stations have implemented that
unified vision, nor have funding models in place to support it. We are concerned
that NPR stands in the broadcast world and in the public’s mind for one
“brand,” but itself is unclear about NPR’s online brand.
On
the station side, public radio stations have foregone their great competitive
advantage from the broadcast world: the
local/national partnership that forged the number one radio network morning news
show in
The
status quo need not be the case. Public radio may possess the scattered
resources and potential for internet success that it had years ago in the
broadcast world. What it lacks is a unified direction and the will to implement
it. Currently, NPR.org is attracting about $5 million per year in corporate
support (ads). Several projects have identified the size of the
"station-based" online audience at 1.0 - 2.0 times the size of the
audience for NPR.org. But in disaggregated form, stations are far from
reaping a return comparable return to NPR’s. Recent acquisitions by NPR of
National Public Broadcasting and Public Interactive suggest the potential for
implementing more integration of station and network capabilities, content and
revenues. Today, a common network for online advertising via NPB and Google ad
serving technology is a real possibility. Revenue enhancements are vital for any
possible solution to the challenge we face. Equally important are implementation
of efficiencies across stations and network, all in service to a higher and
inspiring vision.
“Efficient”
is not a term one would apply to the status quo for public radio’s
multiplicity of websites. A promising but politically ponderous approach is to
move websites onto common
platforms. That could deliver improvements in quality, cost reduction, traffic
and revenue that individual stations cannot achieve on their own. Combining
efficiencies we currently fail to pursue, as well as revenues resulting from
those efficiencies and initiatives such as the Google ad-serving technology,
will enable the foundation for content services and destinations that truly
leverage our broadcast brand, our existing strengths such as quality, integrity,
size, quality, and loyalty of the audience, demographics, etc.
We
also must scrutinize the management of our enterprises at the station and
network level. The goals and partnerships in content and platform (i.e., PRSS)
have been largely within the skill sets of experienced broadcast managers. The
internet is significantly foreign territory for most broadcast managers. We need
to foster structures that allow our experienced broadcast managers to employ
their highest skill-sets (managing their stations) while others, probably from
outside the system, supplement their skills with new knowledge and
specialization. We must clearly identify and acknowledge our weaknesses,
such as the small size of most local web teams, the pressures of evolving
technology, differences between online and broadcast markets and production
models. Efficiency suggests not attempting a piecemeal approach, station by
station, that would dilute the system-wide investment to near vanishing returns.
Consider the
satellite system (PRSS) as a model: a one-time centralized capital
investment, supplemented by annual station contributions for
shared infrastructure. One benefit of this approach is that it prevents
any single organization (station or network) from having to assume a high
and potentially damaging level of risk. We must leave the vast majority of
our current operating support intact—certainly on the order of 90-95%.
We cannot stop funding broadcast or competing--very hard--in radio. It is
important to stress that we are not
suggesting an either/or position, pitting the internet against broadcasting.
Consider
freeing up 5-10% of local and national revenue for high-impact
new media services that have a reasonable chance to become self-sustaining.
Public broadcasting can certainly survive a 5% cut, although not without
recognizing what that impact is and whether some of that impact could be
mitigated by matching funds, private major donor and foundation support, CPB,
etc. The successful CBC.ca internet service was created with a 3% cut in
broadcast support. The BBC has poured large amounts of funding into their web
services, to great effect. We have reached the time to do something like that
"to ourselves" and redirect and raise dollars to building new service
in a new millennium in a new medium that is rapidly outpacing us.
Sustainability
must at the forefront of our planning. The range of revenue options online
appears to be very similar to those we know: a mix of voluntary memberships,
restricted advertising, tax-based support and some retail/e-commerce revenue. The
mix may be different from the one we know, probably more underwriting in the
early years (vs. the current 60/40 to 70/30 membership to corporate mix).
But the elements are similar, which is a positive. The bottomline for public
radio is the need to recognize that in our disaggregated online state we will
not be able to take advantage of the emerging internet economy. We certainly are
not seeing the power that Morning Edition
and All Things Considered brought to
public radio broadcast revenues via both voluntary memberships and the power and
recognition of an aggregated significant, competitive national audience for
corporate support.
What
do we aim for? How do we proceed?
David Giovannoni in
his Audience 88 Analysis reported that voluntary memberships come from (a)
a high frequency of use and (b) a high sense of personal importance.
Right now, no station site can generate enough content (apart from
streaming) to meet this test. A collective effort might
change that.
NPR has been
discussing the “2-2-2 model.” We now garner 2 visits per month per
online visitor at many of our scattered sites. Can a unified effort change
this? Could we increase the number of "occasions"--adding
online visits to listening occasions--so that in addition to our base of radio
listening occasions per week, we attract 2 online "occasions" per
week on average? Regardless of the ultimate number, we need an easily
understandable and significant goal that while challenging, is achievable. The
caveat is that the goal be achievable, but not without beneficial changes from
the status quo.
ANY move away from the
status quo will need to be voluntary. At the same time, a consensus approach has
only resulted in a stalled and unsatisfactory status quo. This is true at the
network as well as the local station levels. What we are proposing is a
“coalition of the willing” to work together – stations and NPR – to
leverage our assets for the greater good of public service, as well as the
smaller but critical good of our individual enterprises.
One thing is
strikingly clear – stations are not going to individually solve the design and
content and service challenges. It is also clear that despite years of
investment and hard work, NPR has also not developed the impact online that it
enjoys in partnership with its member stations in the broadcast world.
The WSPR board of
directors is seriously studying the MLB.com example (built by Sun MicroSystems)
for clues to solving the lack of meaningful integration online of stations with
our membership national network, especially for one that makes sense from the
user/visitor perspective. In addition, we are freshly aware of the unchallenged
power of public radio News content on the air (reference George Bailey’s
recent research for the CPB funded Grow The Audience SRG project) and the dominance of News on the
internet, second only to Search.
Today, NPR is not a
top-of-mind news and information destination. It is not highly ranked in Google
searches; it is not optimized to search algorithms. It
is a successful site for information about NPR and to hear what one may have
missed over the air. Consequently, NPR is recasting its online strategy. We
applaud that decision, but are concerned that a clear extension of member
stations’ and NPR’s solid, unique, and invaluable news brand onto the web
may not be the focal point of the new strategy.
Claude Galipeau, who
together with Sue Gardner (current director of Wikipedia), made CBC.ca the
number one news destination in