Non-profit television and why it matters

With the purchase of National Geographic by FOX, one of the last national, non-profit media networks will become fully commercialized. But all is not lost... Local, non-profit TV networks have been quietly evolving new species of broadcasting— and taking a close look give reason to rethink the role of mass media for producers and audiences alike.

A decade ago, when I was a producer at an independent TV production company in DC that couldn’t afford the exorbitant fees that Nielsen charges, we used to race to see whose inside connection at a major network would forward us the overnight ratings first… When passing each other in the cube farm, we didn’t say ‘how are you?’ We’d ask, ‘How were the numbers?’

Six months ago I began working at Brooklyn’s Public Access provider, BRIC, as part of an exciting new initiative to create a community media channel with the production values and editorial oversight of a major network, and the mission-driven content of a non-profit, community-media organization. I feel like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe.

In a nutshell, Public Access or, more inclusively, PEG (Public, Educational and Governmental) programming is the last, tiny, public outpost of the privatization of the cable spectrum. The spectrum, like the airwaves it replaced, were once a public good owned by the American people; when they were sold off to private companies, the cable companies agreed to set a certain amount aside for PEG programming. Thus, in the mid-eighties, public access was born.

This was our remuneration?—?we, the American people, were promised that a small and constantly shrinking percent of the cable spectrum would be reserved for non-profit and public good. And despite decades of downward pressure, there are still some 3000+ community- and non-profit cable channels out there. With almost no overlap with commercial television, these access centers have been quietly creating an alternative version of mass media that, rather than focusing on audience metrics have been focused on increasing media literacy and engaging small audiences.

Within these several hundred public access centers spread across the country and housed in massive arts complexes and makeshift studios, public libraries and converted RVs, an alternate form of mass media began to emerge. This was a media riddled with misfits, misfires and misconstrued opportunity, but it was also a place where a certain amount of magic began to happen.

Experimental video artists like Nam June Paik and Chris Burden engaged the medium. Soft-core exhibitionists, community activists and deranged lunatics alike found a place on the airwaves, as did genuine media trailblazers like Beyond Vaudeville, a public access show from MNN that was popular in my high school (and possibly nowhere else). It was free speech in SD.

Wayne’s World didn’t stigmatize Public Access programming; the stigma was always there. The way that access programming managed its stigmatized identity was a big part of what attracted people to the forum to begin with, and what made it so accessible. It was what made the Experimental Television Center so fucking cool. It was how Public Access gave us the first true reality programming?—?and how, still today, it’s able to split the difference between PBS and Jersey Shore.

Commercial television is programmed by a few people and designed to reach as wide a demographic as possible. Traditionally, public access is developed democratically but designed (or unconcerned with) the size of its audience. These opposing approaches have lead to divergent evolutions. Amazingly, some of the most genre-bending experimentation is actually coming from the underfunded, public-minded access centers rather than the cable-company behemoths.

In Northamton, MA, an access center has recreated their township in Minecraft, in collaboration with local teenagers; now, they’ve got forty producer teams collaborating on a shot-for-shot remix of Raider of the Lost Ark as part of their Crowdsourced Cinema initiative. In San Jose, CreaTV, an access center, is anchoring a brand-new, state-of-the-art, arts complex. Here in Brooklyn, we’re launching BRIC TV on September 24 to bring an entire season of hand-made original series, local filmmakers, news, comedy, music and more.

As the information revolution threatens to do the same thing to media that the agricultural revolution did to food… access centers across the country are launching a quiet revolution. The idea is that ‘slow culture’ or, to borrow another phrase from the farm-to-table movement, ‘artisanal television’ is media that is all about locally sourced producers, locally sourced talent, and a discerning, design-aware audience.

But there are rough waters ahead?—?digital metrics are even more susceptible to manipulation than traditional ratings are. YouTube with it’s ‘Billion Served’ mentality presents a video’s view count as if it was a rating?—?encouraging viewers to ignore independent makers as it rewards ‘cheaters’ who pay for views. FaceBook is even worse: Gawker recently revealed that Buzzfeed pays FaceBook millions of dollars to ‘boost’ their videos (https://www.businessinsider.com/buzzfeed-native-advertising-is-paying-off-2015-8).

The danger here is that a vicious cycle of media creation will emerge: large-scale content creators, already catering to mass demographics, pay extra to artificially amplify their metrics and reinforce certain storytelling topics and strategies.

Furthermore, media that is entirely demographically driven ignores the impact that making the media has on its creator. If making a TV show keeps an ex-convict from committing another crime but the show is only seen by a couple dozen people, how can we measure the impact? If a three-hour glitch video ignites an artistic revolution and advances aesthetic theory, does it matter that only a couple hundred people have ever sat through the entire thing? This is another way that access centers and non-profit media differentiates itself from traditional broadcasting?—?often times the story about the making of the story is just as, if not more, important.

From Ferguson to Staten Island, we are experiencing a moment where picking up a camera is becoming nearly as powerful as picking up a gun, and audience size is seldom equivalent to impact. Metrics can never quantify the impact a story has on its makers’ life. Metrics will never capture the number of people who are exposed to the contents of a video through word-of-mouth, let alone through the positive impact that fostering a community of media makers can have on a community.

I just spent the last week with several hundred directors, staff, and the assorted scions of community media. For five brief days, the Pasadena Hilton became a world where media making as a vehicle for public good was spoken about earnestly and with passion. And, despite their stigmatized identity, by evolving in a media-scape divorced from constant analytics, the remaining and threatened access centers throughout the country may be positioned to form the vanguard of a farm-to-table TV movement.