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Remarks

Paula Kerger
NPC Luncheon
Sponsored by: Speakers Committee
May 23, 2006, 12:30 PM

Good afternoon. I'd like to thank the National Press Club and the Speakers Committee for inviting me today. It's a great honor to be here and I'm delighted to have this opportunity to share with you some of my perspectives, just 10 weeks into this job, on the future of public television. (Recognize Pat, Kevin, John, Sharon)

I like to say that public television, or public media as I often describe it, is part of who I am. My grandfather helped found a public radio station in Baltimore and my entire career has been devoted to public service.

From an early age, I can remember sitting close to my grandfather at night, listening to radio programs transmitted from far away. To a little girl, it felt like magic. Indeed it was.

My grandfather's classical radio station – with its mix of orchestras, operas and chamber ensembles – were part of my childhood. I also grew up with TV shows like "Great Performances," "Upstairs, Downstairs" and "I, Claudius," so I've always had a deep appreciation for public media and the valuable role it plays in our culture.

I've often thought about all that my grandfather saw during the course of his lifetime and recently have had the same sensation of living through a time of great change.

The digital revolution is one that is reshaping our world, and nowhere are its effects being felt more profoundly than in our broad industry.

Television, radio, newspapers – the media that have been our sources of information about the world for many decades – in the case of newspapers, centuries! – are being reinvented and re-imagined right before our eyes at the speed of light.

In many respects, we are privileged. After all, not every generation gets to live through this kind of watershed. We are seeing history being made. And we are experiencing the same kind of disorientation that inevitably afflicts people who live through such a time.

I remember reading about how people experienced something similar during the Industrial Revolution. Some adapted. Others fell by the wayside. But nearly everyone was profoundly affected. This time, though, it's all happening so fast, that it seems we are going to have the unusual ability to compare how the world was before the digital revolution and after.

John Scully, the former chairman of Apple computer, not surprisingly, had a keen sense of the big picture some time ago. He said, "The Information Age is a revolution. It's a revolution that's global in scope, with few safe harbors for isolationists."

And it's true. The digital revolution cannot be ignored. And it is asking a lot of us. It's forcing us to rethink many long-held notions of how to go about our business. And it's calling on us to reinvent ourselves, seemingly on a daily basis.

As we go about our work, we are necessarily participants in a giant experiment. All this amazing technology is suddenly at our beck and call. We can try out things that we only dreamed of – some of them straight out of science fiction.

To tell stories and deliver information in entirely new ways is exciting and it can be incredibly liberating. For the first time in history, the media are on the verge of being virtually unmediated. We can communicate to mass audiences as though we were talking to an individual.

At the same time, individual members of our audience can dialogue with us, participate in our work, and even become media purveyors themselves. That directness is empowering and offers fantastic possibilities – for us professionals and for our audiences.

As we negotiate this largely undefined frontier, we are called upon to remember our time-honored responsibilities. After all, our work exists to serve the public. As technology evolves and grows out in many directions, it is our duty to remember the people we serve. In their interest, we must make an intense effort to remain true to our purpose.

We cannot let the dazzling gadgets and the latest methods for delivering information overwhelm us or deter us from our collective mission, which is to deal with the public honestly, truthfully, sincerely, and fairly. Even as technology gives us wings, we must work hard to remain grounded, relevant and real.

Obviously, I can speak in broad strokes about the media in general. But my area of expertise is television – specifically public television. And it is on that medium that I would like to concentrate today.

In the same breath, however, I should qualify that statement. It's probably more correct for me to say that, up until now, I have been working what has traditionally been known as television.

In the television business, the task has been to create programs according to well-established conventions, and to put them out there over a single channel for viewers to watch according to a set schedule. But I probably don't have to tell you that, with each passing day, that paradigm is fading into the past. Now we are entering a time when the viewers are becoming the programmers, choosing what they want to watch, when they want to watch, using an astonishing array of media – Tivo and DVRs, On Demand services, podcasts, cell phones and PDAs, streaming video over the Internet, and who knows what fantastic new device will be announced next week.

Some 50 million U.S. households now have broadband Internet service. Almost 200 million have cell phones. By one estimate, some 10 percent of those cell phones are now video equipped, but that percentage is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years. Of course, the iPod is practically a standard accessory for many Americans these days.

Over the past several months, the commercial and cable networks have been relentlessly revamping their business models to take advantage of the new multi-platform world we live in.

You're probably aware of many of the recent developments.

Apple's announcement last October that it would sell episodes of "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" on iTunes.

Disney's decision last month to start streaming those same shows on its Web site.

Just last week Discovery also announced a deal to offer some of its programming on iTunes, as well.

NBC Universal has added video players to its homepage and is creating Web-only programs.

Next week, Amazon.com – until now, an online retailer – will introduce a Bill Maher-hosted talk show that consumers can watch on the site.

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