There have been a number of national-level efforts to create a digital distribution platform for public radio and/or television since the late 1990s. I’ve led a couple of them and had peripheral or no involvement in others. They’ve all had one thing in common: they didn’t get off the ground – sometimes they didn’t even get out of the conference room. The Public Service Publisher collaboration with I led with Open Media Network at least got to several revs of beta release, but it didn’t survive the tragic death of its founder, Silicon Valley legend Mike Homer. Digital distribution has happened anyway, of course, through podcasting, mobile apps, various video and audio players, and streaming.
The multi-organization Public Media Platform effort is coming out of NPR’s Digital Media division (not in my bailiwick), and in my view has a very progressive approach to the problem. So I’m excited about this latest effort. Here are some press reports:
- NPR President/CEO Vivian Schiller’s announcement yesterday. Link: Fora.tv.
- Eliot Van Buskirk at Wired.
- From Staci Kramer at paidContent.org.
- Gavin O’Malley at MediaPost.
- Radio Ink.
--Dennis
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