This paper summarizes some of the similarities and differences in the "essential elements" of the models used by public television and distance education organizations to conduct their respective businesses. These observations were excerpted from a set of papers submitted to the Reforging the Links project by the public television stations and distance education organizations of Pennsylvania State University, the University of North Carolina, the University of Wisconsin and Washington State University.
Products and Services
The mission of public television stations is to acquire, produce and deliver high quality cultural, educational and informational programs and services to diverse audiences. The mission of distance education institutions is to acquire, produce and distribute credit and non-credit instructional programs to current and potential students of their universities. Both organizations conduct needs assessments to determine which programs and services they should provide, although they contact different types of people and ask different types of questions in these processes. Public television stations poll cross sections of the population reached by their broadcast signal and ask questions related to the many different types of programs and services they provide. Distance education organizations concentrate their surveys on individuals who are, or may be, interested in their instructional programs. They attempt to determine such things as what courses are desired, how this information should be delivered, and the ability of those who might be interested in these offerings to pay for them.
Once needs have been determined, both organizations have fairly well defined processes for deciding which programs they will produce. Internal management makes these decisions in public television stations. These decisions are based on internally established criteria such as the program's relevance to station priorities, the suitability of the program for the television medium and its target audiences, and the impact the production might have on generating revenue, political goodwill or recognition for the station.
Distance education organizations rely much more heavily on external review processes for determining which programs to produce. Depending on the university, proposed program offerings might need to be approved by individual faculty members, academic departments or colleges, the provost's office, the budget office, the faculty senate, the Board of Regents and, in some cases, external higher education coordination boards. These approval processes are much more rigorous if a program is going to be offered for credit. The criteria for approval may include such factors as individual faculty interest, the reputation of the academic department, quantitative and qualitative market research, the appropriateness of the program for technology-based delivery, the impact on institutional capacity, and ability of the target audience to pay tuition. Some public television stations have staffs that are specifically assigned to work with their university or other local educational institutions on instructional programming that may be produced or aired on their stations. These staffs often find themselves acting as mediators between, or facilitators of, these internal and external approval processes.
Production and Distribution Capabilities
The public television stations have made significant investments in their production facilities and have the capability of producing very high quality programs. Since most of these programs are broadcast for public consumption they are produced to attract audiences in a competitive marketplace. This means that they are usually very visually stimulating and entertaining, and general audiences can easily understand the content.
Distance education organizations are usually not as well equipped as their public television counterparts and the technical quality of their programs is not as tightly controlled. Their programs are usually less costly to produce. Distance education programs are aimed at more targeted audiences and are typically focused more on conveying specific content than on attracting and maintaining the audience's interest. Instructional programs are typically designed to include some type of interactivity between the faculty and their students. This factor adds an additional level of complexity to the production process and the need to involve staff such as instructional designers. Those institutions using the World Wide Web to distribute programs have also added staff with specific skills in the use of this medium.
Public television programs have traditionally been distributed by broadcasting on a single channel or through a network of channels. Some stations have the capability of providing a second service on a local cable channel and most sell videocassette copies of programs they have produced. Over the last few years many stations have also begun to supplement their broadcast programs by providing related materials on the World Wide Web.
Distance education programs are often distributed through many different media and are usually supplemented with extensive print materials. Traditionally many of these programs were little more than a way to extend classroom lectures beyond the campus or to distribute materials that are used to supplement classroom presentations. Today the capabilities of computers to manipulate and display information in ways that were never before possible, as well as the distribution capabilities of the World Wide Web, are dramatically changing the way programs are being designed and distributed. As the needs and demands of audiences change both broadcasters and distance education institution face the challenge of making their programs available "on demand."
The production staffs of public television stations are skilled in the areas of producing high quality audio and video, as well as in the art of holding an audience's attention. Because of the high cost of producing this type of program most stations have fairly sophisticated production and accounting procedures such as digital production and editing, facility scheduling systems, rate cards and resource utilization logs.
The staffs of the distance education institutions are more skilled in areas such as instructional design and the creation of program support materials. They are also more focused on the financial aspects of collecting revenues and supporting students after a program is completed than on the costs associated with the production process itself.
Sources of Funding
Public television stations have several sources of revenue including state and federal tax funding, viewer contributions, program underwriting, grants and production income. Distance education institutions rely more heavily on internal institutional support and tuition revenues. Public television's reliance on multiple sources of revenue has both benefits and drawbacks. Diverse revenue streams provide more flexibility and protection against losses associated with a single source. But different sources of revenue often have different sets of restrictions concerning how they can be used. As a result, public television stations have had to develop fairly sophisticated internal tracking systems and hire staff with expertise in generating revenue from diverse sources.
Distance education institution face a variety of procedural challenges because of their location within traditional university environments. It is often difficult to identify funding for production and marketing, approval processes are cumbersome and slow, and the systems and timeframes that were created to sustain a "bricks and mortar" culture are not always relevant to the processes needed to support non-campus based students communicating from a distance.
Public television stations licensed to universities face many of these same bureaucratic restrictions, although most have developed relationships with independent external Friends organizations to help ameliorate some of these problems. Neither the public television stations nor the distance education organizations have developed good mechanisms for creating "risk capital."
Problems and Opportunities
Both public television stations and distance education organizations are faced with the need to increase revenues, reduce expenditures and become more efficient. There is increased competition for the resources (both human and financial) needed to create products, as well as for the consumers of these services. New and evolving technologies require significant capital investments, as well as the need to hire and retrain staff to use and maintain them. Institutional policies and procedures that were not designed for market-driven production and distribution must also be changed.
At the same time, some of these same forces present new opportunities. The World Wide Web and the transition to digital television have opened up new opportunities to distribute information in alternative ways and to reach new audiences. An international marketplace is expanding traditional institutional boundaries. Technologies and skills in both public television and distance education are converging. New partnerships are not only possible they are essential to the success of both organizations.
By Larry Dickerson
