The New Normal
For Public Television
David J. LeRoy
Judith M. LeRoy
Nashville Meeting
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Was This Our Dad? “Old Values?”
 A man should work.
 A man should maintain his
property.
 A man should know his tools,
and how to use them.
 A man should meet his
obligations.
 A man should stand on his
own two feet.
 A man shouldn’t complain.
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The Law of Disruption
 “technology changes exponentially, but
social, economic, and legal systems
change incrementally”
 It sometimes takes generations to work
things out.
 Larry Downes The Laws of Disruption
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The New Normal -- Economics
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New economic facts of life
Employer/employee assumptions
Toxic tsunamis – foreclosures
Pensions, retirement, safety nets
Unemployment at new highs.
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The New Normal -- Media
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Newspapers are dire straits
And magazines…
Remember the CD --OMG Susan Boyle
And the Walkman replaced by MP3 etc
And now the Internet from dial up to
ALWAYS ON!!!
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The New Normal -- Convergence
Television would be wiped out like radio
Everything up on the cloud…
Oops
Television viewing has increased and
continues to grow…
 It was not a zero sum game people just
add more media minutes to their day
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The New Normal -- Broadcasting
 Almost nine out of ten homes are wired
 The number of available channels are in
the hundreds
 Legacy channels have lost audience
 And soon we will have Internet streaming
 May you live in interesting times
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The New Normal – Tale of 2 Tails
 Lot of the viewing disappeared into the
long tail…
 But remember there is also a fat tail
where the networks still get lots of
viewing
 Now for a new normal from ESPN … you
can’t make this stuff up.
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The New Normal – Public Media
 Now for Public Television… eroding
cumes, eroding GRPs, eroding member
base…
 Do we need hits like the Antiques
Roadshow? 2/3 only view it, nothing else
 The “core” that views prime time has
about 15 hours of programming a week.
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The Old Mechanical Model
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The New Normal – Program Norms
 Consider how much TV programming has
changed in the last 20 years.
 Discovery now has to edit the BBC
material because its narrative arcs are too
long. The new Sherlock anyone?
 The core now spends less time with PTV
than a generation ago (25% vs 12% of
their viewing time).
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The New Normal
 Pledge drives… have they, perhaps, worn
a bit thin?
 Which of our assumptions about the
audience and members are still true?
 If you keep doing what your doing, you’ll
keep getting what you been getting
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Last Touch Point Fallacy
 We often think the
last touch point
before pledging is the
cause of the behavior
 The law of disruption
at work
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Working with the New Normal
 How do we strategize for the new normal?
 How has the new normal affected viewing
and fundraising, especially pledge?
 How do we test our assumptions?
 That’s what this meeting is all about.
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fin
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