roundtable: Re: access to nii

roundtable: Re: access to nii

Re: access to nii

Samuel A. Simon (ssimon@idi.net)
Thu, 5 Jan 1995 07:30:42 -0500 (EST) 

Date: Thu, 5 Jan 1995 07:30:42 -0500 (EST)
From: "Samuel A. Simon" <ssimon@idi.net>
Subject: Re: access to nii
To: roundtable@cni.org
In-Reply-To: <941219190549_71161.1722_EHB66-1@CompuServe.COM>
Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9501050737.B2432-0100000@idi.net>


Matt,

I've been away, so I apologize for the delay in responding to your 
point.

I believe there is a significant difference between newsletters and 
magazines and television. Compare the cost today of producing a 
newsletter to the equivalent of a TV Program of any sort with the 
same information.  

A mailed item to targeted audiences (which may or may not e read) at 
least gets the information to those who presumably want it.  Putting 
a TV Show on the air doesn't assure it gets to anyone.  Further, the 
cost of production by any standard are radically different.  

The point of my comment isn't against getting alternative views out 
their, I strongly believe in that, but the question is how.  My views 
have changed on thisover time.  A "pure' channel owned and controled 
by an advocacy group is not, in my view, the primary or best way to 
do this.  Using more traditional PR techniques is a better method for 
the TV medium.

That's all my point is.

Sam

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Samuel A. Simon
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On Tue, 27 Dec 1994, Matt York wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 6 Dec 1994, Samuel A. Simon wrote:
> [portion deleted]
> > Which brings me to a thought I have had about the question of "quality" 
> > TV. It occurs to me that "more outlets" inherently means lower quality.
> > While it is possible to produce low cost "quality" product, there seems 
> > to be no question that the need to fill air time means that a lot of 
> > "cheap" product is required.  The smaller the audience, the more the 
> > "narrow cast" the less revenue available to pay for the product, and 
> > again the need to lower the costs of production.
> 
> To which Shawn W. Yerxa replied:
> 
> >One idea which I have heard discussed is that the fragmentation of the
> >audience as a result of the multiplicity of channel offerings is going 
> >to max out the advertising revenue and lead to the quality degradation 
> >Samuel speaks of.  Such a surplus of air time combined with a lower 
> >level of ad revenue per hour of air time may lead to some interesting 
> >door openings for community and alternative productions. 
> 
> Narrow casting is what the magazine, newsletter and book industry is 
> all about. Newsletter are "cheap" compared to hard cover, slick paper 
> books with color photographs, yet newsletter play an important roll 
> in the narrow slivers of our society. These slivers include The Center 
> for Media Education and The EFF, which both have used "cheap" 
> newsletters to cultivate special interest groups. The television 
> equivalent to newsletters, magazines and books will invigorate our 
> democracy. The television industrial complex will have less of a 
> stranglehold on our collective conscious. We need to work to assure 
> that everyone has access to "upload" video programs.
> 
> 
> Matt York
> mattyork@videomaker.com

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