roundtable: Re: Nonprofit Culture

roundtable: Re: Nonprofit Culture

Re: Nonprofit Culture

Gary O. Larson (glarson@tmn.com)
Fri, 25 Mar 94 01:14:27 EST 

Date: Fri, 25 Mar 94 01:14:27 EST
From: glarson@tmn.com (Gary O. Larson)
Message-Id: <9403250614.AA10420@tmn.com>
To: roundtable@cni.org
Subject: Re: Nonprofit Culture


Martin Garthwaite, writing on 3/23:  "Video dialtone systems are 
designed to be expanded in an almost limitless fashion.  There exist 
no bottlenecks or capacity limitations in any of the systems.  The 
amount of programming that subscribers to a video dialtone system can 
receive is limited only by the number of programmers on the other end.  
In this environment, access is not going to be the issue, viewership 
is.  Viewership will depend in large part on the money spent in 
producing a program."

Thanks for clarifying video dialtone systems, Martin.  You're no doubt
correct in suggesting that viewership "will depend in large part on the
money spent in producing a program"; but I suspect that another factor 
that will come into play is publicity.  And even though it will be 
impossible to compete in any meaningful sense with Blockbuster 
Video-on-Demand et al in this regard, a little collective action on the 
part of the nonprofit community--pointers toward the best and brightest 
of the noncommercial, independent programmers--will go a long way.

There will always be a few exceptions now and then (Garrison Keillor,
Laurie Anderson, and the like, who reach large audiences), but for the 
most part, I expect that existing rates of participation will continue 
to apply:  Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) figures 
(Americans over 18 who attended events at least once in the preceding 
12 months) range from a low of 2-3 percent for opera and ballet to a 
high of 20 percent for museums, with a general doubling of those figures 
when broadcast events are added into the mix.  (As an aside, arts 
administrators for years wondered/worried whether the broadcast arts 
would erode attendance at increasingly costly live events; in fact, 
the aforementioned SPPA suggests that Americans who experience the arts 
through the media are approximately twice as likely to attend live 
events as Americans who don't view/hear the arts on tv/radio.)

MG, again:  "I strongly agree that commercial programmers should be 
taxed to support noncommercial programming.  Free or reduced rate 
access without money (with no strings attached) going into programming 
is going to replicate the PBS model, where corporate sponsers insure a 
'safe' product."

Not only "safe," but BIG--institutional-based expression that's often
quite breathtaking, but also incomplete, overlooking both the 
experimental R&D work that goes on in smaller, seat-of-the-pants 
operations (PS 122 or Painted Bride, for example, as opposed to the 
Kennedy Center) and the small-scale traditional (a gospel choir, for 
example, as opposed to the Met).

I'm wondering, though:  how likely is it that a tax on commercial 
programming will be approved?  It strikes me as something that the 
Europeans would do, but Americans wouldn't, for a variety of reasons. 
Contributions to a universal service fund (so more Americans will 
have access to commercial broadcasting) is one thing; a tax to support 
alternative programming (including, invariably, difficult and 
contentious work) is quite another, no?

Gary O. Larson
Arts Wire
glarson@tmn.com

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