Public Media Innovation
Welcome to the Public Media Innovation Project
The Public Media Innovation (PMI) fund is about experiments, learning, and change.
PMI is a small risk-capital fund established by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support station-based online service experiments. As the projects unfolds, the PMI staff monitor the investments and work with stations to identify progress, problems and lessons learned. Ultimately, the PMI fund is intended to accelerate the use of new media as part of the changing world of public media.
Need help? See our F.A.Q. page.
Want to know which projects received grants? Check out Funded Projects.
Don't know what PMI is all about? Visit the About the Program page.
PMI Program Updates
Tuesday, Jun. 30th, 2009
June 30 Webinar: Our Northwest
Mary Hawkins, former PD at Northwest Public Radio, walked our webinar audience through "Our Northwest," an ambitious effort to generate original content and a stronger community among the 100,000 listeners to the radio service of Washington State University, whose listenership ranges from eastern Washington to eastern Idaho and northern Oregon.
Here are the takeaways she offered as a guide for others to follow:
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Aggregating/organizing online content to complement on-air features is perceived by listeners as adding value to public radio/television services.
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Sustainability, especially in the area of organic food consumption and gardening, seems to be gaining traction in the minds of our listeners. Our Organic Northwest continued to find an audience, even when it was not featured or promoted on-air.
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Practical information, like where to find great local organic produce, seems to trump even the more pressing “bigger” issues like climate change and impending water shortages.
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There is great content to be gleaned from governmental and university websites. Often the best stuff isn’t prominent in search engines.
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Regional/local content partners and subject experts are abundant. This sort of project, where the stakes are a bit lower than in the crunch of everyday radio production, is a great way to “audition” personalities for future use on-air.
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"Our Northwest" was developed with a staff of several interns who contributed significantly to the look and feel. It helped make NWPR relevant for our students while providing a place for this information to live and grow.
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"Our Northwest" utilized a blogging service (Typepad), customizing it with CSS for a unique look and feel. We then interconnected the blogs under subject areas – with a “home blog” as our main link from www.nwpr.org. This allowed us the flexibility to redesign, move content, add and subtract features, etc. This may be a good alternative for organizations with few web support staff.
SLIDES FROM MARY'S WEBINAR:
Our Northwest ppt Thursday, May. 28th, 2009
PMI ROUND FOUR UPDATE
The Round Four selection process is well underway. Forty-seven applications were received by the April 17 deadline and from that pool PMI staff identified the most promising proposals for in-depth evaluation by a CPB chartered review panel. Finalists have been chosen and the grant decision-making process is now in the closing stages. Winners will be selected by June 12 and awardees will be notified shortly thereafter.
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