PART III: Changing Measures of Success
AT A TIME OF PROFOUND TRANSITION, THE TRADITIONAL MEASURES OF SUCCESS FOR ALL MEDIA AND FOR SOCIAL MEDIA IN PARTICULAR ARE UP FOR DEBATE. If the goal of social issue media is to improve the common good, then it follows that social issue media projects have achieved success when they accomplish at least some of the following objectives:
• Set the agenda for what is discussed or considered in civil society
• Frame the context of the issues, not just getting the appropriate people to consider an issue, but having them consider the issue in a particular frame of meaning
• Support or catalyze change, either a renegotiation of power relationships, and/or a reallocation of resources, and/or citizen involvement in problem solving
These are not the measures, however, that various players in and around the industry use to describe success. In fact, when it comes to social issue media documentaries on television, success is defined in sometimes dramatically different terms by the various groups of participants in the field (and sometimes differently by people within the same groups).
Current Measures of Success
Producers
The actual completion of a national broadcast (or numerous local broadcasts that add up to a national broadcast) is the primary measure of success used by producers of social issue media projects. Beyond that, producers care about the number of viewers the program draws.They also care about the reviews the project receives – how many, in which media outlets, and how praiseworthy. They also care about a project’s record of awards and festivals. In general, social issue media producers don’t consider sales of DVDs or ancillaries as a significant benchmark unless those sales are remarkable. Producers like the idea of their film project having a real-world impact (“supporting or catalyzing change,” as described above), but this is not a factor in the storytelling, and is therefore decidedly a side benefit. This kind of change tends to be a product of not merely viewing the film, but of talking about the issues raised in the film. Structured outreach activities geared toward public discourse are often done reluctantly and out of obligation to funders (though invariably producers enjoy the results of these activities).
Underwriters
Corporate underwriters or those foundations closely affiliated with a corporation generally care most about getting positive attention for their brand. This is traditionally measured by reviews of the project, column inches of editorial coverage off the TV page, and Nielsen ratings. Sponsors are interested in the number of impressions on ancillary materials, the opportunity to connect with national and local leaders at receptions, etc., and the opportunity to position their company favorably with employees and potential employees. As WNET’s Tammy Robinson told us, “Corporate sponsorships are no longer philanthropic.” Corporate foundations particularly want to avoid controversy while also looking like good citizens (enhancing their brand or corporate image). They look for opportunities to establish corporate leadership with regard to addressing a safe social issue. Corporate support is rarely an option until very late in the production process because the funding comes out of a marketing budget that can not be committed over several years, and because of the need to review the film to make sure that it doesn’t present a position that is controversial.
Traditional foundations and the program officers in the foundations are difficult to categorize. Jeff Glebocki of the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust (and on the board of PACE - Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement) said, “For many funders, media is considered to be in a state of confusion; this is a time of transition. And we need to work together to figure this out.” Most media program officers want to see their funding put to good use; that is, they deem a media project at least partially successful when it is completed, broadcast as widely as possible, and when it garners strong reviews or other media attention. As David Haas, of Grantmakers for Film and Electronic Media, told us “My colleagues are still trying to reach a national audience.” The issues of agenda setting and framing are particularly important to most media and nonmedia program officers. These results are measured again by ratings, reviews, editorial coverage and awards. Hits to a project Web site and to Web sites affiliated with the project are also a significant indicator of success (though in fact, Web site numbers for all but the most highly publicized projects are still dwarfed by viewer ratings). Outreach is described by many nonmedia program officers as deeply important – seeing how the media project works its way into communities, organizations and institutions and affects change. This, however, is extremely difficult to measure with any accuracy. The media program officers like outreach because it is a way for them to connect media projects to other nonmedia initiatives within their own foundation and to garner support and/or funding from those programs for the project. Outreach also helps them make a more mission-related argument to their colleagues (whereas the quest for ratings, reviews and media attention is less obviously related to the program interests of most foundations). Outreach and impact are taken more seriously by foundation staff than by corporate underwriters or producers, but they are still largely side benefits. Unless the program succeeds in traditional terms of viewership and media coverage, outreach success is not sufficient to justify underwriting.
As discussed earlier, for those foundations in which nonmedia programs are willing to consider funding media projects, their interests are often very narrowly connected with their particular focus on a social issue. For instance, with regard to education, the Joyce Foundation, Wallace Foundation, Carnegie Corporation and Spencer Foundation are interested in media project outcomes that support the particular outcomes that they have defined for their work. Therefore, it is very difficult to enlist the support of several foundations that are working on different aspects of a larger social issue. One foundation program officer said that today foundations are more like contractors than philanthropists. They often want a predictable product that meets specifics that they have predetermined.
Nonprofit Broadcasters (including public television/PBS)
In terms of social issue media documentaries, key gatekeepers within the PBS/public television/CPB community are mostly former television producers. They have learned to appreciate the importance of the postbroadcast uses of projects (as educational tools) and the value of outreach, but as decision makers, their core measures are the basic measures of ratings, reviews, editorial coverage. As Tammy Robinson, head of programming at New York’s WNET, told us, “I rarely get a call from PBS telling me ‘the content of that show was so good.’ Rather, I hear ‘that 4.2 rating was excellent.’” PBS tends to think more about lines of programming and how this project fits into, supports or extends that line – and that is a consideration before committing to a project. CPB has made a significant effort to increase the role of community outreach and educational use for the projects it supports. Angie Palmer, of CPB, told us that her organization’s “goal is impact – connect national programs with local communities.” CPB’s tools of measurement (as supported by the National Center for Outreach) focus primarily on increasing the visibility and involvement of local public television stations within their community (as opposed to measuring attitudinal or behavioral shifts on the part of individuals and organizations involved with the project). According to Kenneth Ferree, who until recently was executive vice president and chief operating officer of CPB, its outreach aims to engage individuals and foster community participation. He describes CPB’s goal as to “reach new audiences in new settings….We want to enrich learning and promote discussion and community engagement well before and well beyond the air date.” The CPB outreach fund had a total budget of $1.5 million in 2005. A major initiative was providing $518,000 to support three national projects (“Raising Cain,” “Road-trip Nation,” and “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State”).
Some nonprofit distributors such as LinkTV, Free Speech TV and OneWorld TV, and others distributed via satellite (DishNetwork), cable, or the Web, measure their impact by a combination of Web site visits, ratings, and anecdotal information regarding impact, which can then be included in funding proposals to foundations.
For-Profit Broadcasters, Cablecasters, and Satellite Casters
Television broadcasters measure success by ratings – the number of viewers and the demographics of those viewers. This translates into advertising revenue. Many cable- and satellite casters also measure success by ratings, though some subscription channels measure success by ratings combined with subscription growth. For most of these for-profits, awards are important only indirectly (they help with promotion). For some, particularly the subscription channels (HBO, Sundance), awards help position the channels as being of premium value. Editorial coverage in newspapers and magazines is important for all of these groups only insofar as that coverage increases ratings or subscriptions.
DVD Distributors
Both for-profit and not-for-profit distributors measure their success in sales (with different demands for return-on-investment). Mission-driven distributors include: California Newsreel, Women Make Movies, New Day Films and Docurama.
Theatrical Distributors
Theatrical distributors measure success in financial terms and also seek to serve as gatekeepers for successful projects (those that go on to win awards, reviews and editorial attention).
Why the Measures of Success Need to Be Changed
As David Liroff, technology prognosticator for WGBH in Boston, has pointed out, “The traditional benchmarks of success are becoming less and less relevant. And new benchmarks have not yet surfaced.” In the field of social issue documentaries, there are two practical stumbling blocks to increasing the number of productions. First, there is the problem of funding. When funders use traditional pre-technology boom measures of success to decide whether or not to fund a media project, the answer, more often than not, is no. That is because, for reasons outlined in this report, by the old measures or benchmarks of success, these films are NOT succeeding. Their audience share, the number of reviews they receive and their overall impact have diminished. The second stumbling block is the problem of national broadcasts. Funders want and expect a national broadcast as part of the process in which they invest. But that is becoming increasingly difficult. If funders were to seek attitudinal and behavioral shifts in select communities as a result of the documentary release and the related release of versioned materials and a professional strategic engagement campaign, then more projects would be “greenlighted.” It is unlikely that PBS will expand social issue documentary projects’ share of the national prime-time schedule or the mandatory carriage “hard feed.” Therefore, if these projects are to survive, funders must reassess their goals and expectations.
• Set the agenda for what is discussed or considered in civil society
• Frame the context of the issues, not just getting the appropriate people to consider an issue, but having them consider the issue in a particular frame of meaning
• Support or catalyze change, either a renegotiation of power relationships, and/or a reallocation of resources, and/or citizen involvement in problem solving
These are not the measures, however, that various players in and around the industry use to describe success. In fact, when it comes to social issue media documentaries on television, success is defined in sometimes dramatically different terms by the various groups of participants in the field (and sometimes differently by people within the same groups).
Current Measures of Success
Producers
The actual completion of a national broadcast (or numerous local broadcasts that add up to a national broadcast) is the primary measure of success used by producers of social issue media projects. Beyond that, producers care about the number of viewers the program draws.They also care about the reviews the project receives – how many, in which media outlets, and how praiseworthy. They also care about a project’s record of awards and festivals. In general, social issue media producers don’t consider sales of DVDs or ancillaries as a significant benchmark unless those sales are remarkable. Producers like the idea of their film project having a real-world impact (“supporting or catalyzing change,” as described above), but this is not a factor in the storytelling, and is therefore decidedly a side benefit. This kind of change tends to be a product of not merely viewing the film, but of talking about the issues raised in the film. Structured outreach activities geared toward public discourse are often done reluctantly and out of obligation to funders (though invariably producers enjoy the results of these activities).
Underwriters
Corporate underwriters or those foundations closely affiliated with a corporation generally care most about getting positive attention for their brand. This is traditionally measured by reviews of the project, column inches of editorial coverage off the TV page, and Nielsen ratings. Sponsors are interested in the number of impressions on ancillary materials, the opportunity to connect with national and local leaders at receptions, etc., and the opportunity to position their company favorably with employees and potential employees. As WNET’s Tammy Robinson told us, “Corporate sponsorships are no longer philanthropic.” Corporate foundations particularly want to avoid controversy while also looking like good citizens (enhancing their brand or corporate image). They look for opportunities to establish corporate leadership with regard to addressing a safe social issue. Corporate support is rarely an option until very late in the production process because the funding comes out of a marketing budget that can not be committed over several years, and because of the need to review the film to make sure that it doesn’t present a position that is controversial.
Traditional foundations and the program officers in the foundations are difficult to categorize. Jeff Glebocki of the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust (and on the board of PACE - Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement) said, “For many funders, media is considered to be in a state of confusion; this is a time of transition. And we need to work together to figure this out.” Most media program officers want to see their funding put to good use; that is, they deem a media project at least partially successful when it is completed, broadcast as widely as possible, and when it garners strong reviews or other media attention. As David Haas, of Grantmakers for Film and Electronic Media, told us “My colleagues are still trying to reach a national audience.” The issues of agenda setting and framing are particularly important to most media and nonmedia program officers. These results are measured again by ratings, reviews, editorial coverage and awards. Hits to a project Web site and to Web sites affiliated with the project are also a significant indicator of success (though in fact, Web site numbers for all but the most highly publicized projects are still dwarfed by viewer ratings). Outreach is described by many nonmedia program officers as deeply important – seeing how the media project works its way into communities, organizations and institutions and affects change. This, however, is extremely difficult to measure with any accuracy. The media program officers like outreach because it is a way for them to connect media projects to other nonmedia initiatives within their own foundation and to garner support and/or funding from those programs for the project. Outreach also helps them make a more mission-related argument to their colleagues (whereas the quest for ratings, reviews and media attention is less obviously related to the program interests of most foundations). Outreach and impact are taken more seriously by foundation staff than by corporate underwriters or producers, but they are still largely side benefits. Unless the program succeeds in traditional terms of viewership and media coverage, outreach success is not sufficient to justify underwriting.
As discussed earlier, for those foundations in which nonmedia programs are willing to consider funding media projects, their interests are often very narrowly connected with their particular focus on a social issue. For instance, with regard to education, the Joyce Foundation, Wallace Foundation, Carnegie Corporation and Spencer Foundation are interested in media project outcomes that support the particular outcomes that they have defined for their work. Therefore, it is very difficult to enlist the support of several foundations that are working on different aspects of a larger social issue. One foundation program officer said that today foundations are more like contractors than philanthropists. They often want a predictable product that meets specifics that they have predetermined.
Nonprofit Broadcasters (including public television/PBS)
In terms of social issue media documentaries, key gatekeepers within the PBS/public television/CPB community are mostly former television producers. They have learned to appreciate the importance of the postbroadcast uses of projects (as educational tools) and the value of outreach, but as decision makers, their core measures are the basic measures of ratings, reviews, editorial coverage. As Tammy Robinson, head of programming at New York’s WNET, told us, “I rarely get a call from PBS telling me ‘the content of that show was so good.’ Rather, I hear ‘that 4.2 rating was excellent.’” PBS tends to think more about lines of programming and how this project fits into, supports or extends that line – and that is a consideration before committing to a project. CPB has made a significant effort to increase the role of community outreach and educational use for the projects it supports. Angie Palmer, of CPB, told us that her organization’s “goal is impact – connect national programs with local communities.” CPB’s tools of measurement (as supported by the National Center for Outreach) focus primarily on increasing the visibility and involvement of local public television stations within their community (as opposed to measuring attitudinal or behavioral shifts on the part of individuals and organizations involved with the project). According to Kenneth Ferree, who until recently was executive vice president and chief operating officer of CPB, its outreach aims to engage individuals and foster community participation. He describes CPB’s goal as to “reach new audiences in new settings….We want to enrich learning and promote discussion and community engagement well before and well beyond the air date.” The CPB outreach fund had a total budget of $1.5 million in 2005. A major initiative was providing $518,000 to support three national projects (“Raising Cain,” “Road-trip Nation,” and “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State”).
Some nonprofit distributors such as LinkTV, Free Speech TV and OneWorld TV, and others distributed via satellite (DishNetwork), cable, or the Web, measure their impact by a combination of Web site visits, ratings, and anecdotal information regarding impact, which can then be included in funding proposals to foundations.
For-Profit Broadcasters, Cablecasters, and Satellite Casters
Television broadcasters measure success by ratings – the number of viewers and the demographics of those viewers. This translates into advertising revenue. Many cable- and satellite casters also measure success by ratings, though some subscription channels measure success by ratings combined with subscription growth. For most of these for-profits, awards are important only indirectly (they help with promotion). For some, particularly the subscription channels (HBO, Sundance), awards help position the channels as being of premium value. Editorial coverage in newspapers and magazines is important for all of these groups only insofar as that coverage increases ratings or subscriptions.
DVD Distributors
Both for-profit and not-for-profit distributors measure their success in sales (with different demands for return-on-investment). Mission-driven distributors include: California Newsreel, Women Make Movies, New Day Films and Docurama.
Theatrical Distributors
Theatrical distributors measure success in financial terms and also seek to serve as gatekeepers for successful projects (those that go on to win awards, reviews and editorial attention).
Why the Measures of Success Need to Be Changed
As David Liroff, technology prognosticator for WGBH in Boston, has pointed out, “The traditional benchmarks of success are becoming less and less relevant. And new benchmarks have not yet surfaced.” In the field of social issue documentaries, there are two practical stumbling blocks to increasing the number of productions. First, there is the problem of funding. When funders use traditional pre-technology boom measures of success to decide whether or not to fund a media project, the answer, more often than not, is no. That is because, for reasons outlined in this report, by the old measures or benchmarks of success, these films are NOT succeeding. Their audience share, the number of reviews they receive and their overall impact have diminished. The second stumbling block is the problem of national broadcasts. Funders want and expect a national broadcast as part of the process in which they invest. But that is becoming increasingly difficult. If funders were to seek attitudinal and behavioral shifts in select communities as a result of the documentary release and the related release of versioned materials and a professional strategic engagement campaign, then more projects would be “greenlighted.” It is unlikely that PBS will expand social issue documentary projects’ share of the national prime-time schedule or the mandatory carriage “hard feed.” Therefore, if these projects are to survive, funders must reassess their goals and expectations.
