Kyle Travers
Historical documentaries and public television have a successful history. The 1990 launch of Ken Burns’ Civil War on PBS proved that historical documentaries could engage, entertain, and draw a large share of the television viewing audience (Edgerton, 2000). Since then historical documentaries have found success across The History Channel, National Geographic, and other commercial stations (Edgerton, 2000). But the popularity of “tune-in” television is waning. On-demand options and internet-based content have fractured the audience of broadcast’s former heyday. The competition is fierce, and today’s participatory audiences want something new and engaging (Flynn, 2015).
While many commercial stations have implemented streaming content and interactivity, PBS and its member stations have been slow to adapt to the changing media landscape. The typical PBS audience skews older, male, white, and conservative, while NPR audiences are younger and more liberal (Sefton, 2017). Can WFYI, Indianapolis’ PBS/NPR station, make a successful leap to engaging audiences across platforms? Past attempts have focused on broadcasting the same content on television, radio, web, and social media, but have failed to use a transmedia approach. In addition, WFYI seldom works with users to find out exactly what they want. The typical strategy is to produce, broadcast, and hope someone watches.
"I assert that ratings and engagement for an upcoming WFYI historical documentary about national socialist leader Eugene Debs will increase if a transmedia framework is used."
Transmedia does not simply reuse the same content across different channels but emerges and intersects on various platforms with interlocking pieces to a complete storyworld. It is intentionally designed to expand audiences and increase engagement (Jenkins, 2006). And some PBS programs have successfully used transmedia. Half The Sky, an experience highlighting women’s inequality issues, included a four-hour documentary airing on PBS, live social media engagement, web videos, music downloads, online games, and more. The creators designed the project to find audiences that would normally not watch PBS in places where they usually consume media, such as Facebook (Astle, 2012). But design does not only include idea creation; it involves executing that idea to create an experience (Brown & Katz, 2009). It is crucial that the design be human-centered and meet the needs and wants of the user (Norman, 2013). These central tenets of design thinking are being implemented by KQED-PBS in San Francisco. The station has begun to focus on experimentation and a user-centered approach, undergoing a culture shift from assuming the station knew what audiences wanted to using data and audience feedback (Burg, 2016).
I assert that ratings and engagement for an upcoming WFYI historical documentary about national socialist leader Eugene Debs will increase if a transmedia framework is used. This will involve telling different parts of the story across multiple platforms to reach potentially interested publics who do not already watch WFYI. Also, by using design thinking to engage these audiences, we will determine what users want and the best way to present each of these individual story threads so they might draw audiences across the storyworld. Potential audiences include those from WFYI’s television, radio, web, and social media channels, the Eugene Debs museum and foundation, and Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Debs’ hometown.
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