Q: After 18 years at Channel 6 and public television, you’ve chosen to head out on your own. Why the change?
A: It was time. I wanted to get into the new mediascape that’s all around us, and I couldn’t do it while running a television station, so I’m taking the leap.
It’s a new company called Instinct Media Solutions — — and it’s been around just weeks. I’m operating it from my son’s bedroom at the moment. He’ll be home from college for the holidays. He’s in for a surprise.
Q: So why is it a good idea?
A: This new-media thing is just getting going, this Internet and multimedia and digital television, and it’s tough to monetize.
You have to be in that space, to extend your brand, your product and customer relationship in the new mediascape.
Most companies put up a website and think they’ve done it, but that’s just a placeholder. They have to take it to the next level.
There’s a lot to be learned, and no one knows exactly how to do it yet, but you have to experiment and reach a new audience.
Q: What is this new mediascape, as you see it?
A: I’m talking about the Web, video streaming and content delivered in a different way.
Television is already seeing a decline in viewership because of the time spent away from the TV set. At the consumer-electronics show in Las Vegas last year, all the technology was focused on the primo that is HD and everything that it has to serve you in your home to control it.
The TV set is now a multitasking unit. There is less time for linear television and much more time being spent with new media. And you’re going to see a further decline in linear viewing.
It’s time to move into that world, so my hope is to take my public-television content experience and skills and apply them in this area as a consultant to various companies.
Q: What’s the hope in this new venture?
A: There are a lot of entities that want to play in the new-media environment but don’t know how.
There are technical people who know that well but not a lot who know audience behavior and how to use that content, how to get the message across in a new-media world that’s coming at corporate America at a huge rate.
Nowadays, you wouldn’t even think of not having a website. Just the amount of content people are sitting on is amazing to me. Newspapers, for instance, are just sitting on a huge archive of content.
Q: So where’s home, and how did you get to be in Denver and in this business?
A: I’m from New York and grew up on Long Island. I graduated from the University of Denver with a degree in mass communication. I’ve moved to Denver three times in my life.
There was a decision, at some point, in high school about whether to go into film or TV, and, at the time, TV was the big, hot thing.
I did make a Super 8mm film, and DU had a really good program. I wanted to produce content, and I did for a long period of time. And then I just moved up the food chain in public television.
I had worked at Channel 4 in the 1970s. Commercial TV made me wonder what I had done all day when I got home. I assumed I could do so much more by doing the public-television thing.
I went back to school for my master’s at DU, I landed a job in a small production facility in Kentucky and then public-television stations in Idaho and Florida. I came here as the No. 2 guy, with the understanding that I’d get the top job if I didn’t screw up, and I didn’t.
Q: You had a lot to do with the preparation for transition to digital broadcast television in Colorado, which occurs Feb. 17. What has been its biggest hurdle?
A: The Federal Communications Commission of old used to pretty much prescribe how things would go technically but now determines which initiatives would occur and lets the marketplace work it out.
Studies show that many people are simply putting off being prepared (by not purchasing necessary converter boxes for their televisions), even though they know it’s coming. They’re saying they’ll deal with it in January. My concern is there will be a rush (to buy the boxes), and the shelves will be empty, and the industry is slammed with 800,000 telephone calls. It’s just not first in the public’s mind.
Edited for length and clarity by David Migoya.
