HURON – Longtime staff member Kent Osborne marveled at the growth of South Dakota Public Broadcasting during a presentation recently at the District 22 Democratic Forum on Thursday.
The University of South Dakota graduate is digital manager of SDPB and hosts the twice monthly “Tech Radio.”
“We started with one TV station that signed off at midnight,” he said. “Today we have four channels (PBS, Create, World and PBS Kids) and two radio channels (classical and news) that stream online 24 hours per day.
“Thirty-four years ago we also had twice as many employees as today,” Osborne said.
SDPB has also responded to a request from the governor to provide live streaming of meetings of 120 state boards and commissions.
Funding continues to be a concern, he said. He said “we are not 100 percent funded by the federal government, but those funds continue to be important because state funding is based on federal funding.”
The recent spending bill approved by Congress continued funding for PBS at the same level as the previous fiscal year.
At the same time, Osborne said that media consumption habits have changed.
“Kids don’t watch TV like their parents did,” he said. “We have to be ready to try new things to reach young people.”
As for concerns about the internet, he said the fear that a “pay to play” attitude could drive business to larger corporations and throttle access to other media.
“The debate continues as to whether or not we should regulate internet provides as common carriers in spite of Federal Communications Commission action in December eliminating Obama administration rules establishing net neutrality, he said.
The American Civil Liberties Union has suggested that cities and local governments might provide wireless internet access. However, 21 state legislatures have prohibited public control of internet access.
“At the same time, corporate providers raise our internet bills by 8 percent annually,” he said. “Why don’t we fight back?”
Citing the recently publicized failure of Facebook to protect the private information of more than 87 million customers, Osborne said founder Mark Zuckerberg was scheduled to appear before congressional committees and will be asked what he has been doing to fix the problem.
This is an important issue in South Dakota, he said.
“This is because South Dakota currently has the highest per capita use of Facebook,” he said.
COURTESY PHOTO Longtime South Dakota Public Broadcasting staff member Kent Osborne was the speaker at the District 22 Democratic Forum held recently. Osborne spoke on the growth of public broadcasting in the state over his time with the organization.
