Forget predictions. Here’s what should happen in 2025.

Most recognize that we face a demographic cliff that will literally kill some organizations and doom most of the survivors to irrelevance. Precious few of us are actually doing anything about it. So, allow me to suggest what your organization should do in 2025.”

Tom Davidson, the Bellisario Professor of the Practice in Media Entrepreneurship at Penn State University

The turn of the calendar provides a crutch for idea-strapped columnists: Trot out predictions for the coming year.

The trouble is the predictions are easy. In Public Media, that will lead to thousands of words about the possibility of defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the likely mergers of stations, and concerned fretting and handwringing about layoffs and financial pressures.

Easy. Predictable. And missing the point.

So, I will focus instead on what should happen in 2025 — especially if we in Public Media are going to address the slow-motion existential threat of our declining, graying over-the-air audiences.

We all whisper about that challenge in our private conversations (or at the bar at the end of a conference day). Most recognize that we face a demographic cliff that will literally kill some organizations and doom most of the survivors to irrelevance.

Precious few of us are actually doing anything about it. So, allow me to suggest what your organization should do in 2025:

Stop obsessing about the license and the tower.

I cringe when I hear someone describe their organization as Public Television or Public Radio — just as I used to cringe (circa 2005) when colleagues said they worked for the newspaper.

We’re media organizations. We create and distribute relevant content to (hopefully eager) audiences. How we do that is secondary, but many of us refuse to acknowledge that.

These examples make the case:

Scripted shows comprised roughly half of America's 20 most-watched television broadcasts a decade ago. In 2023? None. The Top 20 comprised one-off events — usually sports, but sometimes awards shows or news. It gets no better when you look deeper: Only two recurring entertainment broadcasts cracked the top 50 among the 18-49 demographic in 2023.

That doesn’t mean scripted entertainment has disappeared — it’s simply shifted to on-demand environments. CBS/Paramount, NBC/Peacock and especially Netflix have recognized that appointment television is gone and isn’t returning. However, there are thriving businesses (and compelling economics) to be built around video-on-demand. However, too many Public Television stations remain fixated on the notion that we must rebuild appointment viewing at 8 p.m. on Sunday nights. Good luck.

Speaking of NBC, its parent, Comcast, is spinning off nearly all its cable TV networks. Brian Roberts has decided that a business built on live viewing just isn’t compelling anymore.

Advance Publications — the legendary Newhouse family — has entirely eliminated the print edition of some of its legacy newspapers. They recognize that “paper” isn’t what makes them valuable to their communities; it’s the “news” part — delivered more efficiently via digital platforms.

Steve Bass, the legendary and recently retired CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting, has been beating this drum for a couple of years: Think as a community-based organization that uses content to carry out a mission. Don’t limit yourself to the definition of “broadcaster.”

“We are in a transformative moment,” Bass said. “And I think there are really great opportunities — if we grab hold of them.” But those opportunities are around serving local needs — not passively serving as a distribution outlet for national programming.

Build direct, digital relationships with your audiences

Even in the halcyon days when we had large, committed, over-the-air audiences, we had a weakness. We didn’t know who they were. Nielsen (and Arbitron before that) could give us a rough sketch — “they live in these ZIP codes, listen to these shows, and have a median age of XX…” — but even those sketches were based on limited surveys.

These days, we (and especially our competitors) know who our digital users are and what they consume. Think of your personalized Netflix page or Spotify’s “Daily Mix.” (They’ve got me pegged — power pop and musicals.)

That kind of data is incredibly powerful. Applied well, it lets us move beyond the reliance on the traditional pledge guilt trip (critical when live tune-in has entered a terminal decline). Yet too many of us focus on preparing for the next drive rather than rebuilding our membership departments into data-mining machines.

So, vacuum up every byte of data you can extract from Passport and NPR One. Leverage and expand your email newsletters. Don’t let anyone attend an event without getting their email address.

I hear some of you already say, “But it’s so-o-o hard to get those paper forms entered into our CRM!” Have you never heard of Eventbrite? Or iPads?!?

Next: Segment your data to gain a richer understanding of the different cohorts that comprise your audiences: News junkies vs. music fans for radio — the costumed drama nerds versus the science geeks in television. Then, build nurturing campaigns for each cohort to reinforce your value and ask for support. You don’t know how? These two companies can help.

Oh, and that data-driven approach will also help you to…

Focus on marketing your content in an on-demand world.

Yes, our current on-air promos talk about “tune in at 8 p.m. Sunday — or any time on the XYZ app!” But there’s so much more to be done, especially as we build an actual digital fundraising infrastructure.

Jon Abbott, equally legendary and former CEO of GBH, said he’s tried to train himself to no longer use the words “broadcast” or “distribution.”

“It’s too antiseptic, too tactical. ... I like the word ‘publishing,’” he said.

And smart publishers think about bringing attention to assets — not simply driving tune-in.

Abbott compares our current appointment-based model to retailers in his dad’s hometown of Nevada, Missouri. These businesses were devastated when the shoppers migrated to Walmart and the strip malls on the edge of town.

“In the cumbent broadcasters are the town square,” which can no longer rely on shared foot traffic. But smarter merchants figured out how to move to where the shoppers are.

That requires examining our new content and rich libraries like our digital competitors do: grouping similar elements together in promotable playlists or opportunistically resurfacing old material as events warrant. (Musical theater nerds: Do you have some old Stephen Schwartz interviews talking about the making of Wicked? Yeah, I thought you did. Spotify really does have us pegged.)

The key, Abbott advises, is breaking the old mindset of “that’s digital; this is broadcast. … It’s all the trunk of the same tree.”

To sum up, don’t spend 2025 trying to figure out how you can eke one more year out of the declining broadcast business model. Instead, lean hard into building a post-broadcast organization.

Because if you can’t … someone else will. (More on that next month.)

Tom Davidson is a professor of the practice in media entrepreneurship at the Bellisario School of Communications, Penn State University. He was previously a reporter, general manager and product leader at Tribune, PBS, UNC-TV and Gannett. He can be contacted at tgd@tgdavidson.com.