My Take On AT&T;'s Treatment Of PEG

Last week I reported on the happenings of a private AT&T; demo of their PEG system to members of the ACM's Board of Directors.

In response to that post, Matt Schuster, who chairs the Board, wrote in the following comment:

"Let me clarify the Alliance for Community Media's position on AT&T;'s provision of the service. The Alliance does not feel that the U-Verse solution for PEG access is acceptable. The channels are treated in a sub-standard inferior manner to broadcast and commercial channels. PEG Channels must be treated in an equitable or identical manner to other channels on the system.

The possibility of interactive features and services does not make up for sub-standard treatment of PEG channels on the U-Verse platform."

As my first post was more unbiased observations, I wanted to follow up with my unvarnished reactions to what I saw during the PEG demo as it relates to the major issues the PEG community has with AT&T;'s offering.

Quality - There was a perceptible though not grotesque difference between standard definition TV channels and PEG, there's no denying it. Yet during the demo the video on the random PEG channel we were watching wasn't all that high a quality to begin with. First there was some OK video from a local government meeting, then what looked like the homemade rants of a guy on his couch. Even if the channel were encoded at a higher rate, it wouldn't make these look any better. At the same time, I know that some PEG channels aspire to HD production, and ultimately I do believe we should be striving to enable the delivery of HD across all PEG channels.

Loading Time - Let's be honest, there's a huge delay. Unbelievably long, maybe even up to a minute from when you first click on channel 99 until something shows up on screen. Put another way: if internet video paused that long before playing, no one would watch anything online. At the same time, I chalk this up more to technological nascence than ill intent to kill PEG. What I don't know is whether or not it was negligence that led to this issue or working out the kinks of new technology. But I'm not as worried about this as AT&T; laid out a clear plan for getting it resolved in the coming months.

Channel 99 - PEG advocates hate being lumped together into one channel buried in submenus. And I can see what they mean as it basically totally negates channel surfing, plus it's a new enough concept that it may confuse some viewers. One response to this has been that if PEG is all lumped together, every other channel should be as well. But to be honest, I think that might be where TV in general will be heading anyway. It's not very efficient to have to scroll up and down when you've got 500 channels, so it seems like it could make sense to put all sports channels under a single sports heading. Also, there is a flipside to this in that on channel 99 you not only get your local PEG channels you can often get PEG channels from surrounding communities. And because everything's IP-based, it seems like ultimately we might be able to access every PEG channel in America through the TV, which could be an really interesting opportunity for local community media to reach beyond its geographic boundaries.

Navigation - It does seem to require a lot of clicks to be able to start watching PEG channels. Even with AT&T;'s effort to add a PEG button to their main menu to ease access, there's an odd in-between screen that doesn't seem necessary and could confuse viewers. But I think some of this is that there's still a lot of innovation needed to happen in both physical interfaces and menu structuring in order to enable more robust and easy to use interactive TV experiences beyond just PEG.

Favorites - The fact you can't add PEG channels as Favorites in the U-Verse interface is odd. I can't believe it's all that hard to do because even though PEG is relegated to a separate application, ultimately the video is just an IP stream. Fixing this can't be impossible, and I think it'd improve navigation dramatically, especially for fans of PEG.

DVR - It's totally unacceptable that viewers can't use their U-Verse DVRs to record PEG channels. Because of this PEG on U-Verse means appointment-only viewing, which is extremely limiting for both the channels and the viewers. In last week's meeting, it seemed like there may not be an easy solution to getting DVRs to work given how channel 99 is structured, so I think the only way out of this is for AT&T; to enable PEG On-Demand.

This now brings us to the fun part, where we step beyond lamenting what AT&T;'s PEG system lacks and instead focus on what it could enable:

PEG On-Demand - If all shows are available on-demand, then there's no need for a DVR to record them. And since shows are sitting on servers anyway, I can't see how enabling their on-demand delivery would be all that painful. So long as the menu navigation isn't too tortured, PEG On-Demand could usher in a new era of local community media that overcomes the traditional limitations of trying to use a broadcast, appointment-only distribution mechanism to reach a narrowcast audience.

Distribution to TVs in Other Communities - My understanding is that because of AT&T;'s centralized infrastructure, making all PEG channels in a state available to all viewers should just be a matter of adding them to the interface. I'd think the same could potentially hold true for expanding the reach of channels across state lines. And I don't see how being able to get greater distribution could be a bad thing.

Provide Online Distribution - AT&T;'s making a big push back into the CDN world. PEG channels are already sitting as IP streams on servers. So why not alongside U-Verse distribution, also offer PEG channels free or cheap online distribution? When I brought this up at the meeting there was a sense that getting online isn't a problem, but I also know that it can be an expense, and for some access centers a complexity that they'd rather not have to deal with.

Enable New Search Functions - I'd love to see navigation like you get in Granicus's integrated public record where instead of having to watch a whole city council meeting, you can click on an agenda item and go right to that point of a video. Combine this with on-demand delivery and you've got yourself a brand new paradigm for how viewers find PEG content and what video they're able to access at any given time.

Make PEG Interactive - We don't have to get crazy complicated to start, but even something as simple as basic polls where viewers can vote alongside their government representatives would be a game changer for how PEG engages its viewers.

Deliver Viewership Information - I have to admit some ignorance in how the TV industry gauges viewership, but my basic understanding is that PEG channels generally don't get any info regarding who's watching what when. In an IP-based system like U-Verse it seems quite feasible that AT&T; could start sharing that information with PEG channels, which will help them identify popular content, improve scheduling, better understand their audience, and identify unaddressed needs for content in their communities.

Make PEG Social - If PEG is all about community media, then what could be better than knowing who's watching something at the same time as you? Or being able to easily share a video you like with your neighbor? These are the kinds of things that are possible with these new platforms.

In the end, here's my stance on PEG:

Matt makes the comment that "PEG Channels must be treated in an equitable or identical manner to other channels on the system."

I disagree. I believe that what the PEG community should be demanding is that they be treated better than the other channels. That they be given the opportunity to try out and serve as a testing ground for the future of TV and the Internet. That they shouldn't continue accepting the status quo but instead strive towards expanding the definition of PEG to mean community media and empowering communities to better know about and respond to what's happening in their communities through the combination of local grassroots content production and the power of IP technologies.

Unfortunately, I can't say whether or not AT&T; will take any of these ideas to heart and put them into action. But what I can say is that I think we're missing out if we spend all our time fighting to retain the status quo when an IP-based platform like U-Verse holds so much potential for introducing a host of new features that can extend the power of PEG as everything I suggested above is possible through IP.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that to date AT&T;'s treatment of PEG has resulted in many more things being taken away than added anew. But at the same time I'm trying to do my part in getting them and others to open their eyes to the tremendous opportunity staring them in the face to start finding ways to work with the PEG community rather than against them.

And I hope by enabling a robust dialog about what's possible with PEG 2.0, we can all work together to usher in a new era for local community media.