img src=”https://journalismthatmatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Jtm-dc-wally-bowen.jpg” alt=” Wally Bowen” />
Wally Bowen, Executive Director
Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN)
http://www.main.nc.us
WPVM-LP 103.5 FM
http://www.wpvm.org
IndyLink Access & Webhosting
http://www.indylink.org
828.255.0182 ext. 109
GIRAFFE PROSPECT PROFILE
Wally Bowen describes the business model of Mountain Area Information Network.
The nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network (MAIN) in Asheville, N.C.
takes a radically different approach to the financial sustainability of
citizen journalism. We believe the biggest challenge facing CJ projects
is not the production of content, but the aggregation of audience and the
creation of reliable revenue streams.
MAIN’s model has successfully met both of these challenges since its
founding in 1996. We are a nonprofit Internet service provider (ISP)
operating on a simple principle: give citizens the option of spending
their Internet dollars to support local, independent media. MAIN’s primary
revenue streams over the last decade have been dial-up Internet access,
webhosting, and, more recently, high-speed Internet access via wireless
networking. Other revenue streams include public radio-style on-air
fundraising via our low-power FM radio station and underwriting from local
businesses.
We currently have 380 broadband wireless subscribers; we estimate that we
need 1,000 wireless subs to return to financial sustainability.
One of the biggest challenges facing any kind of independent
media — especially in the age of media consolidation — is finding an
audience, especially a local audience. Given the global nature of online
experience, the challenge of finding a local audience is often
overlooked. Yet, the local audience is arguably paramount. After all,
public policy — whether federal, state or local — ultimately reaches
and affects citizens where they live.
MAIN has addressed the challenge of audience-aggregation by creating
a synergistic,"cross-platform" infrastructure including the Web, LPFM
radio, and public access TV. These venues have enabled us to create and
promote a
regional news and information Web portal (http://www.main.nc.us) that now
attracts more than 16,000 unique visitors per day, second only to the
Gannett-owned Asheville Citizen-Times in our mountain region.
Meanwhile, our four-year old LPFM station, WPVM-103.5 FM, has attracted
more than 80 volunteers producing 36 local programs each week. And we are
now delivering content via Asheville’s new public access TV station, URTV,
which MAIN helped to create. Audio and video content we create for WPVM
and URTV is streamed via our Web portal to reach audiences outside the
broadcast and cable range.
Operating as a nonprofit gives the added advantage of presenting content
in a non-commercial context, thereby overcoming one of the greatest
shortcomings of advertising-supported journalism: fragmented,
decontextualized coverage. We believe this is one of the reasons for the
popularity of our regional news portal.
Today’s fragmented, foreshortened journalism would be unthinkable to the
framers of the First Amendment. Our nonprofit status and sustainable ISP
business model frees us from the constraints of advertising-supported
journalism.
With the rapid growth of broadband wireless, any independent media
organization could become an ISP and use locally-generated Internet
dollars to sustain a local CJ project.
Ideal organizations would be existing PEG access and community radio
/community technology centers, as these organizations already attract
tech-savvy volunteers. Operating a local ISP is not rocket-science.
Tech-savvy students already operate ISP co-ops using affordable wireless
technologies such as Meraki.com.