If you work in public media, you’re probably facing growing pressure to find new sources of revenue. Budgets are tight, longstanding sources of funding are under pressure, and stations need to find new ways to generate revenue from the audiences they already have.

At the same time, you’re being asked to create more content. More podcasts. More video. More newsletters. More social media. More ways to reach people wherever they happen to be.

But you’re not the only one creating more.

You’re Competing With More Content Than Ever

The internet eliminated many of the barriers that once limited who could produce and distribute media. Today, your programming isn’t just competing with other public media stations or traditional media companies. It’s competing with podcasters, YouTubers, TikTok creators, local organizations, businesses, and your own listeners’ social feeds.

AI is making it even easier to produce more content, faster and more cheaply. So you face a basic problem: There’s more content than ever competing for a finite amount of attention.

The natural response is to create more. Produce another podcast. Make more video, send another newsletter, post more on social media, repurpose everything, and use new technology to increase your output.

This is ContentMaxxing: the practice of creating more and better content in an effort to reach more people.

What If You Didn’t Have to Rely on Content Alone?

Public media has traditionally used a Content Revenue model: You produce programming people want to hear, watch, or read, build an audience around it, and generate revenue from that content and the attention it attracts—either through listener donations, underwriting, or major gifts.

But in a world where content is increasingly abundant and attention is increasingly difficult to capture, Content Revenue alone is under growing pressure.

So there’s another question worth asking:

What else could you do with the audience and assets you already have?

That’s the question I explore in the webinar below. Public media already has many of the assets needed to build Community Revenue: trusted brands, established relationships with listeners, strong ties to local communities, and the ability to bring people together around shared interests and concerns.

Community Revenue is about using those existing assets to create value in a different way—by helping the people you already reach connect with each other.

More about Seth.