SAN FRANCISCO, CA; November 30, 2023 – KQED, the public media station serving Northern California, announced that it is seeking to partner with news publishers to pilot a new technology tool and program to deliver journalism to wider audiences online, while also tapping into a potential new revenue source. KQED is partnering with Palo Alto–based technology company Distributed Media Lab (DML) to utilize their DML technology platform, which enables publishers like KQED to create embeddable digital content collections and to share those across a host of enabled news sites.
This project, which is led by KQED and DML, and funded by the Google News Initiative, will help KQED and California local news publishers by bundling the highest quality articles and content into statewide collections that are easily embeddable and distributable to other sites, forming a network for efficient audience growth on the web.
KQED is looking for trusted news publishers in California — both within and outside public media — to partner in the pilot program. KQED will curate weekly California statewide collections from KQED and network partners. Utilizing the DML platform, those collections will be shared amongst partners, as well as non-affiliated news sites. Sponsorship opportunities are being built into the program and will provide revenue-sharing across the partner network.
“New audience engagement and new revenue models are needed more than ever to sustain the journalistic mission of public media and local news in particular,” says Tim Olson, Senior Vice President of Digital Strategic Partnerships, KQED. “This project builds a model for local news that works on the web the way the web was designed to work, and we are excited to build that model with DML and news outlets across the state.”
A startup technology company, DML has spent the last five years working collaboratively with local-to-global media organizations and commercial brands to develop platforms and products that power both network and local revenue models. “We are honored to work with KQED to support their effort to inform Californians collaboratively with local news outlets across the state,” says David Gehring, CEO, Distributed Media Lab. “I am also excited to harness that work to enable new revenue streams for local news media as our commercial partners are increasingly focused on emerging direct audience paths in anticipation of looming changes to the digital advertising economy.”