The Smithsonian Goes Cable

MUA3002_01.qxd 8/16/07 12:45 PM Page 89 89 Commentary: The Smithsonian Goes Cable Richard Kurin n March 2006, the Smithsonian Institution In this essay, I provide an institutional and his- announced that it had entered into a contract torical context for the cable venture, describe the Iwith Showtime to form a new entity— Smithsonian On Demand (SOD) operation, examine Smithsonian Networks—that would produce and the contentious issues, provide current information disseminate audiovisual programs in various for- and data, and also look at the challenges and oppor- mats through a variety of platforms. Its first offer- tunities it may pose especially for museum anthro- ing would be Smithsonian On Demand, video pologists. I write as a museum anthropologist, programs offered over cable television, satellite and though not a disinterested one. I serve as the direc- internet networks. The Smithsonian represented tor of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and the arrangement as consistent with its mission, Cultural Heritage as well as director of Smithsonian within its legal purview, and necessary in order to National Programs. In August 2006 I was asked to reach larger audiences with its material. Critics lam- chair an internal Smithsonian On Demand com- basted the idea. Archivists and historians protested mittee composed of museum and program directors, the possibility that access and use of Smithsonian curators and archivists. collections, archives and resources would be unduly limited. Independent film-makers worried that they The Smithsonian would be excluded from making their own films and To avoid some confusion about its legal status forced to work with Showtime. Public interest advo- and the nature of its operations, a thumbnail sketch cates argued that the Smithsonian was questionably, of the Smithsonian is in order. and to the detriment of the public, collaborating with The Smithsonian is named after James a for-profit commercial company. Many scholars, Smithson, a wealthy Englishman and scientist who curators, scientists, archivists, educators and other in the early 19th century left his fortune to the staff within the Smithsonian itself questioned the United States to found in Washington an institution arrangement, worrying that it might curtail some of bearing his name and dedicated to the “increase and their substantive work and impose external diffusion of knowledge.” While consistent with demands upon their time, research and educational enlightenment ideas that were to define other schol- efforts. arly organizations, it was a curious bequest from a These varied concerns resulted in numerous man who, though estranged from the British aris- newspaper stories, on-line petitions, formal resolu- tocracy, had never visited the then-young nation. It tions by scholarly organizations, and a hearing took the U.S. Congress a decade to figure how to incor- before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee porate such a private bequest and structure the envi- on Administration. The latter resulted in an inves- sioned institution. In 1846 Congress passed and the tigation of the Smithsonian Networks contract by President signed a bill establishing the Smithsonian the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) at as a unique independent trust—not a federal agency the behest of the U.S. House of Representatives or arm of the executive branch—and designating Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on a Board of Regents as its governing body. The Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies. regents appointed a secretary to serve as its executive. MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 89–100, ISSN 0892-8339, online ISSN 1548-1379. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals. com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/mua.2007.30.2.89. MUA3002_01.qxd 8/16/07 12:45 PM Page 90 90 MUSEUM ANTHROPOLOGY VOLUME 30 NUMBER 2 In the early days, the federal government did not revitalize and even build new museums. The re- appropriate any funds to the Smithsonian; that opened National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian changed a decade later as the Smithsonian took on American Art Museum, the new National Museum functions desired by the federal government, most of the American Indian, the new National Air and dramatically caring for its national collections. Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, and Currently, the Smithsonian endowment, which the revitalization underway at the National Museum was initiated with Smithson’s bequest of about of American History have required more than half $500,000, is now worth about $900 million. The a billion dollars in funds raised from individuals, Smithsonian Board of Regents consists of 17 foundations and corporations in addition to a like members—the Chief Justice of the U.S., the Vice amount of federal appropriations. Additionally, new President of the U.S., three senators, three members program initiatives are typically funded by private of the House of Representatives, and nine citizen sources—not federal dollars, particularly given the members—mainly leaders of universities, corpora- tight budgets over the past two decades. tions and foundations. The secretary of the Smithsonian is not a federal employee. Roughly The Smithsonian’s Television History $650 million a year comes to the Smithsonian as an From the late 1950s onward, Smithsonian lead- appropriation from the federal government, and the ers were well aware that television might be a good Smithsonian follows federal rules with regard to the way to convey knowledge to a broad public. The new expenditure of those funds. About $100 million a National Museum of History and Technology (now year comes in the form of federal contracts and the National Museum of American History) grants—mainly from NASA to the Smithsonian included a television studio on its ground floor for Astrophysical Observatory run jointly with Harvard producing programs. Not having the federal funds, University. the capital, nor the human and technical resources Another $250 million or so is annually gener- to fully produce and broadcast television programs ated by the Smithsonian in non-federal funds on its own, the Smithsonian mainly partnered with (referred to internally as “trust funds”) from gifts, others—sometimes local Washington-area stations, grants and donations, interest on the endowment, sometimes national networks, sometimes non-profits, and proceeds from business activities including but more often commercial companies, to do so. The among others Smithsonian magazine, food conces- Smithsonian first partnered with the Washington sions and museum shops in its facilities. Since in Educational Television Association (WETA) and addition to being a public trust, the Smithsonian is local commercial television stations to produce a a not-for-profit, tax-exempt educational organiza- variety of programs, and with NBC to produce eight- tion under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue een half-hour shows that aired nationally on Code, the Institution files reporting forms with the Saturday mornings as well as a children’s television Internal Revenue Service with regard to these trust program. Among the anthropological topics covered funds, and develops its own guidelines for manag- in such productions were underwater archaeology, ing its money—which are not required to be and, in the hall of physical anthropology, osteology, Catlin’s fact, are not the same as those for managing fed- paintings of American Indians, and American folk eral funds. All of these funds—federal and trust— art. In the early 1960s, a new unit, the Smithsonian support 19 national museums and a zoo that in 2006 Museum Service, created to develop a whole range drew about 23 million visitors, as well as a number of public outreach activities for the institution, took of scientific and scholarly research centers and edu- the lead in developing television programs. Before cational activities that reach literally hundreds of the decade was over, the Office of Public Affairs took millions more around the nation and the world. on the role of coordinating productions with televi- While federal funds pay most salaries, and help sion stations, and the Motion Picture Unit was support the institution’s operational infrastructure charged with producing documentary films and and physical plant, the Smithsonian depends upon those for exhibitions. raising and generating hundreds of millions of dol- In 1972, following an unfulfilling agreement lars a year and on capital campaigns to pay salaries, with CBS for the production of a series of prime-time produce new exhibitions and indeed, refurbish, specials, Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, leading officials MUA3002_01.qxd 8/16/07 12:45 PM Page 91 THE SMITHSONIAN GOES CABLE 91 and an ad hoc committee seriously deliberated the decades. At the same time, the power of audiovisual institution’s television presence. The consensus imagery and its connection to Smithsonian collec- was that television offered a major opportunity for tions was most powerfully illustrated in the IMAX the Smithsonian to realize its educational mission, theater of the newly opened National Air and Space but that the Smithsonian could not go it alone. The Museum—the subject of a PBS documentary “A cost and skills for producing television programs Place of Dreams” a few years later. and the need for an effective

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