Category Archives: Media & Culture

The internet is the network no one owns.

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That jumped out of a post by Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine and –at first glance– it seems too obvious to mention. But the company I work for was started by a man who built and owned (owns) a radio network. He didn’t own the radio stations but he owned the network that provided them content (news, sports, ag). Others might have been able to produce the content but (back then) had no affordable way to deliver that content to the radio stations. When our founder put in a satellite uplink, we had an even greater advantage. Faster, cheaper, better quality.

We still have the satellite uplink and the downlinks and we work with more radio stations than ever. But more and more of our content is now “delivered” to our affiliated stations via the internet. Very close to not needing the satellite system at all. If we were starting the company today, it would almost certainly be web-based. And the podcast explosion is sure to add another interesting dimension.

Other nuggets from Jeff Jarvis’ post:

* The audience often knows the news before we report it.
* A blog is a little First Amendment machine (Jay Rosen)
* Google is a brand killer. People find what they want from any source and don’t credit or remember the source.

NFL podcasts

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The National Football League has a deal to make recordings of this year’s remaining playoff games available for portable audio players (iPods, etc). The recordings will be available for purchase at iTunes and other sites that sell audio over the Internet.

Concrete TV

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“Concrete Ron describes himself as “perhaps the greatest video editor of all time”, and anyone who’s ever caught Concrete TV on Manhattan public access television over the last decade or so probably wouldn’t argue: a typical episode incorporates vintage porn movies, 80s aerobics videos, car crash footage, Hong Kong shoot-em-ups, old commercials, beefcake reels, pro wrestling smackdowns, cheesy B-movie moments, sex education films, random explosions, wet t-shirt contests, and plenty of “raw emotion, euphoria, physical collision, glee, fantasy, despair, and discomfort” in one noisy, violent, sexy, and brilliantly edited pop culture/infoporn mashup.”

Edward Wasserman: “The Next Rebirth of the Media”

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Edward Wasserman titled his piece “The Next Rebirth of the Media” but I came away wondering about the future relavence of networks as we know them. Wasserman is a professor of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA.

“TV will migrate to the Net, and if networks can reach a national audience online, why bother with costly affiliation contracts? By cutting out the needless re-transmitters they keep the entire advertising dollar. But what becomes of broadcast affiliates once theyre no longer affiliates  indeed, once theyre no longer broadcasters either, since their audiences wont be getting them over-the-air either? When you click on to your online news and entertainment options, why will you choose your local ex-ABC affiliate? You wont, unless it has something unique to offer  namely, the very content that has been most sorely neglected in the current era of non-regulation: local programming.”

Four our five years ago I described the Web as a meteor, far out in space, headed toward earth. We don’t know how big it is… when it’s going to get here… or whether it will miss our little planet or smash ut so bits. But we better start building spaceships. Just in case. Don’t know how to build a spaceship? Better start learning. The meteor is big…and it’s close.

Play-by-play on line two

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Rick Bozich — a sports columnist for The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky– isn’t sure he needs radio anymore:

“I followed the final 15 minutes of the Louisville-Florida basketball game while I was in Freedom Hall on Saturday. The game, remember, was played in Gainesville. I was courtside for Kentucky’s annual Basketball 101 lecture against Indiana. I did not have a radio. I did have my cell phone. I connected to the Internet. Clicked to an ESPN site. Another click, and play-by-play from Gainesville flashed on my screen. Stats. Time. The works. Actually, that’s not true  no greasy bacon ads. So tell me again, for precisely what do I depend on WHAS radio?

From my perspective, the most interesting part of this story is that the cheif operating officer of our company brought it in to me. He gets it and that’s very important. One more thing… Radio is not going away. I don’t want it to go away. But broadcasters must find a way to embrace new technologies instead of trying to lobby them out of existance or deny that existance.

The Trio Channel

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Last night I discovered Trio (pop, culture, tv). I’m prone to endless channel surfing so I don’t know how I’ve missed this but I happend upon “Parking Lot.”

Spawned by the classic 1980s underground film “Heavy Metal Parking Lot,” Trio travels to the parking lots and convention grounds of America’s favorite pop culture events to hear fans express their devotion. And they never show any of the performances. Just fans in the parking lot, before and after. Very weird.

I’m going to try to catch some of Trio’s “Dysfunctional Family Thanksgiving” marathon, including:

  • Almost Elvis takes you into the world of Elvis impersonators. Their daily trials and tribulations and a pilgrimage to Memphis for the “Elvis Impersonator World Championships.”
  • The Devil’s Playground follows a group of Amish teens in their Rumspringa period as they venture into the world of their ‘English’ peers.

A more balanced, decentralized lifestyle

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“The Internet will reestablish a more balanced, decentralized lifestyle. In the physical world, you win by being big, with economies of scale in manufacturing, worldwide distribution, and branding. In the virtual world, you win by being good: Automation reduces the benefits of scale, the Internet equalizes distribution, and reputation follows from quality rather than incessantly repeated slogans. The switch from centralization to decentralization goes to the heart of the human experience. And because the switch will drive up quality, it will tend to be a force for good.” [Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, November 22, 2004]

I no longer believe in politicians, large institutions, and organized religion…just to name a few. One thing (?) in which I believe strongly is the Internet and it’s potential for improving (saving?) mankind. I can’t make an intelligent case for that belief but Jakob Nielsen makes a good running start at it.

The franchise is the content

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“…the Internet has become our entire business environment, not just another medium for distribution … the franchise is not the newspaper, the broadcast station, or even the website. The franchise is the content itself. … Get ready for everything to be Googled, deep-linked, or Tivo-ized.”

— Tom Curley, President and CEO, The Associated Press, in keynote address (full text) to Online News Association Conference, Nov. 12, 2004

This Internet thing.

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NYU economics professor Nicholas Economides describes the Internet (35 years old in September) in terms of the industries it’s displacing. The U. S. Postal Service is becoming obsolete. In the last five years, more than one out of every 10 radio listeners between the ages of 25 and 34 have stopped listening (Clear Channel, Citadel and Cumulus Media have seen share prices drop 23%, 40% and 26% respectively in the last year). Newspapers have watched revenue from help-wanted ads plummet by more than $3.7 billion in the last five years. And telephone service is almost certain to see some big heavy changes.

Transmitter for Sale

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When I first started working at the radio station (1972), we were required to take transmitter readings every 15 minutes. Keeping the transmitter on was the number one –and obvious– priority. And I guess that’s still true for radio stations today. No transmitter…no radio. But not for TV.

On Monday we noticed we were not receiving the local ABC affiliate. Just static. We watch very little network TV these days but still try to catch Peter Jennings and we’re hanging in for the final season of NYPD Blue. So I called the TV station and asked the lady who answered the phone what was going on.

“One of our transmitter tubes went out over the weekend but you can get us on the cable,” she explained.

“I don’t have cable,” I infomed her.

“So, how do you watch us?”

“I have an antenna.”

“Oh. Well, we should have the transmitter working again by the end of the week.”

This struck me as something of a revelation. The TV station wasn’t concerned that their trasmitter was down. The “signal” (content) was getting out via cable. I wanted to ask her about the rural viewers that don’t have cable but there aren’t enough of us to pose a problem.

I started wondering what does the local TV station add to the content mix? Their local newscast. Local weather. Bunch of local commercials. It just feels like those local affiliates are becoming less important every day.

All of this reminded me of ABC Now, the network’s effort to deliver content by non-traditional means. How much would I pay to be able to download World News Tonight directly from the network? Or NYPD Blue? I’m already doing this with XM and it works just fine, thank you.

In conclusion, I guess I’m no more concerned about the TV station transmitter being dark than they are.