The highly-promoted debut of author and comedian Al Franken’s talk show, “The O’Franken Factor,” on the new “Air America” radio network apparently set a record. Air America’s VP/Marketing Leon Colaco says the network’s website handled nearly 500,000 unique visitors in the 22-hour period between 7PM Wednesday and 5PM Thursday. (final numbers from Air America streaming provider RealNetworks will not be available until next week.) This might be the largest number of simultaneous listeners that Real had handled since ABC News’s coverage of the 9/11 attacks on September 12, 2001, which hit 86,700 concurrent listeners. [More at RAIN]
Category Archives: Media & Culture
Air Left
I listened to Air America several times –for a few minutes at time– today. Not enough to form much of an opinion. Initial impressions: Sort of spooky hearing a talk show host wailing on the Republicans. After all these years of Rush, it just felt strange to hear someone so openly bashing the Republicans and Bush. (I know, I know, the liberal media blah, blah, blah). But I can’t say I was much impressed with the execution. But, it’s early. Sounds like Jeff listened more, and more thoughtfully, than I. (By my count, Jeff is on his third name for his weblog. I like this one.) Politics aside, Rush does radio very well. I suspect that has as much to do with his success as his views. I’ll be surprised if the Air America folks can measure up. We’ll see (hear).
22% of Americans 65 and older use the Internet
From the Pew Internet Project: ” 22% of Americans 65 and older use the Internet. The percent of seniors who go online has jumped by 47% between 2000 and 2004. In a February 2004 survey, 22% of Americans age 65 or older reported having access to the Internet, up from 15% in 2000. That translates to about 8 million Americans age 65 or older who use the Internet. By contrast, 58% of Americans age 50-64, 75% of 30-49 year-olds, and 77% of 18-29 year-olds currently go online.” That last one is interesting. Would love to know what % of 18-29 year-olds listen to the radio.
Bill Maher on stopping terrorism
“If we really want to stop terrorism, we have to get Muslim men laid.”
Andy Rooney on gay marriage
“No one can get a drivers license or fly an airplane without taking a test. Why should marriage be any different? If you want to make marriage more stable, make divorce illegal. If people knew they couldn’t get out of it, they’d be more careful getting into it.”
Doc Searls on TV as an information medium
“Life’s too short. I’m already 56. Time gets more precious every day. Why waste time sitting still consuming thin information on TV when you can hunt the thick stuff down and eat it up at your own pace, on your own personal screen, or in a book, or on headphones while you excercize?”
St. Louis Traffic and Weather.
I finally got around to listening to the new “local weather & traffic” channels on XM Radio. Twenty-one cities to start, including St. Louis. I can’t speak to the accuracy of the content but it sounded like most other weather and traffic reports to me. For that matter, I have no way of knowing –without being in it every day– the accuracy of such reports on local stations. I did like the continuous feeds. If I didn’t want to wait 10 minutes for the next report on KMOX, I could punch up XM 218 and get it almost immediately.
NYTimes editorial on Google
What Google also reflects is our changing sense of the dynamism of the Web. Nothing captures how statically we used to see the Internet as well as “information highway,” an old phrase that embodies pure linearity and the smell of asphalt. That stasis is also captured in the increasingly outmoded notion of an Internet portal like AOL, much of whose dynamism comes from offering a Google search bar. The fact is that many of us have grown comfortable within the amorphousness of the Web. We no longer need a breakwater like AOL when a good search engine promises to make the sea itself our home.
— NY Times editorial
Five more proposed pieces of legislation supported by Mr. Bush (5ives)
1. Protection of Words Fewer than Three Syllables Act
2. Bill to make the “High Five” the US’s official greeting
3. National ‘Everybody Wears Jeans’ Day (March 14th)
4. The “Pretty Girls Shouldn’t Act All Stuck Up” Amendment
5. Presidential proclamation that “California Must Apologize to Jesus (and It Has to Sound Like They Really Mean It)”
Attention Baby Boomers
David Brazeal writes:
This is to inform you that the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago. Please refrain from referring to this event in political discourse, except as it shapes our continued effort to frustrate the goals of world domination by our Cold War opponent, the Soviet Union.
It has been called to our attention that this war shaped your worldview when you were young, impressionable and intoxicated by hope and marijuana. While we understand your obsession, we can no longer tolerate it. Thus, we shall treat any continued prattling in the same way you treated the prattling of your grandparents, who spoke of The Great War ad nauseum between longing remembrances of FDR–with rolled eyes and involuntary commitment to a group home. Thank you for your consideration.
David was born in 1969 so he was a teenager in the mid-eighties. I just spoke with him on the phone and asked what he considered the defining event of his generation. The best he could come up with was Cyndi Lauper‘s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.”