Sprint in the NFL radio business

Posted on August 28, 2008 by Steve Mays

“Sprint Nextel subscribers will be able to listen to live radio broadcasts of National Football League games this season as part of new partnership between the wireless provider and sports league.

The live, cell-phone-accessible radio broadcasts—the centerpiece of the new NFL Mobile Live platform–will be available to all Sprint wireless subscribers who purchase a basic data plan as part of their services. In addition, as part of the agreement a select group of premium subscribers will be able to view live broadcasts of the NFL Network’s eight Thursday Night Football games on their phones starting on Nov. 6.” — MEDIA WEEK

Hmmm. Here’s one of several “take away’s” from this story by Mark Ramsey:

“For some reason, many broadcasters confuse the term “content” with “the stuff that’s on our air.” When I use the term “content” I mean the material that’s of serious interest to listeners. Stuff they will seek out. Not filler. Not commodities. McDonalds and NOBU may both offer “food,” but that’s where the similarity ends, and don’t think for a moment the patrons don’t know the difference.

In this case, the content is owned in its entirety by a third party – not a radio company. When it comes to professional sports play-by-play, radio is a distribution channel, not a content owner. Thus we will lose out to the owners of content in deals like this.”

Our company does broadcasts for a whole bunch of big (and small) colleges. We’ve been streaming (via Yahoo!) for years and on satellite radio for the last few years. It seems inevitable that these broadcasts will go directly to phones, sooner or later. Stay tuned? Dialed in?

Wi-Fi on some American flights

Posted on August 20, 2008 by Steve Mays

American Airlines passengers will now have Wi-Fi access on some flights. The airline said Wednesday that it has finally launched its in-flight Internet access service via Wi-Fi on 15 of its 767-200 airplanes. The service, called Gogo, will be offered on nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, and New York and Miami. The cost is $12.95 per flight. Passengers will be able to sign up when they boot up their browsers.– [More at C|Net

Now that would make the flight from STL to Seattle whiz by. Would happily pay $13. Have to believe all flights will have it eventually.

Latest news consumption survey

Posted on August 18, 2008 by Steve Mays

The latest Pew biennial news consumption survey is out and offers no big surprises. Two new (to me) terms caught my eye: Integrators and Net-Newsers:

“Integrators, who get the news from both traditional sources and the internet, are a more engaged, sophisticated and demographically sought-after audience segment than those who mostly rely on traditional news sources. Integrators share some characteristics with a smaller, younger, more internet savvy audience segment – Net-Newsers – who principally turn to the web for news, and largely eschew traditional sources.”

I certainly think of myself as “engaged” and “sophisticated,” but long to be “younger” and “savvy.” Sigh.

These surveys often make no mention of radio. I was pleased to see that radio is hanging in, at least against TV.

“Notably, radio news also is an important element in Integrators’ news diet. Nearly half of Integrators (46%) listen to news on the radio during a typical day. While the internet is the main news source for Integrators during the course of the day, about as many in this segment rely on radio news as TV news during the day (32% radio vs. 36% TV news).”

The Big Question (assuming it is still up for question) is what happens when the Integrators have all gone to that Community Center In The Sky?

NY-based crews calling Olympics

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Steve Mays

“The announcers are at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, nearly 7,000 miles from Beijing, sitting inside 14-foot-wide booths that are equipped with 24-inch HD monitors and headsets that pipe in the ambient sounds from the game sites in China. Every bit of 13 sports, and some of basketball, is called in this fashion on MSNBC, USA and CNBC.

The announcers never see anything more than what the viewers see. There is no deception afoot here. The announcers make it clear that they are in New York, as do the studio hosts.” — NYTimes.com

Makes me wonder if –in a pinch– one of our guys could “call” a game by watching it on TV? Yes, I know we’d lose all the good ambience from the booth. And much more. I’m just wondering.

News bureau redefined

Posted on August 13, 2008 by Steve Mays

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“CNN announced on Tuesday that it would assign journalists to 10 cities across the United States, a move that would double the number of domestic cities where the cable news network has outposts.

But in a reflection of the way television networks are reinventing the way they gather news, the journalists will not work from expensive bureaus — rather, they will borrow office space from local news organizations and use laptops to file articles for the Internet and TV. When news happens, they will use Internet connections and cellphone cameras to report live.

A new breed of reporter, sometimes called a “one-man band,” has become the new norm. Though the style of reporting has existed for years, it is being adopted more widely as these reporters act as their own producer, cameraman and editor, and sometimes even transmit live video.

Marcus Wilford, vice president for international digital at ABC News, recalled that when he was hired 20 years ago, the news division’s Paris bureau had three camera crews, three producers, two correspondents, drivers, and a chef in a house with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Today the ABC News presence in Paris consists of a lone staff producer.” — NYTimes.com

Public Access TV in a YouTube world

Posted on August 10, 2008 by Steve Mays

If you watch any TV or cable news, you hear references to this or that video on YouTube. It reminds me of the days when the big three networks referred something on CNN. YouTube is starting to feel like another network. NBC doesn’t want to cover my speech? No problem. I’ll just post it to YouTube.

My next thought was the similarity to public access TV. Let the record show I know almost nothing about public access TV. I think it works something like this:

The local cable company (or someone) sets aside a channel for the public to produce programming. I assume there is a local board or committee that manages the channel and decides what programming to air and when.

Putting Tivo aside for a moment, the public access channel is limited to 24 hours of programming each days. And to keep the math simple, let’s say every program is an hour long and airs once a week. That’s 168 programs a week. And many of those would “air” in the middle of the night.

I think it would be difficult to fill that much time. And what if I had something that was only 5 or 10 minutes long?

Here’s my question: Why won’t YouTube (and similar services) make public access television obsolete? [This is where I show my ignorance of PATV] If local relevance is the raison d’etra of PATV, why not just invite the people of your community (or people who visit your community) to post their videos to YouTube and tag them with the name of the city/town?

But wait, what about our live coverage of the weekly city council meeting? It runs 2 hours or longer and YouTube limits videos to 10 minutes.

Hmm. I guess I’d stream it on Ustream and then pull “highlights” and post those on YouTube.

I expect the Big Question would be, “What about all the people who don’t have computers and access to the Internet?” For the answer, see: “What About People Who Don’t Have TV Sets?”

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not suggesting for a moment that public access TV isn’t a good or necessary thing. There must be people who watch it or it wouldn’t exist. It just feels like one of those things –like classified adds– that would work better and cheaper online.

My friend Jeff knows a LOT about public access TV and I encourage him to comment and help me understand how technology is evolving in this area.

When nobody controls the cameras

Posted on August 5, 2008 by Steve Mays

NYTimes.com: "When Congress adjourns, so do C-Span’s live broadcasts because the sole cameras that record the sessions of the Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by the members of Congress.

On Friday, when several dozen Republicans decided to stay on the House floor and discuss energy legislation after the House adjourned for a five-week summer recess, the cameras and microphones were turned off. So the first source of video was a congressman who streamed live pictures to the Internet using his cellphone camera."

Just one more (small) example of how things are changing. If any feature prompts me to break down and buy a real mobile phone, it will be the ability to stream live video when there’s no wifi.

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“Addictions (start) out like magical pets, pocket monsters.” — zero history (William Gibson)

Category Archives: Media & Culture