Category Archives: Radio

Radio: Media comfort food

Posted on by

A couple of new services from Sprint allows “some subscribers to stream live music to the phone in a radio-type format without having to buy a new phone or have lots of storage.”

I don’t have a mobile phone and wouldn’t buy one to stream live music (I didn’t think I’d buy and iPod either) but that’s not the point of this post. When I read this story (in the Seattle Times) I thought, “Where in the hell are the stories about cool things happening in radio?” I realize it is a “mature technology” but, come on… there’s got to be something going on out in radio land. Help me out here.

Dave, you work in/for/around radio. What’s the buzz? What has radio juices flowing? Bob, Morris… tell me something to get me excited. Send me a link and I’ll read/post it.

Then again, maybe radio is like your mom’s cooking. You take it for granted. No, it’s not hot or new or sexy…but it’s always there for you. A funnel cloud was sited near (?) Jefferson City tonight and I turned on my little transistor radio and listened to some pretty good coverage. Not very high tech but reliable and…comforting.

Ten years of streaming

Posted on by

Finally got around to going through the last box of files that came along with the recent office move. Found a file with notes and correspondence with Mark Cuban (PDF) (November and December, 1995). Cuban was cutting lots of content deals back in those days and he was hot to stream our football and basketball broadcasts. Almost nobody knew what streaming was and it was damned hard to imagine that anyone would ever listen to “the radio” on their computers. His company was called AudioNet back then and became Broadcast.com before he sold to Yahoo! How could that have been 10 years ago? And what will this all look like 10 years from now?

Update: First contact from Cuban was on September 9, 1995.

XM launces “Red Cross Radio”

Posted on by

The American Red Cross and XM Satellite Radio have joined forces to launch Red Cross Radio, a 24-hour, nationwide XM channel to provide help and information for Hurricane Katrina victims, Red Cross staff and volunteers along the Gulf Coast, and other Red Cross workers across the country. Former Learfielder and Jeff City expat Ben Krech played a big role in getting the project airborne.

Podcasting: It’s all about the links

Posted on by

“What’s special about podcasting, though, is how it makes it simple for individuals or companies to express themselves and, if what they have to say is interesting, enlightening, or clever, to earn attention. You can point someone to a worthy podcast through a link on your blog, or an e-mail to a friend, in a way you could never point them to a snippet of radio. That’s powerful.”

“Podcasting isn’t about to kill radio or take it over, but as blogs are doing to publishing, it will make the radio industry reevaluate its relationship with the audience and leverage its strength as a mass medium.”

— Boston.com via Dave Winer

Webcast from Nebraska State Fair

Posted on by

Today our farm network did a live webcast from the Nebraska State Fair. It was a 90 minute panel discussion on technology in agriculture and it was great radio. Except I’m pretty sure it wasn’t on the radio. Just our website. In fact, the last eight or ten ag events we’ve covered have not even been put up on our satellite channel and offered to our affiliated radio stations. We’d love it it they would air these long-form programs but program directors are less and less willing to air more than a short ag report in the middle of the day. And I’m not sure they’re wrong.

Are we (the network) wrong to produce this programming? We’re pretty sure Nebraska corn farmers are interested in anything having to do with ethanol. But if you’re the program director of a radio station in the middle of Nebraska, you ask yourself what percentage of my listeners want to listen to someone talk about corn for an hour. Wouldn’t our listeners rather hear some good country music?

Probably. But, as a former small-town program director, I’m convinced there is a “cool factor” at work here, too. It just isn’t cool to air all that farm stuff. Country music is cool. And everybody likes country music, the people in town and the people on the farm. It’s the safe call.

This is where we encounter the long tail of ag programming. While there may be only a few hundred people that care about the future of ethanol in Nebraska, they care very much. And it’s getting harder and harder for them to find in-depth, real-time programming on their local radio station. Enter the web with streaming audio and podcasts all the rest. You want an hour on sugar beets in southern Indiana? No problem, click here.

Radio stations could have it both ways. Put the longer, in-depth programming on their web site and promote same on the air. But radio station owners do not perceive the need. And they no logner have the staff to do much of anything “extra.” At the same time, their listeners are just a Google search away from that they want. And they don’t care too much about where they get it.

Once upon a time, the only place a farmer in Ogallala could get farm news and prices was on his local radio station. Advertisers who wanted to sell stuff to those farmers only had to advertise on that station. It was the natural order of things. The good old days.

Terrestrial radio still #1

Posted on by

Paragon Media has released the third and final part of its study on new media’s effects on radio. The company collected 400 respondents between the ages of 15 and 64 to complete the study about new media usage and its effect on broadcast radio listening. In the study, Paragon focused on new media including satellite radio, internet radio, MP3 players, podcasting and personalized CDs.

The latest findings show that terrestrial radio is the #1 source for listening to music. When asked “What is your primary source for listening to music?,” 51 percent of respondents said radio. Purchased CDs were next with 30 percent of the vote, and radio also beat out television, personalized CDs, music downloads, satellite radio and Internet radio.

Need more proof? The National Association of Broadcasters cites two additional studies in a recent newsletter:

Michigan State University found that few are giving up their traditional radio habits. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they’ve spent as much or more time listening to local radio compared to last year. And, 95% expect to listen as much or more local radio in the coming year. A whopping 88% think their local station provides valuable service to community. And half of those surveyed with satellite radio reported reception problems while driving.

Eastlan study found more than four out of five Americans have no interest in subscribing to satellite radio. The findings were nearly identical to a 2001 Eastlan study. Only five percent of Eastlan study respondents were satellite radio subscribers.

Okay everybody… go back inside. The excitement’s over, nothing to see here. Let’s get back to work.

New Convergence program at MU J-School

Posted on by

Mike McKean heads up the new Convergence program at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. This fall he begins his 20th year teaching at the J-School. Once upon a time, he was a reporter for The Missourinet, one of the state news networks owned by the company I work for. Mike and I get together every few months to talk about radio and journalism and the Internet and stuff like that.

Today I took my recorder along and asked him about: Teaching journalism in 2005; podcasting; blogs; radio; advertising; newspapers; “citizen journalism” and some other stuff.

AUDIO: Interview with Mike McKean 20 min MP3

CBS radio news offering podcasts for affiliates

Posted on by

CBS Radio News will provide a number of its programs to affiliate stations for podcasting or station Web site use. Beginning this week, CBS stations will be able to access the material via an affiliate Web site. Programming will include regularly scheduled programs and features, as well special in-depth series. [Story at MediaWeek.com]

Is that a podcast in your pocket?

Posted on by

Following its launch of all-podcasting KYCY (KYOU Radio) San Francisco, Infinity wades deeper into the pod pool by announcing it will offer free daily podcasts from its nine news stations, with flagship WINS (1010 Wins) New York set to lead the way in July. The podcasts, which will vary in length, will include local and national news, sports, business and entertainment headlines, as well as weather and traffic updates, plus content developed exclusively for download. [MediaWeek.com]

Radio News Blues

Posted on by

In an article titled “Radio News Blues,” Tom Laskin –a staff writer for the “Isthmus:” — reports that “local reporting is dying in Madison (Wisconsin) and across the country.”

“Upwards of 1,000 of about 5,500 U. S. (radio) stations dumped their news operations between 1994 and 2001, according to Vernon Stone, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.”

“While the number of news/talk stations continues to grow around the country (more than 1,300 stations now embrace the format), radio stations have taken a hatchet to their news staffs — staffing was cut by a whopping 57% between 1994 and 2001, according to the Radio-Television News Directors Association.”

Mary Quass spoke to this point in the interview I did with her this week:

“We stripped everything out of our music formats years ago. I believe we need to be able to look at our products and say what can we provide that our audience wants in a today kind of fashion? And if that means that we go back to doing news on the hour –but that news is relevant to the audience– then, you know what? That’s what we ought to be doing.”

Hmmm. I wonder if broadcasters will someday wistfully recall a time when listeners tuned to them for hourly newscasts.

It`s good news week,
Someone`s dropped a bomb somewhere,
Contaminating atmosphere
And blackening the sky,
It`s good news week,
Someones found a way to give,
The rotting dead a will to live,
Go on and never die.