Lex & Terry’s regular Friday morning “Drunk Bitch Friday” feature (on University of Florida-owned WRUF-FM) leads the Gainesville school – concerned about student alcohol abuse – to at least temporarily drop the syndicated duo’s Friday show. The idea is to derive some entertainment from a women who’s driven – by a sober friend – to the studio for a live interview. Lex & Terry also drop in reminders about not driving drunk. They’ve recently started calling the feature “DBF”, by the way.
Pope fatigue
A reporter friend (not from Iowa) wrote this satirical piece on the endless coverage of the Pope’s death and funeral:
(Decorah) Many Iowans gathered around their TV sets to watch the funeral of Pope John Paul the Second this morning. John Smith of Decorah says he had never met the Pope, but he felt a closer bond to him after reading about him in the newspaper over the past week. Smith says he will miss the Pontiff’s appearances on network newscasts every Good Friday and Easter Sunday, even though he could not understand the Latin spoken by the Pope, and Peter Jennings usually spoke over the audio anyway. Smith believes the Pope will be missed by many Iowans in his bowling league, who thought John Paul seemed to be a nice man, even though he probably was not a bowler himself. He says the early TV coverage of the Pope’s funeral provided a special moment while he was trying to get ready to work the early shift at a local poultry plant, where he says many of his Hispanic coworkers are Catholic, too.
Satellite Radio
Two interesting nuggets from (still another) NTY story on satellite radio. 1) Total (XM + Sirius) subscribers will probably surpass eight million by the end of the year, “making satellite radio one fo the fastest-growing technologies ever – faster, for example than cellpones. 2) Steven Van Zandt (E Street Band and Sopranos) programs two music channels for Sirius.
Podcasting is bottom-up
Rex Hammock knocks “the business of podcasting. Not the essence of podcasting” in a response to Darren Barefoot. I agree with Mr. Hammock about the content of podcasts:
The “killer-app” content will be that which has no professional alternative: A report from a Mom to her two children away in college; a recording of a Sunday School class for six people who couldn’t attend; an inspirationial chat from the regional sales manager to 15 sales people to listen to while driving between calls; an explanation of a new product by the lead engineer; a father’s play-by-play description of a Little League baseball game — all showing up automagically on the iPod or other MP3 player of the individuals who “subscribe” to it.
KBOA Trivia Bowl
Some Canadian guys developed the concept for Trivial Pursuit in 1979 and released the board game two years later and the game’s popularity peaked in 1984. But we had been playing trivia on the air at KBOA for a number of years by then and it was about as much fun as anything I ever did on the air. While cleaning out a closet this afternoon, I found a tape of a show (first half-hour) we did in May of 1981.
[Download/listen]. Team members: John Robison, Jeff Wheeler and Tom Colvin. Good friends, then and now.