New blogging rules from the NCAA

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It seems pretty clear that the NCAA wants to prohibit anything approaching real-time coverage of the event. Companies –like the one I work for— pay millions for the exclusive broadcast rights to collegiate sporting events. A reporter (or a dozen reporters) up in the press box live blogging the game –in theory– dilutes the value of the rights we purchased.

“The NCAA this week announced a formal program limiting how often bloggers with media credentials can update their blog while attending championship college events.

The sports governing body set blogging limits for each sport. For example, those at football games can update their blogs three times per quarter and once at halftime. For basketball, bloggers can post five times per half, once at halftime and twice per overtime period.

The policy even sets rules for water polo (three per quarter, once at halftime), bowling (10 blog posts per session) and fencing (10 per session).”

The phrase that caught my eye was “bloggers with media credentials.” If
I’m just a fan, can I blog at will? If your credentials are at stake,
you probably wouldn’t fight this. But if you’re  a civilian, you could
tell the NCAA to piss off. Does this mean the NCAA thinks only bloggers
with some media connection can/will have a significant audience?

Merging radio and the web

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One of our affiliate relations reps shared this story with me a few days ago and I’m posting it so I can find it later. And I might have some of the particulars wrong but they don’t change the point of the story.

Small market radio station manager gets a call from a program syndicator, trying to clear a three hour Christmas special. The station manager doesn’t want to commit that much time but likes the program and suggests they put the program on the station’s website, clear the syndicator’s commercials on the radio station and promote the special (online) on the air.

Hmmm.

Now, every program provider will tell you how important it is that the spots air inside the programming. They might have even sold that aspect to the advertisers. But when all is said and done (note that I did not say, "At the end of the day"), it’s really about getting the spots on the air.

Is there some obvious synergy here? Could web-savvy radio stations take this approach to enrich their online offering and pull more local listeners (and advertisers) to their websites?

And while there are only 24 hours in the on-air programming clock, there are no limits online. A station could have a sports "channel," an ag channel, a home fix-up channel and on and on.

Yes, I see the limitation. For now, it’s those 30 second radios spots that have value to the advertiser. The radio station still has to program a radio station the people want to listen to.

And all my "what if’s" and "how about’s" are predicated on the idea that radio stations must be more than "radio" stations. They’ve got to find a way to survive online. We all do.

If I had a little AM Daytimer (insert joke here), I might fill my air time with excerpts from a wide variety of programming (as local as I could afford to make it) on my website(s).

As for networks and syndicators that rely on getting their programs (commercials) on all those radio stations… their fortunes are tied to the radio stations. To paraphrase the old saw about land, God isn’t making any more 30’s and 60’s. But He/She has an endless supply of web pages.

A zombie movie with good acting

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28 Days Later… was a pretty good zombie movie. But I found I Am Legend way more disturbing. Will Smith did not phone this one in. (I think he gives his all in just about every film I’ve seen him in).

I usually like a good post-apocalyptic yarn but this one… the people behind me kept shushing me because I was saying, "It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie" in my outside voice.

Take the worst thing that anyone can imagine (the extinction of mankind) and cast an actor who can make you believe it for even a few of the 100 minutes… (shudder).

Comment Assignment: Best (?) zombie movies.

Deer gets revenge

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The thing I love most about this video is that it exists. That one of the hunter’s buddies (I assume) had a camera and the good sense to keep rolling.

My friend — and small animal veterinarian — Dr. T. Everett Mobley thinks this scene was staged:

“I think that is a staged video with a trained deer. Note that when the deer quiets down, the guy cues him with a couple of gentle kicks. The deer never uses his antlers. The deer does not appear distressed. Deer hooves are usually quite sharp.  People have had their throats cut by a kicking deer. Maybe it’s real and the guy killed his buddies with an axe afterwards, but I doubt it.”

The Daily Show, Colbert Report return sans writers

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Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, will return to their television shows on January 7 but will have to improvise their monologues and interviews without the help of their writing staffs.

In a statement, the two hosts said they would prefer to return to work with their writers. “If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence,” they stated.