Category: Radio

35.1 Days vs ‘Back to the Music in 60 Seconds’

NetNewsWire has been working overtime this week (just like me) and there’s less than 500mb empty space remaining on my 40gb 3G iPod. According to iTunes, that’s 35.1 days of audio entertainment. More than a month – without repeating.

Contrast that to the few minutes we had the radio on this morning, back-to-back commercials. As I turned it off and headed to the office, I heard them ask me not to, “Back to the music in 60 seconds’.

Ha. It doesn’t take me that long to hit ‘play’ in iTunes.

See you in 35.1 days. 😉

Podcasts Can’t Help, Radio Can, But Often Doesn’t.

This weekend the Upper Midwest got dumped on. My hometown received 19″ of snow in a single day. Jen and I were driving home in it. It was awful. Bad.

During the drive, we had no idea if conditions were getting better or worse.

Just as Mark Ramsey restates, radio has the power to provide this type of service – persistently. Not on the infrequent occasion that it must.

They have a specific geographic reach. Like Steve Mays’ example for 3 hours this weekend, I was concerned with the weather conditions within that geographic region. Unfortunately, every station acted like the storm didn’t exist.

Podcasts can’t provide real-time, critical weather information. Broadcast radio can. Satellite radio might.

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Categorized as Radio

Another Reason I Can’t Support Minnesota Public Radio

First off, I never contributed millions (or even thousands) to public radio. A couple hundred bucks here and there. And I know a couple people employed by the Minnesota Public Radio. Heck, I even helped them usability test their site a while back. Kinda fun sitting on the other side of the desk.

That said, I haven’t contributed recently nor do I foresee doing so. I don’t agree with their Next Standard in Public Radio campaign. I especially don’t agree with their copyright infringement suit against Current.TV – the audience-generated, Al Gore-backed Current TV Network. His project to “democratize television.”

I wish MPR felt the same way about radio. Oh well, back the podcasts.

Thanks to Tod Maffin for the tip.

My personal favorite comment on the topic over at MNSpeak:

“Get a grip MPR. Are you going to sue NPR next because it’s one letter off from your name?”

Other food for thought from the discussion – ‘the Current’ is the new ‘JackFM’

Radio’s Age of Desperation

Stern finally moves to satellite radio on Monday and I was reminded in the Neal Justin’s The New Golden Age of Radio.

Problem is….satellite radio is boring (coincidently, Sterns departure makes the FM dial even more boring). Removing the regional limits of the FM dial is something Clear Channel has already been doing for years. I’ve got more than 4 days (down from 6) of unlistened, FCC-free, cost-free, region-free, audio of exactly the things I’m interested in sitting in my iTunes library right now. No need to wait until Monday.

In the age of on-demand video (Netflix & ‘on-demand’), knowledge (Google), news (Google), audio (podcasts). Pushing a format listeners can’t rate, fast-forward, or re-listen seems like a step backwards.

In the end, I predict in the next couple years XM or Sirius will sell their satellites to the other and distribute all their programming over the internet. It has all the benefits of satellite distribution (infinite channels, outside of the FCC’s jurisdiction) with little of the overhead.

“I believe that people will pay for radio, it’s everything iPod can’t be. IPod can’t give you content and we can” – Howard Stern.

Could someone please introduce Howard to a podcast. I have a show to record.

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Categorized as Radio

The Next Standard in Public Radio

When I started podcasting a year ago I was questioning Public Radio’s role in my life. The news and regular programs were no longer satisfying. Then they started the Current – kept me supporting them for a couple months. Then, it started to sound more like more of the same and hey, look, interesting stuff happening in podcast-land.

In the mail today was letter from Minnesota Public Radio asking me to help them raise an additional $3 Million before the year’s end. That’s $1 million / week for their capital campaign to build the Next Standard in public radio. This letter is on the heals of a very expensive ‘save the date’ flyer for another fund raiser early next year.

I can’t support them.

Raising multiple millions ($43) and asking for more smells too much like a pre-flameout dotcom or an insensitive, out-of-touch media conglomerate. Two things I don’t want associated with my public radio.

When I look around at regular individuals like you publishing blogs, podcasts, and video-blogs regularly and without millions of dollars, I think, “This is the public creating radio. This is public radio.”

No, we don’t need no sticking transmitters.

Related: 85% of 12-24 year olds choose their MP3 player over traditional radio as a preferred option for music…. “54% of the total sample says there is not a radio station in their area that plays their favorite music.”

Like MTV, Radio Doesn’t Find Music Valuable

Long ago, broadcast radio gave up with introducing their audience to new music. I first became aware of it sometime during the summer of 1996 [1] , I’m sure the tipping point occured long before then.

Between Cumulus Media president/CEO Lew Dickey, Jr. promoting the talk radio proliferation on the FM dial, my conversation about Broadcast Radio and Podcasting with Noah Lamson, and the frequency of MTV actually showing a music videos, musicians are in a pickle.

Their traditional distributors aren’t interested in distributing music anymore – let alone new music.

This is unfortunate because I’m more reliant on and interested in new music in the past 6 months than the 6 years before.

[1] My first full-time job in UW-Stout’s tech department. The same radio station was on in the office throughout the day. Because radio listenership is measured by the quarter-hour, after an hour in the shop, you knew the playlist for the next hour – and every 15 minutes thereafter. A painful way to spent 8 hours in a college town

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Categorized as Music, Radio

First Crack 46. Broadcast Radio and Podcasting with Noah Lamson

Noah Lamson, New Media Director at ABC Radio in Minneapolis and I grab lunch at Diamonds Coffee Shoppe. He’s publishing feeds for 92KQRS, Drive105, and 93X and we discuss the interesting relationship between broadcast radio and podcasting.

If you stop by Diamonds, try the grilled cheese with bacon & tomato. Very tasty.

Listen to Broadcast Radio and Podcasting with Noah Lamson [15 min]

First Crack 34. Get Your Own Radio Show By Dave & Huna

Two years after their first demo, Dave and Huna got a real, over-the-air, AM call-in talk radio show on March 6, 2005. They tell you what it was like and how to do it.

More Stuff:

If you want to buy Huna’s car, send an email to firstcrack@gmail.com

Listen to Get Your Own Radio Show By Dave & Huna [31 min]

Got questions about coffee or comments about the show? Call: 206-20-BEAN-1

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