Category: Radio

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CBC: The End of Radio

Tod Maffin posted this on his website sometime ago, but I just had the chance to sit down and watch this recently. The End of Radio is one segment of a three part series on CBC Newsworld that tackles the idea of the way media is changing in the not so distant future, and you can watch this 22 minute program on their website.

The experts have spoken. Mass media is reported to be on its last legs. A handful of new media entities with remarkably silly names: Blogs, Vlogs, YouTube, Podcasts, and Yahoo! are leading the charge, leaving traditional forms of communications to play catch-up or get left behind.

The CBC’s pop culture specialist Jian Ghomeshi ponders the fate of mass media and asks whether we are nearing a world without television, radio or print in THE END, a three-part series airing on CBC Newsworld. [cbc.ca/theend]

I wanted to provide a link on my site as well because it’s a really interesting program. Of course I take intrest in the radio and podcasting portion of this report, but the other segments about TV and print make me curious as well. I should have watched them last week while being down with some sort of chest cold thing.

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Seeing David Suzuki At the CBC

Rebecca scored us a super cool opportunity to check out David Suzuki[wiki] at the CBC studios here in Vancouver. CBC’s Studio One Book Club will feature Dr. Suzuki with his new book, David Suzuki: The Autobiography[froogle].

The Book Club takes place in CBC Radio’s Studio One in the CBC Broadcast Centre, 700 Hamilton Street in Vancouver (corner of Georgia Street), across from the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library.

The show is being taped for broadcast on North by Northwest in two parts over one weekend: Part One on Saturday May 27, between 8 and 9am, and Part Two on Sunday May 28, 8 to 9 am, both on CBC Radio (690 on the am dial in Vancouver).

I recall catching his programs(The Nature of Things) on PBS growing up, especially during those days when we only had four channels on our TV. When I got sick and had to stay home from school, I spent hours watching PBS because daytime TV was torture. And I’m not saying I loved all the programming Iowa Public Television had to offer. It was the alternative that made those days go by.

All it took was a creative essay on Rebecca’s part and someone over at the CBC making the selection. It’ll be exciting as it’ll be my first time venturing inside of the studios here in Vancouver as well as the chance to hear Suzuki speak. A very BC experience, if I must say so myself.

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XM Reporting Wider Loss in 1Q

XM Satellite Radio sunk a little further down the ladder today with their reported losses this quarter.  $151.4 million is a hefty chunk of change, and this is higher than a year ago when they reported a loss of $122.1 million.

XM and its smaller rival Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. are spending heavily to sign up subscribers and programming talent to their businesses, which offer dozens of channels of talk, news and music for fees of about $13 a month.

I’m not sure that this means XM is losing ground to Sirius.  Startups usually go through these growing pains, but numbers like these will convince would be subscribers to go towards Sirius for their programming.  Naturally, this makes me wonder where podcasting fits into these failing numbers.

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ClearChannel Taking a ClearChance

ClearChannel is taking steps to compete with the rise of alternative media such as podcasting and satellite radio. It leaves me less than impressed, but I am curious to see if people take to it. A lot of it involves getting their audience to buy into HD radio.

With operating earnings essentially flat since 2002, Clear Channel needs to show it has a plan for the Digital Age — and that includes taking on satellite radio. The broadcaster hopes to have 100 digital channels up by September. Many are already on the Web, and the company is working with Motorola’s iRadio to send programming to cell phones.

I’ll plug HD and say that it’s great, you should really check it out, and there is a lot of neat features to it. I’ll also say that a simple radio to pick up HD is expensive. It’s a classic case of ClearChannel wanting more, spending more, demanding a lot from its listeners. Really makes you wonder how they are making any money, doesn’t it?

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Largest Payola Investigation Since 1960

The L.A. Times is reporting that the FCC is launching yet another probe into pay-for-play violations at radio stations around the U.S. There is part of me that is over joyed at the fact that something is finally being done, but I also have to hold my breath because there has been talk like this without any action before. Most of that has come from politicians and not the FCC, so I’m used to the hot air.

The FCC’s action comes amid New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer’s pay-for-play probe, launched in 2004, which has alleged wrongdoing by both music and radio companies. In February, Spitzer sued Entercom, alleging that high-ranking executives had implemented scams to trade cash for airplay of songs by such artists as Avril Lavigne, Liz Phair and Jessica Simpson.

Payola, plugola, or whatever you want to call it, these things happen every single day. Ever hear of record promoters? These are the players in the middle that skirt around those payola laws that resulted after Allen Freed went down for taking money to play music on his massively popular radio show in 1960. Continue reading “Largest Payola Investigation Since 1960”

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NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?

Wired.com is running an article on their site about National Public Radio’s podcasting efforts hurting their fund raising.

“Why would I sit through all of that if I can get what I like for free online, listen to it on my own time and not be guilted for weeks into giving money?” says Michaels, a real estate agent who says her husband donates to the station on behalf of her family. “I’ve even found a whole bunch of NPR shows online that aren’t on NPR here, which is so great.”

That kind of thinking reflects both the blessing and curse presented by podcasting. On the upside, the medium is expanding NPR’s overall audience and boosting some shows previously unavailable in many markets. While most NPR programming has been streamed online for several years, the portable, time-shifted, on-demand nature of podcasting affords a new level of convenience and access.

As some one who worked for an NPR affiliate and tried to create podcast content from there, this is interesting. Fund raising happens at regular times of the year for nearly all affiliates. Some stations do this more times a year than others, but it happens. The other major thing to note is that there is a lot of cooperation from NPR themselves, sending satellite feeds of fund drive programming out at specified times.

I subscribe and listen to a handful of NPR podcasts. I really like what they are doing, they get what this medium can do for their programming. What I don’t get is how they can ignore the fund raising issue. It would be very easy to tag something on at the beginning of podcasts to remind listeners to support their local stations, specifically on podcasts that are timely, such as the NPR news podcasts. Continue reading “NPR Quick to Podcasts, Regreting Decision?”

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Pirate Radio in the Air Space

It’s one thing to have the FCC on your case because you are operating a pirate radio station.  It’s a whole different story when the FAA’s involved as well.  “Da Streetz” in Miami has that coming down on them right now.  The story is that they have been operating their broadcast on various frequencies, some of which have been interfering with airplane to control tower communication.

Sounds like the orgin of the broadcasts has been discovered and equipment has been confiscated.  No one has been charged with any violations.

I’m all for pirate radio and those fun things, but you take your chances when you do it.  Whoever is responsible for this is playing with a lot of fire.  Being that this music was  broadcast over multiple freqs, I’m betting that this setup didn’t consider the engineering aspect of watching your transmission so it doesn’t bleed and leap all over the place.  All intent was just to play some music.  If they get caught, this one will hurt.

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The Amber Alert System in British Columbia

I was unaware until this week that BC has its own Amber Alert System in place. I found out about it due to an alert that was issued and resulted in locating the child, fortunately, without harm. I’ve read other accounts where people caught news of the alert flashing on bus signs. That’s pretty impressive. This goes a little beyond the usual highway signs and news outlets that I’m familiar with, but it makes so much sense. You can declare this one a success.

My brushes with the Iowa Amber Alert System gives me some insight on this. My chief engineer back at WSUI/KSUI, Jim Davies, was one of the main guys getting the Amber Alert to work through the Iowa Emergency Alert System (EAS). This stuff doesn’t simply work from the start. It takes a lot of work and testing to make all the information flow correctly, not to mention the politics of what constitutes an alert or not.  Have to give my congrats to BC for this one working so well.

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Shorty On 1040

CKNW Control RoomI’m not so new to Vancouver to know that the word about CKNW losing the contract for broadcasting Canucks games to Team 1040 is big news. To me, it’s huge. I’ve interviewed for jobs at both of those stations in the short time that I’ve been here. They both have very respectable operations going on with really great facilities.

David, chief engineer for CHUM Radio Vancouver, had a lot of projects on his list that he told me about during the few hours that we met. The combining of a couple transmitter sites was of peak interest to me, but that’s the broadcast engineer in me talking. It wasn’t until tonight that I recalled something else that I noted.

There was one studio that was in the process of being vacated that David took me through. I was excited when he told me that he would be completely gutting the room and rebuilding it so Rogers Sportsnet could simulcast programs from there. Of course, I was excited because there was a possibility that this guy could be hiring me and I’d get to help. It was for the I.T. position, but I could tell that David saw my RF experience being handy for situations such as these. Sadly, my work status in Canada prevented me from partaking in said fun, but they did check my references.

Team 1040 put themselves into better position to win the broadcast rights from the Canucks. CHUM looked like a good investment to the Canucks with the investments that CHUM made into itself. Corus, who owns CKNW, loses a long time legacy, but I don’t believe that their programming was hurting so much as to not get the contract renewed. The competition just presented a better, overall product.

I have come to really appreciate John Shorthouse doing play-by-play. He’s good. For those back in Iowa who remember Ron Gonder and the legacy he had with the Iowa Hawkeyes on the radio, Shorty is that to Canucks hockey. It’ll be weird to hear him say, “You’re listening to Vancouver Canucks hockey on Team 1040.”

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The Future of Rock and Roll

WOXY.comWOXY.com went to a member based operation as of Feb. 6, 2006, leaving their 24k stream open to non-subscribers. This might be old news to some, and with the wedding coming up as fast as it did, I didn’t get a chance to mentioned this. I tuned in today because sometimes I just get tired of listening to podcasts and want some music other than my own library.

WOXY used to be a great terrestial station in the Cincinnati/Dayton area until they were sold to some, big radio company that got the whole broadcast portion of the operation. Everything else WOXY was retained and put online once some investors stepped up to foot the bill. And yes, WOXY used to be 97X. And yes, this is the station Dustin Hoffman’s character quoted in Rain Man over and over.

“97X… BAM!… The future of rock and roll!”

If you dig independent, good music, check them out. Give them your support to help keep this wonderful internet radio station alive.