Wednesday, June 26, 2002
More on why radio sucks.
I stumbled on this article on CNN that takes a quick look at the slide in listener satisfaction with radio and it's fall from the experimental and artistic heyday of the late 60s and early 70s. At the end it looks to the new satellite services like XM as a possible alternative/savior, since they offer mutliple channels programmed more like old-time freeform radio. In fact, there's a big article on XM and Sirius -- the two competing satellite radio companies -- in this month's Sound and Vision magazine (not yet on-line). Though the reviewers seem to like the systems and the music variety, they also note that the sound quality isn't so hot. In fact, it appears that any individual audio channel has a bitrate of less than 64kbps (more typically around 32 kpbs)-- which is half the minimum acceptable bitrate for stereo music in mp3. Even if the XM and Sirius codecs are better than mp3, that's still really low, and, in my opinion, less than FM quality. Maybe in a noisy car environment the sound ain't so bad, but I'd have real doubts that it would be good enough at home. Though I must admit that some 128 kbps mp3s aren't quite good enough for me.
Let's just admit that the real solution is to break the death-grip that Clear Channel, Infinity and Bonneville have on our radio dials.
posted 6/26/2002 11:46:28 AM [link
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002
The webcasting royalty rates as set by the Copyright Office are out, and, as one might suspect, nobody is happy with them. The recording industry says they're too low, the small webcasters say they're too high. I haven't had a chance to investigate this myself yet, but it seems that in general the indie opinion is that the rates are too high for independent, non-profit or hobby webcasters to swallow, since they make no account for lack of revenue -- the rates apply whether you make any money or not. 2600 has a short opinion on it that lays it out simply. You can also find out more at www.saveinternetradio.org.
Earlier:
Copyright Office Rejects CARP, 5/21/02
Webcast Music Fees Set, But Not So Friendly to NonComms, 2/21/02
posted 6/25/2002 09:32:45 PM [link
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More Clear Channel Crookery: Salon's Eric Boehlert, perhaps the best mainstream journalist covering media today, has two new articles on pay for play in radio. Got $800 a piece for every pop station in the country? You, too, could have a hit single!
posted 6/25/2002 05:30:01 PM [link
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Traveling Radio Horror Stories
When taking car trips I used to listen mostly to tapes, CDs and minidiscs, since so much radio across the country sounds the same after a few hundred miles. But these days I listen to the radio much more, almost as a challenge to see if I can find something I can tolerate or that is even kind of interesting. For example, in the Indianapolis area I've found a commercial station that has a Grateful Dead show and an obscure progressive rock show, both clearly hosted by amateur DJs.
On the trip to Bowling Green for the UPC this past weekend, however, I was disturbed by my radio twice. On I-90 West of Toledo I had the radio on seek, and was trying to scan the left end of the dial. It stopped at the end of some modern rock/nu-metal song at around 88.7 FM, so I figured it must be some college or high school station and so stayed on that station to listen. Next I heard a border-line advertisement for some night club. I say "border-line" because it wasn't too agressive, and because 88.7 is in the non-commercial band and so commercials are disallowed by the FCC.... or so I thought. Next a DJ came on and introed the station as "89X" or some such thing -- immediate thought was, "great, some college station doing a bad imitation of a bad modern rock station." But then a steady line of increasingly bad and annoying commercials came on, and I couldn't believe it.
"How can they get away with this?" I thought to myself. I turned to my driving companion and asked incredulously, "are these really commercials, or am I crazy?" Oh, yes, them was commercials. Reeling from this apparent violation of one of the highest commandments in American broadcasting, I was composing my letter of complaint to the FCC in my head.
After several minutes of commercial bombardment a quick station ID came on which solved the mystery for me. "89 X," deep troated voice over shouted, "Windsor, Detroit." Wait... Detroit I could hear really well, but was that first city Windsor? Damn! That station's in Canada (though clearly looking to the bigger Detroit area for advertising and listeners), and they don't have the same non-commercial rules. Damned Canucks have invaded our noncommercial airspace.
A little later, also somewhere in the Toledo area, the seek stopped again somewhere on the left-end of the dial. This time it was a techno song, but it sounded strangely out-of-date -- like a techno song that someone raved to in 1991. A driving beat and constant sample that went "God" over and over.
Now, I've been fooled by Christian rock stations before. I'm tuning around the noncommercial band, hear something that sounds vaguely like a punk or inidie song, but then there's some subtle lyrical differences. Talk of pain, salvation and words like "him," give the tip off that this ain't no college station. But the DJs play it pretty straight, with few explicitly christian references -- it's only when some announcer decides to explain the message in the song, or when some heavy-handed PSA comes on that you know for sure that you've been duped by the bible-thumping-rockers.
So, hearing this techno song repeating "God," I said to my driving partner, "Wouldn't it be funny if this turned out to be Christian Techno? I mean, this song sounds 10 years old, and the Christian rockers are usually about a trend behind the mainstream, so it would stand to reason that the Christian electronica would be similarly behind the times." Futher fueling our suspicions, the song then dropped samples of a guy saying "This is the house of God." Still, such samples wouldn't be out of place in a Ministry song, or any late 80s Wax Trax single.
The song ends, and the DJ comes on and announces the song -- no obvious clues yet. But then as he closes the show says that he'd like to leave us with a little message. GOTCHA! No secular DJ leaves us with a message, unless it's a commercial sponsor's. He goes on to explain how man is evil, and looking for salvation. Ach! Sucked in again by the techno-bible-thumpers.
It used to be that the left end of the dial was the home to all that is weird, challenging and just plain crazy. But that land has been squatted by the missionaries with their own version of "educational" radio. Listener beware!
posted 6/25/2002 12:03:16 PM [link
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Saturday, June 22, 2002
Check-In from the UPC
I'm here in Bowling Green at a public access computer in a dorm after a day of sessions and walking around. I went to two sessions today, one on publishing an indpendent newspaper and one on stencil/graffitti art. After the newspaper session folks who publish indy newspapers got together and hammered out the parameters for a syndication wire based on e-mail and managed to come to consensus on it within about an hour. It was cool to see these people from different cities and different ideas about publishing be able to debate and reach agreement on how to share stories.
The idea came from the folks who publish the Asheville Global Report, which has been publishing weekly in Asheville, NC for three years(!). They've got their routine well systematized and do a good job and reporting on global events using a multitude of sources. The idea for the syndication system is that these papers will have a reliable source to turn for independently generated news stories on events from all over the place, so that news and information might be shared between these cities. Indymedia provides something like this, but because the publishing is completely open there can be a high signal-to-noise ratio that makes it difficult to find coherent, reasonably accurate stories ready-for-printing. The advantage of the Indymedia sites is really the ability to get information out quickly to a large audience, especially on breaking news and things that are happening right now. The hope is that a indy newspaper "wire service" will help stories be distributed more quickly (they won't have to be read in print and then retyped or scanned, then re-printed in a different paper) and more widely, fostering communication between these papers and communities. I have high hopes for it.
There's kind of an "exhibition hall" where publishers, zinesters and the like are showing their wares. These folks are so cool and eager to talk about their labors. I've interviewed a few of them and on minidisc, so the plan is for you to be able to hear from them in the next few weeks on the mediageek radio show.
The bookmobile project is here, but I haven't had a chance to meet with them yet. They'll be in my hood next weekend, so it's going to be a big undergroud/indie/DIY media week.
I love this shit.
posted 6/22/2002 06:07:14 PM [link
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Tuesday, June 18, 2002
I've got a lot of irons in the fire at work, then leaving town for a memorial service and then the UPC in Bowling Green (OH). So that means not much mediageek action for the next five days or so.
To tide you over -- USA Today reports that, "In a delay that seems to be a reaction to political forces, the Federal
Communications Commission(FCC) will review most of its media ownership
limits in one proceeding instead of spreading it over a year."
And these proceedings likely won't start until after the November elections, leading some to speculate that Chair Michael Powell and company are hoping for a shift to a Republican Senate to make deregulation go more smoothly. Let's try and thwart that with our votes, shall we?
posted 6/18/2002 02:57:03 PM [link
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Friday, June 14, 2002
The Madison, WI Indymedia Center is up and running in a temporary physical space to cover the U.S. Conference of Mayors in that city. This is the smallest city the conference has ever been held in and protestors, activists and all sorts of other people have shown up to show the mayors what's on their minds.
posted 6/14/2002 10:15:10 AM [link
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Wednesday, June 12, 2002
And speaking of About.com, Wired News reports that a class-action lawsuit has been filed against the company by former guides (aka page editors) who claim that the company unfairly reduced the page-view counts based upon which they were paid, and also has kept content up long after guides have resigned, in violation of their copyrights on their own material.
posted 6/12/2002 11:33:51 AM [link
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John Anderson, formerly of the Pirate Radio Page at About.com, is back on-line with his new site, DIYmedia.net. He's got some low-power FM news and is working on getting his library of useful information and news archive up at the new site.
posted 6/12/2002 10:37:04 AM [link
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Monday, June 10, 2002
More Clear Channel Schenanigans... NPR's On the Media has a piece about Clear Channel's efforts to get employees to "voluntarily" contribute to the company's political action committee. Of course, the radio industry is well known for it's super high wages... NOT. Click here to listen in Real Audio.
Previous Clear Channel bullshit:
A profile on Clear Channel's DC operations, 5/30/02
Clear Channel Readying to Conquer Print, too, 5/6/02
posted 6/10/2002 02:57:29 PM [link
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Keep Current with Non-commercial Broadcasting -- Current Online, the web component of the public radio journal, has added a weblog to their front page (it's in the right-hand column). I've found Current to be a good resource for keeping current with non-comm broadcasting trends and news and I think the weblog is a very useful addition for tracking what other press outlets are reporting. (link via blogroots)
You see, it doesn't have to be a debate of weblogs vs. journalism -- they are different, but related, beasts that can happily coexist and complement each other.
posted 6/10/2002 02:14:49 PM [link
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Friday, June 07, 2002
Enormous radio conglomerate Infinity Communications was slapped with an indecency fine by the FCC today for airing completely moronic garbage sexualizing young and teenage girls. I tend to be of two mind regarding indecency regulations, since they can be (ab)used to silence unpopular speech that gets labeled indecent because it offends those in power. But in this case the programming clearly had no business being aired in the middle of the afternoon, and was likely abusive to at least one teenage girl who called in. I simply can't see what artistic or informational merit there might have been to it, based on the summary given in this report. It's pandering and pointless, and since Inifinity profits mightily from this sort of crap they deserve to pay for it.
posted 6/7/2002 04:33:49 PM [link
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The LA Times has an article about Pacifica station KPFK's new station manager.
posted 6/7/2002 03:17:08 PM [link
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Zine Contact Info for Today's mediageek radio show
These are the 'zines my guest Anita and I talked about on today's mediageek radio show:
Words Soak Up Life: A Reading Compilation Zine. Available from Celia C. Perez,
2527 N. California Ave., Chicago, IL 60647. $3-$5 on a sliding scale; pay
what you can. All proceeds from this zine will go to The Women's Prison Book
Project and FirstBook.
Browsing Room. Available from Tara Moyle, 2621 Stuart Ave., #34, Richmond, VA
23220. Cost is $2.
Zine Librarian Zine. Available from Greig Means, PO Box 12409, Portland, OR
97212. Cost is $1. Greig also does the most excellent comics entitled Clutch.
The latest issue (#2) is available from the same address for $1.
For the Clerisy: Good Words for Readers. Available from Brant Kresovich, PO
Box 404, Getzville, NY 14068-0404. He writes: "I trade for the usual: a
letter of comment or your zine or $2. I publish seasonally."
If we have time, I'll also talk about two zines about travel and place:
Dream Whip #11. Available from Bill, PO Box 53832, Lubbock, TX, 79453. Cost is
$3.
Here: The Stories Behind Where You Are. Available from Here, PO Box 310281,
Red Hook Station, Brooklyn, NY 11231. Cost is $3. They have a Web site at
www.heremagazine.com
One food zine: Grub: Fine Food for Dumb Shits. Available from Grub, PO Box 1471, Iowa City,
IA 52240. Cost is a zine trade or a few first class stamps.
posted 6/7/2002 03:12:16 PM [link
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Alt. Weeklies Suffer, Shutter
The Nose, of Portland, OR's Willamette Week, notes that alternative weeklies are "running scared," based upon his experiences at this year's Association of Alternative Newsweeklies meeting in Madison, WI. Ad revenue is down and the pressure to mainstream and corporatize is strong. In a related note, Dayton, OH's alternative weekly, the Impact Weekly, might be on its last legs. According to the Dayton Daily News, staffers at the paper haven't been paid since May 1, and this week's issue may be its last. The Impact's owner, Yesse Communications, used to own Champaign-Urbana's weekly, formerly known as the Octopus. Yesse has also shut down weeklies in Iowa City and Bloomington, IA -- two other small midwestern university cities.
I say the alternative weeklies are--with a few exceptions--becoming less... alternative. And still many aren't surviving. Is it just the downturn in ad revenue, or is there something deeper at work?
(both links via Romenesko's Media News)
posted 6/7/2002 01:05:19 AM [link
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Thursday, June 06, 2002
USA Today does a quick survey of the state of music radio, giving brief, but fair play to it's monotonous decline at the hands of strict formatting and moronic morning shows.
posted 6/6/2002 11:39:24 AM [link
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Wednesday, June 05, 2002
Per CNN:"Movie studios and consumer-electronics companies are close to reaching an agreement that would protect digital-television broadcasts from being copied and traded Napster-style over the Internet, negotiators said on Monday." According to the article the copy protection method sounds similar to SCMS which is used to control direct-digital copying of music. In that system CDs have a "flag" bit that tells a digital recorder (like a MD recorder or standalone audio CD recorder) to only allow one digital copy to be made, which encodes a different flag bit on the resulting copy. If you try and dub that copy the digital recorder won't let you make a direct-digital copy. This system doesn't function with computer CD-R drives because they're considered data recorders.
SCMS is pretty easily defeated if you care to put some time and money into it. Professional digital recorders (those you can't get at Best Buy) allow you to ignore SCMS or modify how it's recorded. You can also buy so-called "strippers" that remove this flag from the data stream.
So, like any copy protection technology, it looks like the TV protection flag will just initiate another round of cat and mouse between the industry and the hackers. But as much as the entertainment industry hates to admit it, the affect of hackers really isn't that massive and most average folks are perfectly willing to pay a reasonable price for movies and music, especially when circumventing the copy protection will take more effort and money than it appears to be worth. You don't hear too much about SCMS cracking because the system does allow you to make one copy, and that's really all most people want.
There's other coverage on this from the Washington Post and CNet.
posted 6/5/2002 02:10:11 PM [link
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Who's Buttering Their Toast? Not you. ---Reps. Billy Tauzin and Fred Upton are urging the repeal of the TV-Newspaper cross-ownership ban in a letter to the FCC.
Previously:
AFL-CIO Says Keep Ban on Cross-Ownership, 3/23/02
NPR Investigates Newspaper-TV Duopolies, 12/12/01
posted 6/5/2002 10:52:58 AM [link
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