Broadcasting
-
How to rescue radio
Radio used to be wireless audio on a broadcast band. That’s still the short version of every dictionary definition. But now radio is streamed audio. That was already the case when webcasting* showed up in the ’90s, and even more so with the rise of Last.fm, SiriusXM, Pandora, rdio, Spotify and every other audio service delivered over… Continue reading
-
Is it too late to save the Net from the carriers?
In Big Cable’s Sauron-Like Plan for One Infrastructure to Rule Us All, Susan Crawford (@SCrawford) paints a bleak picture of what awaits us after television (aka cable) finishes eating the Internet. But that’s just in our homes. Out in the mobile sphere, telcos have been eating the Net as well — in collusion with cable.… Continue reading
-
Loving the Alps of Los Angeles
I orient by landmarks. When I was growing up in New Jersey, the skyline of New York raked the eastern sky. To the west were the Watchung “Mountains“: hills roughly half the height of Manhattan’s ranking skyscrapers. But they gave me practice for my favorite indulgence here in Los Angeles: multi-angulating my ass in respect to… Continue reading
-
Re-birthing Radio
Radio’s 1.x era is coming to an end. Signs and portents abound. The rise and decline of AM radio just ran in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, hometown paper for KDKA, the granddaddy of AM radio in the U.S. In AM/FM Radio Is Already Over, And No One Will Miss It, Adam Singer writes, Radio advertisements are… Continue reading
-
The holy grail of radio
[4:45pm EDST 2 October 2013 — Late breaking news: RadioINK reports that Darryl Parks’ blog post — the first item below — has been pulled off the 700wlw site. — Doc] In A SERIOUS Message To The Broadcast Industry About Revitalizing AM Radio, Darryl Parks of 700WLW made waves (e.g. here, here, here) by correctly… Continue reading
-
Pirate radio lives, big time, in New York
Last Saturday evening I was walking up Wadsworth Avenue in Manhattan, a few blocks north of 181st Street, when I passed a group of people sitting sitting on the steps of an apartment building. They were talking, drinking, eating snacks and listening to a boom box set to 94.9FM. A disc jockey chattered in Spanish,… Continue reading
-
News: Watching Cable Die
Now that Al Jazeera English‘s stream has been killed in the U.S., the only two streaming global news organizations available on computers and mobile devices are France24 and RT. They look like this: In other words, like TV. Talking heads and reports from the field. Also like PR. I certainly get that from RT, the… Continue reading
-
Breaking news: Al Jazeera kills its live stream
If you have an Al Jazeera app on your U.S. mobile device you can no longer watch or listen to live streams. Click on the yellow LIVE button and then on “PLAY” next to “Watch Live” or “Listen Live” and here is what happens: Go to the Al Jazeera website, click on “watch now” and you… Continue reading
-
News isn’t about cable. Or newspapers. It’s about us.
Read Dave’s Cable News is Ripe for Disruption. Then Jay Rosen’s Edward Snowden, Meet Jeff Bezos. Then everything Jeff Jarvis has been writing about lately. Then listen to the August 9 edition of On The Media. Pay special attention to the history of New York’s newspapers, and the strike of 1962-3. Note how vitally important… Continue reading
-
Al Jazeera isn’t covering some big news about itself
Right now if you want live streaming of TV news, 24/7, on the Net, here in the U.S., from a major global news organization, you have just two choices: Al Jazeera and France24. Soon you’ll have just one, because Al Jazeera’s stream is going away. That’s because the company will turn its stream off when… Continue reading
-
What’s CBS worth? How about just the programs?
In MediaPost‘s TV Watch, West Coast Editor Wayne Friedman asks, Trick Question: What Would You Pay For Access To CBS For A Month? Here’s my (lightly edited) answer from the comments below the post: This is interesting. We have always been consumers of TV channels more than customers of them. First they were free over the air. Then we paid cable… Continue reading
-
A way to get CBS after all
If you live in New York, Dallas, Los Angeles or one of the other cities where Time Warner has dropped the local CBS station, there may be a free work-around. Because over-the-air TV still exists. And, if you have a flat-screen TV, it likely has a TV tuner built in. If it does have its own… Continue reading
-
Daily Outline
Cool Britt Blaser’s flying stories. The dude is a terrific writer who has lived to tell, and tell well. He should do that more often. Speaking of which, I interviewed him for this podcast. How 24 Tiny Satellites Could Change Business Forever. By Nate Hindman and Joe Epstein. Subhead: “Skybox doesn’t want to see pictures of Earth from… Continue reading
-
Getting kicks at 66
A year ago I entered the final demographic. So far, so good. @Deanland texted earlier, asking if I had a new affinity with WFAN, the New Yawk sports station that radiates at 660 on what used to be the AM “dial.” Back when range mattered, WFAN was still called WNBC, and its status as a… Continue reading
-
Time for public radio ratings winners to take a bow
I like and subscribe to Radio INK, which is the main way I stay current with what’s happening in mainstream radio. And Radio INK loves WTOP, the news station in Washington. Do a search for site:http://www.radioink.com WTOP and you’ll get many pages of praise running from Radio INK to WTOP — all of it, I… Continue reading
-
TV 3.0
We’re not watching any less TV. In fact, we’re watching more of it, on more different kinds of screens. Does this mean that TV absorbs the Net, or vice versa? Or neither? That’s what I’m exploring here. By “explore” I mean I’m not close to finished, and never will be. I’m just vetting some ideas… Continue reading
-
Broken news
For me, news of the Boston bombing broke on my phone, in a remote hotel on the island of Providenciales in Turks and Caicos, where I had gone for a speaking engagement at a corporate offsite. First came emails with no context, from friends asking if I was okay. Next I checked the Web to… Continue reading
-
Al Jazeera English to be buried in cable
Two years ago I called Al Jazeera’s live coverage of the revolution in Egypt a “Sputnik moment” for cable in the U.S. Turns out it wasn’t. Not since Al Jazeera agreed to pay half a $billion, plus their live internet stream, to sit at U.S. cable’s table. Losing Al Jazeera English reduces to a single source — France24 —… Continue reading