Tag Archives: Radio

stitcher: “Your information radio”

Posted on by

The idea behind stitcher is simple. Organize your favorite podcasts and listen to them all together, in the order you want. It seemed more appealing as an iPhone app than on the desktop. (Like so many things). This is what Jeff Jarvis calls “be the platform, not the commodity.”

When our local news radio station switched from CBS to Fox, I really didn’t have a source for national news (after dropping XM some months ago). And I just never seemed to be in the car at the top of the hour.

With stitcher, I select from a variety of news (or other genres) sources and stack them in the order I want to hear them. And stitcher will email or txt me when something updates.

I can really program my own radio station now.

A feature I’d like –but didn’t find on the website– is the option of adding a local or state newscast to my line-up. You can submit a podcast and hope the stitcher folks add it but we’ll have to see how that works.

If I were programming a local station –or even a state news network– I think I would produce at least two special newscasts each day, designed just for podcasting. I’d have one online by 6 a.m. (local time) and the other by 4:30 p.m. I’d probably keep them in the 5 min or less range.

I’d do my best to get stitcher to add them to the lineup while promoting the podcast on air to the local audience.

Here’s something else I might try…

I’d create a KXYZ News Twitter page and blast out any and ever nugget of news I could find. From any news source. Local newspaper, TV station, news releases, blogs… wherever. And once an hour I’d link my tweet to a 2 min audio news summary. With a reminder that more news can be found on our website.

I think the real challenge for MSM is to stop thinking in terms of what is best for us and ask what would be interesting or useful to those formerly known as The Audience. Only then can we begin to reinvent ourselves for the future that is already here.

PS: And one more thing. If I was one of the growing number of reporters (print, radio or TV) currently out of work, I’d use some of my spare time to produce the podcast described above. You don’t need a printing press or studios or radio/TV transmitters or towers. You need a laptop and a camera and a smart phone. And some imagination. Bet you won’t be without a job for long.

KBOA voice of SE Missouri during/after ice storm

Posted on by
Reply

In the early days of the big ice storm that knocked out power to so many in southern Missouri, I kept hearing from friends in Kennett, Missouri (where Barb and I grew up) what a great job the local radio station (KBOA-AM) was doing. It was the only source for information and just a few announcers were keeping the station on the air with a generator and broadcasting non-stop with nothing but a phone and a microphone.

Steve Tyler, News Director Charles Isbell and Operations Manager Monte Lyons are all veteran radio guys (“with more than 100 years of experience between us”) who remember a time before computers and automation and syndicated talk shows. I figured they had some good stories to tell about the recent disaster. It runs about 20 minutes and –since they were on a speaker phone– you might have to listen closely.

AUDIO: Interview 20 min MP3

A tip of the hat to William Pollack, President of Pollack Broadcasting, the owner of the station(s), for deferring to his local staff and letting them make the call on how best to serve the community.

With cable and phone lines down, the Internet wasn’t much help for all those people sitting in the cold and dark, wondering when the power would come back on. But radio was there. Literally the voice of a community. Or communities.

I can’t foresee the future of small market radio but have to believe it will involve this kind of service and involvement. But that’s going to take people. People who know their neighbors and local business because they live there.

Will finding and hiring and training these men and women be easy. Doubt it. Will such staffing cut into profit margins. Probably. But if broadcasters don’t find a way to be truly local and relevant… their stations are almost certain to be cold and dark.

—–

For those that missed these earlier posts, Matthew Howard and Charles Jolliff share some photos of the ice damage… and friend and fellow-blogger Dr. Everett Mobley shares the journal he kept for the two weeks his family was without power. This is a terrific account.

Google bails on radio

Posted on by
Reply

Google ended its three-year affair with trying to break into radio Thursday, with the company saying it is selling its Radio Automation business. Google in 2006, launched Google Audio Ads and Google Radio Automation after buying dMarc Broadcasting, Inc for $102.0 million. Google made the move in the hope of transforming how radio ads are bought, aiming to streamline the entire process. The company said these plans, however, “haven’t had the impact we hoped for.”

Google said it will turn its focus from radio to online streaming audio. It will phase out the existing Google Audio Ads and AdSense for Audio products and plans to sell Google Radio Automation – the software that automates broadcast radio programming. [Forbes.com]

Hmm. A couple of ways to interpret this.

Garrison Keillor on the future of radio

Posted on by
Reply

“The future of public radio is shining bright if only we can wrest it out of the hands of people my age and into the hands of people forty years younger. The problem isn’t the medium — the technology is light, portable, easy to use — the problem is the heavy hand of tradition that keeps innovation at bay. There is so much that can be best conveyed through audio, Erin, and that won’t change. The music industry is getting flattened by the Internet, but there’s a great future for radio. I see reality radio as the next big thing — eavesdropping radio, the microphone picking up things you weren’t meant to hear — and then I see radio drama coming back to life, but radio drama that attempts to impersonate reality.

“As far as news goes, radio is the province of the Authoritative Voice, and people are always ready for the next one. We are creatures who love to listen to our own kind. We’re intrigued by the sound of ourselves. When I see people walking around with little wires running into their ears, I have to think radio has a future.”

Wonkette joins Air America

Posted on by
Reply

“Air America Media has hired Ana Marie Cox as its first Washington, D.C.-based national correspondent, travelling the country to profile people and stories illustrating life in America.  She will contribute text, video and audio content to airamerica.com, as well as to a weekly program to air on Air America’s radio network.  Cox will debut on Air America on Monday, January 19 to report from the nation’s capital for Air America’s Inauguration coverage.”

A career in radio prepares you for (new career goes here)

Posted on by
4

Missouri’s new governor will be sworn in tomorrow and, as part of the transition, about 150 people working at state jobs under the previous administration were terminated. This happens with every four or eight years.

A few days before the state ax fell, I had a routine meeting with the chief public information officer for one of the state departments. Like many in that line of work, he had –I believe– started in radio or spent a number of years in broadcasting. The years of consolidation in that industry had left this person weary from new owners, pay cuts, job elimination… and happy to have a more stable job in state government. Two days later the person is, once again, looking for a job.

It’s only a rumor but I’ve heard many of these communications positions will be filled by attorneys under the new administration. Our new governor was formerly attorney general, but I’m not sure why one would want/need a lawyer in these positions. As I said, that’s just rumor.

All of which reminded me of the dozen years I spent working in local radio. They were more fun than I can describe. Whatever skills I acquired during that time (talking on the radio (??); writing commercials; covering a news story (sort of) seem so… irrelevant now. Okay, it’s a quarter of a century later, so why should this surprise me?

If I had stayed in radio, what would I be doing now? Programming a “cluster” of stations? Managing? (unlikely) And what would those years have prepared me to do?

I have no idea why so many radio people go into public relations or become PIO’s for some association or state agency. I always suspected they were hired for their communications skills. Comfortable in an on-air interview; familiar with writing news releases (?); good voice?

Still a useful skill set. But what else do you need to know how to do in 2009? Blogging? Podcasting? YouTube? Social media? Couldn’t hurt.

I hope everyone that lost their jobs last week finds new ones. And better ones. Free advice every morning from 6:30 a.m. – 8:00 a.m. at the Jefferson City Coffee Zone.

Taking the “paper” out of “newspaper”

Posted on by
Reply

“The American Society of Newspaper Editors is planning to remove “paper” from its name and expand its membership to include editors of online-only news Web sites and journalism educators.” — CyberJournalist.net.

I’ve scratched my head on this one –as it pertains to radio– in numerous posts. What is radio? Gotta have a tower and transmitter? An FCC license? Is an Internet station with 100,000 listeners not “radio,” while a small-town AM station with 10,000 listeners is “radio?”

Please take out your Blue Books and write a 500 page essay on: Defining Radio in the 21st Century. Begin.

“You can’t create larger audiences by trying to create larger audiences”

Posted on by
Reply

The following excerpts are from an interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) did with Tom Asacker, a marketing and branding adviser and author (A Little Less Conversation: Connecting with Customers in a Noisy World).

One of the larger challenges facing radio?

“It seems that we’ve got a catch-22 on our hands, right?  We need to get out on the street and keep selling in order to keep revenue coming in, so nobody wants to slow down in order to change the way they’re doing things, to really rethink it, because that might take away from sales time.  I mean we’re putting out fires, and nobody wants to step back and say, “Wait a minute.  Is there a better way of doing this?”

“It’s a difficult thing with an industry that’s been around this long, with people that are well entrenched in relationships up and down the chain.  It’s tough to get people to change — to just say, “Put on the brakes, and let’s rethink radio.”  But I think that that’s what needs to be done:  Let’s rethink radio.  Just like Steve Jobs said, “Let me rethink the MP3 player.”  He didn’t say, “Well, we can do the MP3 player and slap this thing on it”; he said, “Stop, and let’s rethink the MP3 player.”

That’s a tough thing to do.  It takes guts.”

Yes, it does. And he offers this rather brilliant (IMO) insight on creating audiences:

“You can’t create larger audiences by trying to create larger audiences. You can only create larger audiences by trying to get deeper with smaller audiences.

Think about how to get deeper and make more relevant, valuable connections with individuals in a culture or a subculture.

Don’t think about audience size.  Think about the depth of the relationship and how important it is and how valuable it is.  The more you do that, the bigger the audience gets.”

That’s probably true of friends as well. Best way to have a lot is to be a good one. You can listen to the entire interview at Hear 2.0.

Media 101

Posted on by

My recent visit to Central Methodist University included a tour of the campus which wound up in the studios of what was –I believe– the student radio station. I’m not sure when or why the station went off the air but the plan is to bring it back as an internet station.

During the few minutes I chatted with a couple of instructors and students about the project, I got the impression the approach will be… traditional, for lack of a better term. By that I mean, they’ll have a control room and studios with the usual assortment of recording and mixing hardware. Instead of pumping it all out to a transmitter and tower… they’ll stream it.

As for programming, they plan to do what we used to call “block programming.” An interview program followed by a news program followed by… Music licensing issues prevent them from programming music.

The way college radio stations have always been programmed. I don’t doubt the students can learn some useful skills and gain some valuable experience doing this but I’m not sure it will prepare them for the future that is already here.

So what would I do if they put me in charge of the program for a semester?

I’d start by dropping the term “radio” and go with “media.” Not “new media,” just media.

I’d assemble production teams made up of a producer and host (and co-host?). These teams would be responsible for one 25 minute program a week. Can be any topic (more on that in a moment)

A Senior Producer and Managing Editor would coordinate these teams (using Basescamp or some similar online collaboration tool) and insure quality standards and deadlines were being met.

All or most of these programs would be produced as live feeds and podcasts. Instead of a “college radio station” (Internet or otherwise), you’d have a portal site (I hate that term) that featured each of the individual programs with a link to that programs blog (where the hosts and producer interact with listener/viewers). Show notes, comments, etc.

The central feature of the portal page would be a video section. It could be a live stream of one of the shows being recorded or some live event on campus. Or just a live webcam from the student center.

Equipment. Each team would have a laptop, a digital camera (video capable) and a small webcam. All shows would be produced on location. No reason to schlep back to a studio jammed with expensive equipment.

I wouldn’t limit this project to just students. I’d open it up to the community as well, but with students producing.

Once these podcasts are up, it’s an easy matter to track which ones produce a following. If nobody downloads, you fix the podcast or replace it. But you aren’t limited to the 24 hours of a real-time station. You can have as many programs as you have people to produce and watch/listen.

So what are the students learning here?

  • How to write, edit and tell a story
  • How to shoot and edit video and share it with the world
  • How to build an online community or tribe
  • How to produce a live webcast
  • How to take and edit photos
  • How about a course in Smart Phone Reporting?

…and so on and so forth. I’m not an educator so there could be lots of things wrong with this approach. I’m pretty sure it would cost a lot less than a more traditional approach while involving many more students (in and out of the communications program). If you have suggestions on this mythical program, please include them in the comments. Or, if you see flaws, post those as well.

PS: I think this might be a powerful recruitment tool, as well.

UPDATE/12.08.08: On a recent edition of NPR’s Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep interviewed journalist Sreenath Sreenivasan who, within an hour of the attacks in Mubai, began hosting a web radio call-in show with other Indian journalists, relaying what they knew. Sreenivasan used a service called Blog TalkRadio:

“BlogTalkRadio is the social radio network that allows users to connect quickly and directly with their audience. Using an ordinary telephone and computer hosts can create free, live, call-in talk shows with unlimited participants that are automatically archived and made available as podcasts. No software download is required. Listeners can subscribe to shows via RSS into iTunes and other feed readers.”

Seth Godin on radio’s future

Posted on by
Reply

Mark Ramsey has posted audio (and partial transcript) of an interview with marketing maven Seth Godin, on the future of radio. This is an update to an earlier interview. These three nuggets sloshed out of my pan:

“So if you’re an advertiser and you have a choice between reaching a ton of people who couldn’t care less, and so you have to talk really fast, yell, and make obscene promises on the radio to get them to show up at your dealership, or reach a smaller group of people about something that they’re very interested in a very connected way, in the long run advertisers are going to come back to the smaller, more tightly knit group.”

“Everything radio has done has been about leveraging a rare piece of spectrum, and the thing we have to acknowledge is that spectrum isn’t rare anymore. So the one asset you built your whole organization on is going away really fast and instead of putting your head in the sand and complaining about that, take advantage of the momentum so that when it does finally disappear, you have something else.”

“Consider the FCC’s ruling recently about the white space spectrum. What white space spectrum is going to mean is that in five years every car sold is going to have an infinite number of radio stations on it. Not 100 or 1,000 but more radio stations than you could listen to in your lifetime, and if that’s true, tell me again why you’re going to win?”

As I ponder these points, I’m listening to the very eclectic music mix on the Coffee Zone iPod. On the way to work, I’ll be live streaming Pandora from the iPhone.