The Dramamine Bender

I have to take Dramamine when I fly. It doesn't quite knock me out, but it makes me drowsy enough that I free-associate. And with a brain full of useless trivia and arcania, that can lead to some odd experiences.

On the entire flight back from San Diego to Virginia, I had a song stuck in my head. It was the old Top-40 hit "Bend Me, Shape Me." Now if you're of a certain age (or familiar with AM radio hits), you might think I had the American Breed on continual loop.



Yes, that was their one hit (and some of the members would go on to form Rufus, which also had one hit). But that's not what was stuck in my head. No, my subconscious had to serve up the version covered in the UK by the Amen Corner. And if you play both of the videos, you can see just how different these arrangements are.



I have some Amen Corner on various compilations, but I hadn't really listened to them in a while. Once I got home, I played their other tracks "Hey! Hey! Girl" and "Hello Susie" to get "Bend Me, Shape Me" out of my head (It worked).

Yikes. Maybe next time I'll take the train.

- Ralph

Day 96 of the WJMA Podwatch.

PRDMC - Mark Ramsey and the Hard Question

One of the last sessions at PRDMC had what I considered to be the heart of the issues/problems/opportunities surrounding the adoption of new media by the old.

The session was split between Bryan Moffet, director of digital sponsorship operations for NPR, and Mark Ramsey of Hear 2.0, (often quoted in this blog).

Mark Ramsey opened up his half by asking a very basic question.

What does it mean to be a public radio station in a digital space?

It's a hard question. And it's a good one to ask whatever business you're in if you have an offline component. What does it mean to be a toy store in a digital space? Or a trade association? Or a commercial radio station? 

Because as Ramsey explained, it's not just recycling on-air content. A significant part of public radio's audiences never listen to the over-the-air signal. Extended listening is great for having the radio on in the office, but online audiences tend to prefer discreet packages -- and preferably short-form.

So repurposing content has to be more than just recycling the on-air broadcasts. And sometimes it doesn't have to even be the on-air broadcasts. 

Consider: radio shows have to fit into a programming grid. So they have to be an hour, or a half hour long (actually a little less to allow for local IDS, etc., but you get the idea). Fifteen-minute programs don't work, because it's easy for a listener to remember a show starts at 10:00 or 10:30, but hard to remember 10:15.

But that's not a problem online. A podcast can be any length -- and it can very from episode to episode. It's available all the time, and it doesn't have to fit into the station's schedule, just the listener's.

Ramsey's question was a very difficult one, because to answer it, you have to ignore most of the rules that are an integral part of broadcasting.

But as Ramsey pointed out, it's not about what the station wants; it's about what the listener wants. In a radio market, there may be only one public radio station so the listener has to accept whatever programming it offers. Online, though, if a station's website isn't providing the content a listener wants, there's plenty of other websites out there that will.

How do you attract and keep that audience.

Answer Mark Ramsey's hard question.

 - Ralph

Day 93 of the WJMA Podwatch (I'm not sure these guys even understand there is a question)

PRDMC - News That Isn't

One of the big session at the Public Radio Development and Marketing Conference was the report from Jacob Media. The Public Radio Tech Survey 2008 provided a snapshot of how core public radio listeners use new media.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, the results are not surprising. While public radio listeners are very loyal, they're not so wedded to the radio part. Internet usage is up, streaming audio is up, podcast consumption is up, and social networking is up. Those 52 and younger use online media more than the 53+ set, but the latter group is increasing their usage as well.

The study breaks down usage by preferred format, and as you might think, AAA (indie rock) listeners tend to use the Internet more. Primarily because they're on the younger side of 52. But even the classical listeners (which tend to average around 60) proportionally use the Internet about the same -- and their usage is growing, too.

So the message is clear. Stations need to concentrate on putting their content on different platforms, and not try to keep everyone huddled around the radio.

And one final thing. Internet usage: 89%. HD Radio: 3%

'Nuff said.

 - Ralph

Day 92 of the WJMA Podwatch.

Public Radio Marketing and Development

The annual Public Radio Marketing and Development Conference has its opening reception tonight. For the folks responsible for fund-raising and finding underwriters for their respective non-profit stations, this has been a rough year, indeed (as it has for many). I'll be paying close attention to what the prevailing thoughts are about some of the following trends and issues facing public radio.

1) The decreasing audience. 

The good news is that younger people are turning to public radio -- especially the news programs. Bad news is that they're more likely to listen online or through a podcast aggregator than over the air. And if someone's getting their programs direct from NPR, why should they contribute to the local public radio station that they never listen to?

2) The digital divide. 

The bulk of public radio's audience (and contributers) are on the wrong side of the digital divide. Consider: one of the hottest fundraising gifts right now are pre-loaded iPods -- because the big dollar contributers would like to have an iPod, but can't figure out how iTunes works. And with more of public broadcasting moving online, there's a real danger that the core audience might get left behind.

3) The aging audience. 

An offshoot of the above. The new services and programs public radio's offering are virtually invisible to the older 60 crowd -- because they're on the wrong side of the digital divide.

4) Analog dollars, digital pennies. 

Sure, younger people are readily consuming public radio's Internet offerings. But the revenue generated is far less than old-fashioned underwriting and on-air fund drives. But that's where the audience is moving. So how do you make up the shortfall.

5) The role of the local station. 

There was a time when most markets only had one public radio station. The station had an identity, and was usually closely associated with the community. The rise of NPR homogenized stations, and now it's not uncommon for two or three stations in the same market to simultaneously run the exact same programming from NPR (like "Morning Edition"). So the individual station became less important than the national programming it served up. And now that it's basically available online, there's little reason to tune into a local broadcaster to get national content. So what's the role of the local station now, and why should anyone contribute to support it?

These may not necessarily be the issues a lot of the attendees have on their minds, but those are the questions I'd like to hear answers for.

 - Ralph

Day 91 of the WJMA Podwatch.

Time vs. Bandwidth

Over the past months I've noticed a disturbing trend in business conversations and meetings I'm involved with. And that is the substitution of the word "bandwidth" for "time." If you're not familiar with it, instead of saying "Farnsworth doesn't have the time to do the report and the daily stats," you'll hear "Farnsworth doesn't have the bandwidth for both the report and the daily stats."

Many people have called for this usage to stop, and as someone who loves the precision of words I basically agree. If we're just substituting one word for another with no change in meaning, then we should stop.

But perhaps there's something more going on here. Time is a very fluid concept, and all of us regularly over- or under- estimate how much we have available. So Farnsworth may say he doesn't have time to do the report and the daily stats, but deep down we're sure that he probably does.

I remember a famous analogy of time management. Imagine a box (unit of time) full of cannon balls (big jobs). Is the box full? No, because you can fit baseballs in the spaces between the cannon balls. Is it full now? No, because you can fit marbles in the gaps between the baseballs and the cannon balls. Is it full now? No, because you can fit BBs into the spaces left over, and then grains of sand into those left over spaces, and so on. So while the time may be finite, an almost infinite number of tasks can be fitted into it (as the analogy goes).

"Bandwidth," though, implies a precise number. Imagine a cable (unit of time) that can accommodate five gigabytes per second. How many files (tasks) can you upload per second? 5GB's worth. So you could do five 1GB files, or ten 100MB files, or 1,000 10MB files -- or any combination of file sizes you can think of. As long as the total doesn't exceed 5GB. Because it doesn't matter how much you want that additional data to go through the system. If it exceeds the bandwidth of the cable, it won't happen. Period.

So if the use of this term were to represent a fundamental shift in the way we thought about time, then I'm all for it. Because with the box of cannonball model, it's easy to dump the report and daily stats on Farnsworth. He'll just have to figure out a way to fit it all in. Under the cable model, though, the argument's over. 8GB of tasks won't go through a 5GB cable. We'll need to find someone else to do the stats.

And to me, that represents a much more humane way to go.

It still feels like jargon to me, and you won't hear me substituting "bandwidth" for "time," but if Farnsworth ends up not having to do the daily stats -- well, I might change my mind.

- Ralph


Day 87 of the WJMA Podwatch.