Ken's Jeopardy Adventure -- Part 2

Monday, February 9, 2009, Ken Nail, the co-writer of this blog appears on "Jeopardy" as a contestant. You may recall he tried out for the show back in May and made the cut. The actual taping was in early December.

It's one thing to be a watcher; quite another to be a participant. Everyone here at "C.E. Conversations (including our guest bloggers) are really proud of Ken. Watch tonight and you'll see the real brains of this outfit!


Ralph

Day 229 of the WJMA Web Watch. (I'll take "Missing Websites" for $100, Alex)

The DTV Intransigence

Imagine getting on a small shuttle flight that holds 30 passengers. All the seats are filled save one, as the final boarding call's announced. Where is the missing passenger? At the food court? Looking for their ticket? Finding a place to park? Just waking up after sleeping through the alarm? Doesn't matter to you -- you're on the plane and in your seat, just like the rest of your fellow travelers.

What happens next? Well. in the real world, the planet takes off as scheduled, with 95% of its passengers on board. In the world run by the Congress, however, the plane's takeoff would be delayed for three hours to give that last poor soul a chance to get on board.

Because make no mistake: that's exactly what happened with Congress pushed back the deadline for DTV conversion. Representative Rick Boucher (who's usually more tech-savvy) explained that this ensures millions of Americans won't get left behind, but the other way to think of that is just like my example above. 5% of the population isn't ready -- so we all have to wait.

"If almost 6 percent of the nation's households lose all TV service, I think most people would declare the digital TV transition to be a failure. [Whaaaat? Flip the switch and it's done. Lack of preparedness on your part does not constitute a crises on mine.] It's clear that the only way to avoid a massive disruption affecting 5.7 percent [and NOT affecting 94.3 percent] of the TV viewing public is to delay the transition and provide the funding to assure that, when it occurs, it occurs smoothly."

It's been cast as a national tragedy if those poor folks (like Ethelred the Unready, pictured above) are cut off from their only source of news and emergency information, but how true is that, really? We're talking about people who only receive over-the-air broadcasts. No cable news, no on-demand programming, just what the local NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox affiliates are broadcasting. It's not likely that this 5% is only watching the news and then turning off the set.

No, when the transition is made, they'll be deprived of the shows they regularly watch: like "judge Judy," "All My Children," 'Wheel of Fortune." and "Regis and Kelly." So it's not really a life-or-death matter if viewing gets interrupted.

Now the given reason for the delay is there aren't enough coupons for converters, but so what? Despite six months of heavy advertising, people didn't get moving on the coupons until a few weeks ago.

What's going to happen next? People will forget about the switch until June, when -- once again -- there will be a run on coupons.

So what will change in three months time? More coupons? Maybe. Will people use them? Perhaps. More confusion? Definitely -- already people can't remember when exactly the date's been pushed back to. And has Congress spared that 5% from having their TVs go dark until June? Not really. Some stations have already said they're going ahead and switching as scheduled. So mission not accomplished.
Going back to our original analogy, for those people who missed the final boarding call, the plane may fly without them, or wait for an hour, or two, or three -- just depends on what gate it's leaving from. And how does help the majority of people who fly?

Of all the problems facing our elected leaders, this was one that didn't need their attention at all. How about some change that isn't unbelievably bone-headed?

- Ralph

Day 225 of the WJMA Web Watch. (Good thing digital radio wasn't part of the mandate -- we might have dead air in addition to a dead website here.)

Pandora, the Radio Pandemic

The most recent comment by Pandora's Tim Westergren has the public radio listserves I subscribe to buzzing. According to a Cincinnati Enquirer interview with Westergren,

"Our goal right now is nothing less than to completely replace radio with this whole new thing called personalized radio"

Well, there's been a lot of hand-wringing and righteous indignation as you can imagine within the public radio community, but let's take a closer look at what's going on here.

First off, what is Pandora? It’s basically a music selection service. You start by creating a "radio station" (carefully chosen terms, those) by selecting some songs and/or artists. Each track in the Pandora database has over a hundred different characteristics assigned to it. Pandora starts by using its algorithms to select a song that fits the criteria of your core tracks.

The selection then plays, and you decide if it's great (thumbs up), awful (thumbs down) or OK (no response). “Thumbs up” adds that song (and its criteria) to the guidelines for the next selection. “Thumbs down” does the opposite, and helps filter the list.

The more you work with your "radio station," the better Pandora gets at finding music that fits your "format."

Most of the negative responses I’ve seen on the listserves tend to run along the following lines.

1. People will get tired of hearing the same old thing. They'll come back to the wonderful variety of our programming.
   
2. It's too high-maintenance. People will get tired of voting for every single song all day long soon enough and come back to our broadcasts.
   
3. Other media was supposed to kill off radio but we’re still here. This, too, shall pass.
   
4. Pandora’s not very good with classical. You only get individual movements, not complete works.

Well, there's truth in all of the above. But it’s clear some of the commentators have no first-hand experience of Pandora. As a user, here's how I see it.

1. People do get tired of hearing the same old thing. That's why they're moving away from commercial radio. And as for public radio, the genres are different, but are playlists really that much broader?
   
   Speaking just as a classical music listener, I can count on my local public radio stations (WTJU excepted) to NOT play any lieder, early music, contemporary works, anything from the renaissance, any significant amount of chamber music, or any compositions over 40 minutes in length. So just how varied is this variety?
   
2. It's too high-maintenance. That just depends on how high-maintenance you want your Pandora radio station to be. I've set up some of my stations with deliberately broad criteria so I don’t have to mess with them. I just press play and get taken on an adventure.
   
   Some of my other stations I treat like audio bonsais and scrupulously work the selections to get just the mix I want. But I don't have to. Sometimes I just let those channels play untouched as well -- if I don't vote on the track, it doesn't change the parameters.
   
3. Radio’s still here. Well, other media may not have killed radio, but each new development impacted what radio was. Initially, everything was on the radio -- concerts, news programs, comedy shows, variety shows, comedies, dramas, soap operas – even audio adaptations of popular films. TV pulled away the dramas, soaps, sitcoms and variety shows, leaving radio to play records and cover the news – the audience changed.
   
   Cable TV took over the role of news coverage, leaving just music and talk shows -- the audience changed again. The rise of social media (of which Pandora is a part -- you can share your stations and check out what other people are listening to on the site) is replacing the radio as the place to discover new music. Sure, radio will be around, but what will the remaining audience want of it?
   
4. Pandora isn’t very good with classical music. Agreed. Some people are quite happy to hear the middle movement of a symphony followed by a piano prelude, followed by the minuet from a dance suite and so on. I personally prefer to hear a work in its entirety straight through.
   
   Advantage public radio? Depends on which station you listen to. WTJU (where I do my classical music show) has a policy of airing complete works. The other two classical music broadcasters in our area have no such qualms. So that’s not entirely true.

So will Pandora totally replace radio? Not the medium, certainly. But just as TV took over part of radio’s programming, I think Pandora will do the same. When radio soap operas and dramas lost their audience, programmers moved on to different formats. The danger here – and it’s the same one commercial broadcasters made years ago – is that public radio broadcasters will assume that Pandora and similar services are but a passing fad and that it’s business as usual.

It isn’t, and it’s not.

- Ralph

Day 224 of the WJMA Web Watch. (I guess if you consider the whole Interwebtubie thing a passing fad, Pandora doesn’t even show up on the radar.)

The Basics of Media Old and New

CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield wrote an interesting op-ed piece "Media is Changing, But Some Things Endure." In it, he reflects on the 30-year run of "CBS Sunday Morning." While most of it centered around the program itself, at the heart of it was a concept that sometimes gets forgotten.

Whether on a TV screen or computer or cell phone or toaster, the fundamental things still apply (or should). A love of story-telling, a love of clear, vivid language, a respect for history - the world didn't start five years ago, even if YouTube did - these still matter most.

And if you look closely at the successful elements of new media, you'll find that to be true.

Who gets the most followers on Twitter? The people with the most interesting stories (told in 140-letter installments). Which new media video programs are the most successful? Those that engage and use visual story-telling effectively. Which podcasts continue to thrive? The ones with a set framework (either tightly constructed or loose) that provide purpose and flow to the content. Which blogs are the most useful? The ones that are easy to read (because the spelling and grammar are correct), and provide background links to the information.

Shiny new things can be appealing, but eventually, the shine dulls. Look at all the YouTube one-hit wonders. Evolution of Dance garnered over a hundred million views, but the follow-up only a tenth of that. Well-constructed new things can outlast their newness. Witness Coverville (over 540 episodes), or Rocketboom (over 5 years of weekday vlog posts).

So what should companies moving into new media keep in mind? The basics. What's the story you're trying to tell? And what's the best way to do it? There's plenty of examples out there -- just don't confuse the package for the contents.

- Ralph

Day 223 of the WJMA Web Watch. (So what's the story here? I guess if you don't have one, you don't need a website.)

Podcast Review - Indiefeed Podcast

One nice thing about podcasts (as opposed to syndicated radio programs) is that they're just as long as they have to be. Radio programs have to fit into hour, half-hour, and -- in rarer cases -- fifteen minute segments in order to have any change of being scheduled.

The Indiefeed Podcast does something no syndicated radio show possibly can -- it plays one song, gives you some information about the band, and that's it. It's a great way to find out about new independent music, and while I don't always have time to devote to a longer-form podcast, it's rare I don't have a few minutes to check out an Indiefeed episode.

Indiefeed has several channels, so you can focus on the genre(s) you're most interested in. You can listen to alternative/modern rock, blues, dance, electronica, hip hop and/or indie pop. I've heard some outstanding music through these podcasts, including groups like Over the Rhine, Calexico, and the Black Angels.

Five minutes of new music? Yeah, I got time for that!

And remember -- you don't need an iPod to listen to a podcast. Just click and download to your computer.

- Ralph

Day 222 of the WJMA Web Watch.