Technology360

DVR viewership eating away at DVD watching

Eric Bangeman writes:

... Another group may be moving the DVR further up on its list of disliked technologies in the wake of Ofcom's fourth annual report on the state of the UK's communications market. In the survey, 31 percent of DVR owners said that they are watching fewer DVDs.  ¶  There are a couple of factors working in favor of the drop in DVD viewership. First, some DVR owners are using the devices to build up their movie libraries. Did you miss it in the theaters and forget to rent it when the DVD was released? No problem—wait until it's on HBO and record it to watch at your leisure.  ¶  DVRs also give owners more TV options. Why run down to the local video store if you have several hours of your favorite TV shows awaiting your viewing pleasure? Watching all of that recorded TV eats away at the time available for watching DVDs. ...

Link:  Ars Technica.  --Dennis

WOXY.com carried on WVXU-HD2

Former over-the-air commercial broadcaster WOXY, Oxford, Ohio, broadcasting only over the web as woxy.com for the past few years, returns to the air on the HD-2 channel of public radio station WVXU, Cincinnati.  It has an alternative rock format.  This may be the first such combination of non-commercial and commercial radio on one HD Radio station.  See Zachary Breedlove's, Music: (Not) Only in It for the Money.  Link:  CityBeat.  Thanks to Jack Dominic of WCET.  --Dennis

Broken links fixed

I noticed tonight that a number of links in the Files section to the left pointed to files in Web sites that I no longer maintain.  These files have been moved to TypePad and the links are now fixed.  Sorry for any inconvenience.  --Dennis

A Longer Look at the Long Tail

In June, Bear Stearns issued a very useful report with this title authored by research analysts Spencer Wang, Shub Mukherjee and Stefan Anninger.  It displays lots of good data and, though it focuses on video content, it has a great deal of validity for audio content as well.  The authors write:

... Value Will Reside in the Middle of the Supply Chain.  If our thesis is correct, one major problem with infiinite choice is the potential for overwhelming confusion.  Said another way, how do consumers navigate a world of unlimited choice and find what they are looking for?  ¶  We think this conundrum (the "Paradox of Choice") will increase the value of "middlemen," or packagers of content that can appropriately filter out the noise and connect users with the content that appeals to their interests.  This can be done through strong brands, editorial discretion, technology, and harnessing user recommendations. ...

Link:  Bear Stearns.  Recommended, along with a complementary one from IBM to which I linked a week ago.  --Dennis

Details on the Noncommercial Filing Window

For only a week this October, the FCC is opening up its first window for filing new noncommercial FM stations in several year, leading to a flurry of activity for many licensees (including my own organization) looking to protect FM translator frequencies or provide new services.  Davis Wright Tremaine has a good overview.  Link:  Broadcast Law Blog. 

Also see More Information on October Filing Window for New Noncommerical FM Radio Stations.  Link:  Broadcast Law Blog.  --Dennis

IBM to administer DTV converter program ...

... for the NTIA.  Link:  Broadcast Engineering.  --Dennis

HD Radio: Why Marketing Matters

Bridge Ratings president Dave Van Dyke has some advice for U.S. broadcasters in how to market HD Radio based on the UK experience with digital radio.  Link:  Navigate the Future.  --Dennis

Mark Cuban: The Internet is Dead and Boring

Mark Cuban has been taking on the Internet of late and this week weighed in again.  He writes:

... Every new technological, mechanical or intellectual breakthrough has its day, days, months and years. But they don't rule forever. That's the reality.  ¶  Every generation has its defining breakthrough. Cars, TV, Radio, Planes,highways, the wheel, the printing press, the list goes on forever. I'm sure in each generation to whom the invention was a breakthrough it may have been heretical to consider those inventions "dead and boring". The reality is that at some point they stop changing. They stop evolving. They become utilities or utilitarian and are taken for granted.   ¶  Some of you may not want to admit it, but that's exactly what the net has become. A utility. It has stopped evolving. Your Internet experience today is not much different than it was 5 years ago. ...

Link:  Blog Maverick. 

Update 27 August 2007:
In a follow-up post today, Cuban says The Internet Is Still Dead and Boring.  Link:  Blog Maverick.

Update 29 August 2007:
Be sure also to read broadband expert Om Malik's surprisingly supportive response, Cuban's Theory & The Internet Infrastructure Questions.  Link:  GigaOm.  --Dennis

Goodbye to Newspapers?

One of my longest-running subscriptions, 35+ years, is to the New York Review of Books.  In the August 16th issue is an essay by long-time New York Times columnist Russell Baker with this title on the fate of newspapers in the wake of emerging media platforms and ownership influences by the likes of Rupert Murdoch.  Baker writes:

... Journalism was being whittled away by a Wall Street theory that profits can be maximized by minimizing the product. Papers everywhere felt relentless demands for improved stock performance. The resulting policy of slash-and-burn cost-cutting has left the landscape littered with frail, failing, or gravely wounded newspapers which are increasingly useless to any reader who cares about what is happening in the world, the country, and the local community. Cost-cutting has reduced the number of correspondents stationed abroad, shriveled or closed news bureaus in Washington, and crippled local reporting staffs which once kept an eye on governors, mayors, state legislatures, small-town rascals, crooks, and jury suborners. It has also shrunk the size of the typical newspaper page, cutting the cost of newsprint by cutting news content. ...

And on blogging:

... Blogging is a more interesting development, perhaps because bloggers are so passionate about it. It is a valuable restraint on careless and sloppy journalism, for the vigilance of the bloggers misses not the slightest error or the least omission, and the fury of their rage is terrible to bear. Committed bloggers insist that they are practicing journalism just as surely as a correspondent like John Burns is practicing journalism when reporting on the Iraq war from Baghdad for The New York Times. Anyone wishing to debate the point must be ready to argue all night and well into next week. What is indisputable is that practically every blogger can now be a columnist. With vast armies of columnists blogging away, it seems inevitable that a few may eventually produce something original, arresting, and refreshing and so breathe new life into this worn-out journalistic form. ...

I think that the NYRB eventually put s articles behind DRM, but this one is currently up and readable for free.  Link:  New York Review of Books.

I was reminded to post this to this blog by a commentary on Baker's essay by Peter Osnos of The Century Foundation (The Platform: "Goodbye to Newspapers?).  He writes:

... Of course, news delivered on paper is in trouble. The declines in advertising and circulation revenues are serious. The sale of Dow Jones to Rupert Murdoch has symbolic and business consequences and the loss of 1½ inches from the New York Times to save money on newsprint diminishes the size if not the stature of this pillar of journalism. All these are reflections of profound changes under way and not, it is widely assumed, for the better when it comes to the way we get news. The dismal statistics are combined with news peoples’ natural tendency—an essential component in the business—to favor bad news over good and to be skeptical of anyone at the helm. Nearly everyone in journalism reads Romenesko, the daily billboard of news about the news and in its comprehensive account of cuts and losses; the impression is unavoidable of inexorable decline.  ¶ But that story line, I believe, is only part of the story. Everything you’ve read about the travails of the newspaper business is true. Yet as we head towards Labor Day, a traditional time of renewal in news and business cycles, it is worth noting what else is happening to the art and science of gathering and delivering news that represents a future that is probably unavoidable and not necessarily bad. The fundamental reality is that newsprint is being supplanted and supplemented by digital technologies. ...

Link:  The Century Foundation.  Thanks to Antoine van Agtmael for the link to the Osnos commentary.  Antoine is chairman of Emerging Markets Management LLC and author of The Emerging Markets Century: How a New Breed of World-Class Companies Is Overtaking the World.  --Dennis

Blu-ray outpaces HD DVD in U.S.

Reuters is reporting that Blu-ray HD discs outsold HD DVD discs in the U.S. by two-to-one in the first half of 2007.  I, of course, bought an HD DVD player when it dropped below $300 at Costco (context: I bought two Beta VCRs before I bought my first VHS one).  Blockbuster announced it's going to stock Blu-ray, but on the other hand Wal-Mart announced it's building a zillion HD DVD players in Asia for the holidays.  So maybe the jury is still out.

Two observations about HD DVDs:  The discs seem to be more sensitive to scratches than standard DVDs.  One we received from Netflix was unplayable for more than about 15 minutes at a time, then one had to start over and hope it skipped the scratch the next time.  Also, while the video quality is great, it's not hugely better on my 50-inch monitor than video from an upscaling standard DVD player.  Those now sell for under $100 and do a great job.  --Dennis

Link:  c|net News.com.