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Ryan Saghir has posted charts of the subscriber counts for Sirius and XM. The former trails the latter by less than 1 million subs (7.7M vs. 8.6M subs) and his analysis is that Sirius has consistently trailed XM's counts by about three quarters. Link: Orbitcast. --Dennis
Rob Paterson makes the case that the television economy is about to hit an iceberg:
... The Iceberg is the weight of money that is leaving conventional media and going to the web. My forecast is that 2008 will be the year - 2008 will be the year where the web/digital will become where the ad money will go - the work for all providers of all types of content then will be to reset their universe. ¶ Today most people in TV and radio see the web as a growing and important channel. In 2008, the smart people will see the web as the primary channel and that their old channel is now the supporting channel. Of course most will not see this and they will be lucky to find a life boat. ...
Link: FASTForward Blog.
Update 31 October 2007:
In his post, Rob mentions Hulu, the NBC + News Corp joint venture. Liz Gannes has an overview of it in Hulu Debuts to Meet Foes and Find Friends. Link: NewTeeVee. --Dennis
John Heilemann has a great article in New York Magazine on the differences in attitude toward the Web as business between the east coast and the west coast. He writes:
... I asked [Silicon Valley venture capitalist Michael] Moritz what sort of piece he would have done, were he still a hack, to capture the industry’s gestalt. Cheekily, Moritz replied that he would have written about the irrelevance of such stories: Who reads newspapers anymore, anyway? (Touché!) Eventually, though, Moritz got around to opining on the bubbliness of the second-generation Web boom. “The great news for me about these times of enthusiasm is that inevitably there’s a lot of bedlam, undoubtedly there’ll be carnage, there’ll be all sorts of carcasses strewn across the road,” he said. “But there will also be a handful of companies that will emerge to become very significant. And that’s what working and living and investing in Silicon Valley has always been about.” ¶ Now, to skeptics, Moritz’s answer will sound like familiar Valley boilerplate—or the purest brand of bullshit. But to me, it says much about why the debate over whether Web 2.0 is a bubble has been so inconclusive and incoherent, conducted as if one side were speaking Swahili and the other barking like a dog. It’s also revealing about the yawning gulf that still divides the two coasts with regard to high-tech moneymaking. And about why, for all its many and manifest virtues, New York remains such a sad-assed backwater when it comes to the Internet industry. ...
Link: New York Magazine. Thanks to Gens Johnson who found it in Good Morning Silicon Valley. --Dennis
The October issue of Wired tests four HD Radio models, the Cambridge SoundWorks 820HD (8 of 10 dots), the Polk Audio Designs HDX3 (7 dots), the Sangean HDR-1 (6 dots), and the Radiosophy HD100 (4 dots). Note that the tests seem to have been for usability and sound only, not how well the radios actually pick up the HD Radio signal and, with HD Radio, that's important. The inexpensive Radiosophy unit and the two I mention below all test well in that area. Link: Wired.
Note that there are many other HD Radio models on the market. For example, at the lower price range there is the Boston Acoustics Receptor Radio HD that I have on my desk at the office and the Accurian Tabletop HD Radio sold by RadioShack. --Dennis
Consultant (and former PBS exec) Michael Soper contacted both DirecTV and Dish about carriage of PBS station HD programming and got noncommittal answers. This is from DirecTV's response:
... While I do not have any information specifically about PBS in your area, we do value programming like this and realize PBS in HD is important to our customers. Unfortunately, due to limits in bandwidth, we are not able to offer all of the local channels we provide to the Salt Lake area in HD. ...
Link: Rare Medium. He also did an earlier post on this topic. I agree with Michael, of course, but we in public television could be doing something to make this happen much faster. Currently, most public television stations are still broadcasting the PBS HD feed, not an HD version of our main channel. Therefore, the two main satellite companies would need to set aside large chunks of spectrum for 7x24 programming differentiated only by station IDs. More stations need to do HD versions of their main analog channel with all the localization (acquisitions, local programming, underwriting, and pledge breaks) that implies -- that is, HD when it's available and upconverted SD when it's not -- not just to make satellite carriage more attractive but because their "main" program channel looks pretty pathetic next to their HD channel and that of their commercial colleagues. PBS is moving to help stations do this, but I fear we'll be missing out on early adopter interest if we don't move fast. For my stations, that means not waiting for PBS. --Dennis
Eric Pfanner has an interesting article on issues that the BBC is facing in the New York Times.
Updated 30 October 2007:
But on the other hand, it's expanding its international operations. See Chris Williams, BBC readies global web and TV expansion. Link: The Register. --Dennis
Michael Harris, Chief Analyst for Cable Digital News, writes for those in the cable industry who don't like the FCC's recent ruling on digital must carry:
... Once again proving that the broadcast industry has the FCC in its back pocket, the commission ruled that cable operators will need to carry local broadcast TV signals in both analog and digital formats starting in 2009. ¶ Adding insult to injury, MSOs must carry broadcasters' high-definition signals, too. In other words, cable operators are required to transmit the same TV programming in three formats. Now, that's a triple play! And a tremendous waste of privately owned cable spectrum. ...
Link: Light Reading.
His colleague, Jeff Baumgartner in DTV's Broader Logic, is a little more sanguine:
Although there are some differences of opinion about how well cable's lobbying arms fared in the whole dual-must carry ruling from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) , I think they did a commendable job obtaining a compromise on a couple of important points, particularly after the pounding much of the industry took from the feds before and after the July 2007 ban on integrated security set-tops. (See Verizon & Others Get Their Waivers and FCC Denies Comcast Again .) ...
Link: Light Reading. --Dennis
Diane Mermigas writes:
... Broadcasters must better position themselves strategically to secure their share of online ad dollars and consumers from such unlikely competitors as Craigslist to Google. Online will represent 10% of local television advertising dollars by 2010–or twice what it is today, according to Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates, a media research and consulting firm. In 2007, online sales are expected to be as much as 10.7% of gross revenues at the Washington Post Co.’s newspapers, 6% of gross revenues from combined newspaper and television efforts at Gannett, and only 2.4% of gross revenues at Hearst-Argyle television, Borrell reports. Of the $7.5 billion in overall annual domestic local online ad spending, newspapers grab 36%–while TV stations only garner 7.7%, Borrell reports. Clearly, local television is losing online ad dollars to pure-play Internet players such as Google and Yahoo, which collectively siphon 33.2% of total U.S. local online advertising. ...
Link: MediaPost. --Dennis
Diane Mermigas writes:
... At its core, mechanism design theory encourages systematic thinking about how a new playing field and new rules of play can be modified to improve outcomes. In the nearly 50 years since it was developed, the theory has been broadly applied to business matters as far-ranging as valuing software patents, matching donated kidneys to recipients, calculating taxes, and setting up complex auctions. Application of the theory to the Federal Communications Commission’s sale of radio spectrum assured the government the funds it sought, while assuring public and small business access. It has also been applied to the regulation of subscription television and the bundling and pricing of channels. ¶ The initial objectives, per the economists, included the ability “to easily compare different models for selling goods” and provide enough economic incentives to ensure a win-win for all. Much of what the economists devised is relevant to media conundrums. Those include the redefining and re-pricing of advertising; content and services from static to interactive digital platforms; and recalculating the value of advertiser connections from mass eyeballs to individually targeted consumers with whom they can transact online. The social networking, blogging and instant messaging are a means to a commercial end for those hoping to profit from the Internet. ...
Link: MediaPost.
Also see this article on mechanism design in Wikipedia. --Dennis
One of the most astute observers of today's electronic media is Diane Mermigas, the former columnist at The Hollywood Reporter. However, I lost track of her when she left there, so thanks to Terry Heaton (himself also an astute observer) who noted in his blog that she's writing now for MediaPost. Her column also has an RSS feed. --Dennis
The excellent online peer-reviewed journal about the Internet, First Monday, has moved from www.firstmonday.org to Open Journal Systems at the University if Illinois at Chicago. Its new (unmemorizable) URL is www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/ and it now requires a free registration. Its archives have been moved here also. In a big step forward, it now has RSS and Atom feeds, so I've subscribed in Bloglines and will be seeing new things as they're posted rather than every few months when I happen to remember I haven't visited the site in awhile.
From the September 2007 number, check out Desperately seeking the consumer: Personalized search engines and the commercial exploitation of user data by Theo Röhle. Here's the abstract:
With reference to surveillance studies theory, this paper critically assesses the role of personalized search engines as a mediator between advertisers and users. It first sketches the economic and technical background of online marketing and personalized searches. Then, it engages in an in–depth discussion of two examples of personalized search engines with regard to the data collection process used and the way in which this data is used for advertising purposes. The discussion shows that users’ information needs, as well as their personal data, are subject to a growing pressure in terms of commercial exploitation. Essentially, search engines now fulfill the task of translating information needs into consumption needs.
Link: First Monday. --Dennis
Here's an interesting idea. Porto Media lets you download a movie to a thumb drive from a kiosk or ATM in about a half-minute. IBM has a video profile (transcript also). Link: IBM. --Dennis
FierceIPTV is reporting:
Internet TV operator Joost has promised live programming beginning in early 2008, with a senior executive telling the Mipcom program market in Cannes that Joost hoped to secure more European sports rights. Joost, which released its beta software earlier this month, has secured online rights to Major League Baseball's World Series and playoffs and U.K. premier league soccer highlights. ...
Link: FierceIPTV.
Also see, Joost goes live as well as offering video on demand. Link: informitv. --Dennis
I made a presentation in at the Iowa DTV Symposium in Des Moines on Oct. 2nd about which I posted a couple of days later. At one point in the presentation, I had just made a point about entropy when, as if to illustrate it, a window blew open and the curtains blew in a big whoosh. The audience appreciated the visual aid and so did I. But I didn't know the rest of the story until last night when, after taking most of the month off, I finally got to Todd Mundt's feed in Bloglines. As he tells it in his Converge blog, a twister briefly set down at that moment three blocks away! It will probably be the only time that Mother Nature helps me at the podium. Thanks, Mom! --Dennis
Consultant and blogger (Digital Deliverance) Vin Crosbie will be resident this academic year as an adjunct professor at the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. He's posting several essays online "giving away consulting advice," four so far. The first was about immediacy, the second about multimedia, the third about podcasting and vodcasting, and the fourth is about interactivity. He mapped out six others, but haven't seen any more posted since mid-September. These are well worth your time. --Dennis
I missed it when released in late spring, but the Center for Social Media at American University released a new report by Pat Aufderheide titled, The New Deal: How Digital Platforms Change Negotiations between Public Media and Independent Producers. Says the press release:
... The study discovered that television programmers are asking for and obtaining rights for digital distribution, without having concrete plans for distribution on new platforms. The study recommends that producers clarify their expectations and that public television programmers clarify their plans for use of video content. The study concludes that this is an excellent time for documentarians and public media executives to work together on demonstration projects online. ...
Updated 10 November 2007:
Link: Center for Social Media (pdf). Important reading for public television types. Lessons for others as well.
Thanks to Jake Shapiro who, in the comments below, provided a link to an updated version (6/07) of this report. Link: Center for Social Media. --Dennis
Check out Jeff Jarvis's post of this title about social distribution and recommendation and how they work as business drivers. Be sure to follow the two links with which he leads off the post and check out the reports he's discussing. Link: BuzzMachine. --Dennis
Laura Sydell did a piece today on NPR's All Things Considered on the controversy about amateur vs. expert content on the Web. The report's audio, a text version, and links to a number of related stories are available at NPR.org. --Dennis
Ronald Grover writes:
... The dawning of a new era of TV? Not quite. Study the details provided by the networks carefully, and you'll notice that none are taking too big a risk. The deals include just a smattering of shows -- generally about four or five from each network -- and in some cases, the online services are designed not to ruffle too many members of the ecosystem on which networks live and prosper. ¶ The truth is, going down this road is upsetting to many in TV Land. ABC affiliates are already irate about Disney's decision to allow Apple's iTunes service to have some of Disney's bigger TV hits, such as Lost and Desperate Housewives. But does anyone really think folks watching TV programs on those tiny iPod screens poses a real danger to at-home, nightly TV viewing? ..
Link: BusinessWeek. Good analysis. --Dennis
Critic Alex Ross has a great article on the salutary impact of the Web on classical music in this week's New Yorker called The Well-Tempered Web. He provides this in evidence:
... Perhaps the most constructive digitization of classical music is taking place on a Web site called Keeping Score, which is hosted by the San Francisco Symphony. Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco’s music director, has set a new standard for educational programming with a series of behind-the-music radio and television broadcasts. To accompany the TV shows, which delve into canonical works such as Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” Tilson Thomas and the orchestra have set up high-tech pages where listeners can follow the score bar by bar, stop to listen to the conductor’s explanations of the particulars, and see musicians demonstrate how Stravinsky reinvented their instruments. Not since the fifties, when Leonard Bernstein walked across a gigantic blown-up score of Beethoven’s Fifth on the TV show “Omnibus,” has there been such a vividly intelligent introduction to some of the fundamentals of classical music. Tilson Thomas is Bernstein’s most faithful and hopeful follower, and with these programs he is performing radical acts of demystification. ...
But also cautions:
... Those who see the dawning of a new golden age should bear in mind the “Snakes on a Plane” rule: things invariably appear more important on the Internet than they are in the real world. Classical music has experienced waves of technological euphoria in the past: the Edison cylinder, radio, the LP, and the CD were all hailed as redeeming godsends for a kind of music that has always struggled to find its place in American culture. At the end of such bouts of giddiness, classical music somehow always winds up back where it started, in a state of perpetual fret. ...
Link: The New Yorker. Ross's blog is, The Rest Is Noise.
This is a must-read piece for music-oriented pubcasters, especially with regard to how the Net enables mini-communities to thrive. There are lessons to be learned here for web strategies. --Dennis
"Free as in free beer" is such a powerful impulse among us that even when something is offered free for voluntary payment, most people opt for not paying. Gee, where have I learned that in my public broadcasting career? The band, Radiohead, is the latest business to discover this as Nate Anderson writes:
Radiohead's innovative digital distribution arrangement for their new album, In Rainbows, lets people pay whatever they want for the music, including nothing at all. Despite that, BitTorrent swapping of the album has been on the level of other major releases. Are people really so cheap that they won't even register with the band in order to snag a free download? The answer appears to be yes. ...
... Once the album became available for download, though, it spilled immediately onto P2P networks, primarily BitTorrent. ...
Link: Ars Technica.
Of course, as Radiohead is discovering, that's not to say that the collective economic impact of those who choose to pay isn't a sufficiently compelling business model. Umair Haque calls this open pricing and points to this post in Valleywag (Radiohead estimates doom record labels):
... What nobody knew was whether fans would pay for a Radiohead album if they didn't have to. Certainly, the record labels had to be hoping they wouldn't. Too bad for the fat cats, because reports are that the average price paid for "In Rainbows" fell between $5 and $8. A low estimate of Radiohead's take in two days is $6 million. Sounds like bands with a following now have permission to skip labels.
Read Haque's analysis in Bubblegeneration, Research Note: Open Pricing and Revolutionizing Value Creation:
... open pricing is the most revolutionary innovation to hit the economy for a long time; how it will absolutely eviscerate massconomy business models; etc.
Also see his Research Note: Death of an Industry and Research Note: Why Radiohead Will Revolutionize Music, also in Bubblegeneration.
--Dennis (the Dennis who frequently fast-forwards his DVR through commercials to avoid "paying" for what he's watching, but who does contribute to public broadcasting).
Sarah McBride had a nice interview with NPR's CEO, Ken Stern in today's Wall Street Journal. Unlike many other WSJ content items, this one is not hiding behind DRM. Link: Wall Street Journal. Thanks to Tim Eby for the tip who is (disclosure time), like me, a member of the NPR Board of Directors. --Dennis
Doug Kaye has started a new "channel" on The Conversations Network, a non-profit distributor of worthy audio and video programming. The new channel is called Media Conversations and starts with three interviews by Ralph Simon with Glen Hiemstra and Gerd Leonhard (separately and together) on the future of media. I'm a big fan of Leonhard's work in the audio space, but am less familiar with Hiemstra. In any case, these interviews are well worth your time. Link: Media Conversations channel. --Dennis
Sorry, but I just found a bunch of comments going back to early September that I just authorized for publishing -- most from people I know -- thanks. Either TypePad stopped sending me email notices of new comments or Clearwire's spam filter is eating the notices they are sending. Will check it out. --Dennis
Since many of my friends subscribe to this blog (or perhaps I should say all subscribers are by definition friends), I thought I should let you know why I'm taking some time off from posting. My wife of nearly 31 years, Sandra Haarsager (the picture of her on a jet ski was taken September 20 in Labadee, Haiti), died last Saturday after a short bout with an aggressive pneumonia that was itself a complication of a 2½-year bout with cancer. In my last post six days ago, I said that we were writing a book together. It would have been her third and two others were in various stages of completion.
Sandra was an amazing woman, accomplished in journalism, administration, academia (she was a "full bird" professor), music and -- not the least -- motherhood. In spite of a stage 4 cancer diagnosis in the spring of 2005, she pretty much carried on the same ambitious schedule she always had, though she did give up her college's associate dean job to go back to teaching full time. On that occasion, Dan Bukvich, a talented University of Idaho music faculty colleague and friend composed and framed a piece using the letters of her name and the letters of words that he felt (accurately) described her. These words were Astute, Calm, Insightful, Understanding, Kind and Professional. To those, I would add Intrepid.
Update 18 Oct. 2007:
We held a memorial service for Sandra at the University of Idaho a week ag0. Some 400 people attended. The music was amazing. The tributes were touching. Those who attended will never forget it. Or her. The Argonaut newspaper at the university carried a story about it here. Thanks to the many, many of you who via email or in comments below or who sent cards conveyed your friendship in this time. --Dennis
I was happy (though I had to follow two of my tech heroes, John C. Dvorak and Mark Schubin) to give a presentation again this year as part of the Iowa DTV Symposium, a national event held annually in Des Moines and organized by Dan Miller's great staff at Iowa Public Television. My topic was the title of this post and attempts to use information theory to find a middle ground between legacy media and new media, the former group too often suffering from hubris and the latter often characterized by naïvté. I made a preliminary series of four posts on this topic back in early June (here's part I and you can get to the other three from it). My wife the professor and I are writing a book expanding on the topic. Stay tuned.
I think they'll be posting audio to their web site, but for now, you can look at my PowerPoint deck which I've posted in the Files area on the left of this blog's main page. Here's the direct link. --Dennis
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