Technology360

T-Mobile and Orange to test 100-channel mobile TV

Richard Wray writes:

T-Mobile and Orange will today announce a partnership to run a commercial trial in west London of a new mobile TV technology which could allow handset users to tune in to up to 100 channels.  ¶  The technology, TDTV, has been developed by US-based NextWave Wireless at its British unit in Chippenham, Wiltshire, and could provide a cheaper and more efficient way to get broadcast TV on to mobile phones. The trial, due to start in late summer, will see several thousand Londoners given either a new handset - made by a far eastern manufacturer rumoured to be LG - or a wireless receiver, no bigger than a matchbox, which will transfer the channels to their mobile phones. ...

Link:  The Guardian.  --Dennis

Program pledging competing with station pledging?

Wired editor-in-chief and author of The Long Tail book and blog, Chris Anderson listens to public radio via podcasting and writes in his blog about responding to an embedded podcast appeal from This American Life to help with its $100k/year streaming bill but not responding to his local station's pledge week.  He does acknowledge that the money local stations aggregate for TAL far exceeds this $100k, without which that show and others like it wouldn't exist in either broadcast or podcast form. 

Also implied in his comments are a contradiction to the old saw in broadcasting that people listen to radio stations but watch public television programs.  There's a lot of truth in that, but public radio (for those not familiar with me, I manage Northwest Public Radio's stations among other things) is an unusually program-oriented medium, so podcasting works well in that context.  But does our listen-to-radio-stations approach to pledging work against that?

Check out Anderson's posting.  Link:  The Long Tail.  Thanks to Tim Eby for the tip.  --Dennis

Slacker's portable device is shipping

Slacker, an online music service that learns from user responses, is now shipping its portable listening device (think of it as a radio), according to Joanna Stern in Laptop magazine.  Her article carries an interview with Slacker's marketing VP that's worth reading, especially for what's coming next.  Slacker's approach is compelling because it combines personalization with portability in one device, and can update without a USB tether.  --Dennis

Internet radio hits the mainstream

Citing some data on listening to podcasts from the UK, Jemima Kiss writes:

... Commissioned by the industry's audience research body Rajar, the Ipsos Mori survey last autumn found that more than 12 million people have listened to the radio online and 8.1 million listen every week either through live streaming or "listen again" services.  ¶  Ipsos Mori found that 75% of users do not listen to less live radio as a result of listening again online, with 50% tuning into new shows as a result.  ¶  The same was true of podcasting, with one-fifth of respondents saying they now listen to more live radio and nearly one-third saying they listen to new radio shows after sampling them via podcasts.  ¶  Only 8% of those surveyed said they listened to less radio because of the availability of podcasts.  ¶  Of the 4.3 million who have downloaded podcasts, around 1.87 million people listen to at least one podcast each week. ...

Link:  The Guardian.  Thanks to Mark Ramsey for the tip and some analysis.  --Dennis

New WiMAX variation may make it more alluring to carriers

Eric Bangeman writes:

... WiMAX is poised to break out in 2008. But one of the things that could conceivably hold it back from even wider adoption is its confinement to a relatively small slice of spectrum. That may change, as the WiMAX Forum has begun work on a variation of the mobile WiMAX spec that will allow it to operate in spectrum currently used for 3G networks. ...

Link:  Ars Technica.  --Dennis

Get nostalgic and listen to good old FM radio!

I just bought a Nokia N810 "Internet tablet," a very cool under $500 device that I'm hoping will replace my HP PDA and my Sprint multimedia phone.  The device uses OS2008, an operating system that's essentially Maemo, which in turn is based on the Debian flavor of Linux.  Among the software offered is a software-defined FM radio.  Great, I thought before I learned it works only on the older N800. 

The software offer on the Nokia site carries the headline I used for this post plus this description (ouch!):

Before the internet and the digital revolution, music was analog and most of us listened to FM radio. You might remember fixing the antenna in the most perfect position, and the noise when tuning the channels. If you don't remember or you want re-experience it, download the FM radio application now!

Link:  Nokia. 

For its size (smaller than the HP PDA), the N810 has a great screen and ditto for its stereo speakers -- the first really listenable ones I've seen in a portable device -- and comes with its own "Internet radio" pre-programmed with a bunch of stations.  More and more I think we broadcasters need to figure out how to get on these lists.  The N810 connects to the 'Net by a user-friendly WiFi implementation and also has Bluetooth so you can connect through your phone.  Oh, and it has GPS, too.  --Dennis

Internet radio developments

Update 14 January 2008, correcting earlier post.

Here are a couple of reports on Internet radio developments, the fastest growing disruption of broadcasting to date.

In Radio's next evolution is on a tabletop now...and it's not HD, Mark Ramsey writes about RCA's "Infinite Radio."  The unit tunes standard AM and FM (not HD Radio), Internet radio, and Slacker radio, the latter a service that allows one to set up custom "radio" channels that customize and optimize music choices from user preferences and gestures.  Mark is a long-time critic of HD Radio, but there's no reason why HD Radios in the age of IP-to-the-dashboard (see Rob Patersonn post, The Last Web Frontier - The Car) can't also seamlessly do something very similar (see my post from March, A many-to-many radio using HD + IP).  Use your imagination.  Link:  hear2.0.  Thanks to Katy June-Friesen at Current Karen Everhart at Current for the tip.

Rafe Needleman has a report from CES on FlyTunes, an Internet radio aggregator that makes your iPhone or iPod touch into an Internet radio.  Pretty cool.  The article also has a picture of a tabletop Internet radio from Asus.  Link:  CNET CES 2008.  --Dennis

Horowitz Assoc.: news video has top online usage

Horowitz Associates has released a study of broadband video consumption on multiple platforms.  It's the first I've seen that gives information about the relative popularity of what people are using.  And it's good news for those of us in public media.  News video segments top the list, moving from 22% to 36% online weekly usage, 2006 to 2007.  That beats "non-professional online videos," which doubled from 15% to 30%.  The report overview says this about motivation:

... While consumption of broadband video has grown, the study shows that television is still the preferred platform for traditional TV content.  The vast majority (70%) of Internet users who watch TV online say do so because they missed the episode on TV.  About two out of ten (18%) of these respondents say they watch TV shows online to watch them a second time (after having watched them on TV), or that they watch TV shows online just when they happen to find them or when someone else tells them about them (20%).  Conversely, one out of ten (13%) Internet users who watch TV shows online say they watch them directly online, and not on regular TV. ...

Link:  Horowitz Associates.  Thanks to Craig Birkmaier on the OpenDTV mail list.  --Dennis

Cellecast - Radio on-demand - by phone

Mark Ramsey reports on this development for broadcasters and mobile consumers from Cellecast:

... What if you could bring your content to a mobile phone just by dialing it up? But I'm not just talking about "calling in" to listen to a show, I'm talking about turning your phone into an on-demand device that allows you to start, stop, rewind, and fast-forward some of your favorite shows - just like the TiVo at home. ...

Link:  hear2.0.  The service currently has a limited number of titles, many from podcasts like Leo Laporte's This Week in Tech.  The only public radio title I could find is Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me.  It's late tonight, but I've subscribed (free) and will try to check it out this weekend.  This will be a good time to also see if I can figure out how to connect my phone via Bluetooth to my new Jeep's sound system which supports it.  Cellecast's audio is supported by commercials or you can pay a fee for a commercial-free version.  --Dennis

Sony PlayStation Getting Internet Radio

Internet radio continues to grow much faster than did FM (or maybe even AM -- I'm old, but not that old).  Here's another development.  Dave Zatz reports:

Sony has announced that Japanese PSP owners will be getting an update (3.80) next week that includes Internet radio streaming. Interestingly, the screenshot (below) says “Powered by SHOUTcast”… which is produced by an AOL subsidiary. The software also includes enhanced RSS support for OPML and images. I assume these features will make it to the US in the near future, though we obviously won’t be receiving (or utilizing) the ability to schedule video recordings via digital tuner. ...

Link:  Zatz Not Funny!.  Thanks to Mark Ramsey for the tip.  --Dennis

Lots of Little Screens: TV Is Changing Shape

Denise Caruso writes:

Inexpensive broadband access has done far more for online video than enable the success of services like YouTube and iTunes. By unchaining video watchers from their TV sets, it has opened the floodgates to a generation of TV producers for whom the Internet is their native medium.  ¶  And as they shift their focus away from TV to grab us on one of the many other screens in our lives — our computers, cellphones and iPods — the command-and-control economic model of traditional television is being quickly superseded by the market chaos of a freewheeling and open digital network. ...

Link:  New York Times.  --Dennis

Radio Gets Social

Jennifer Woodard Maderazo has a nice overview of many of the social-enabled music discovery systems -- personalized web-based radio streams.  She spends most of her time with Last.fm, Jango and Pandora but also does brief takes on several others (but not Slacker, which is intriguing enough for me to order one of their 15-station players this past week).  Link:  MediaShift.  --Dennis

Is Terrestrial Radio Destined to Die?

... asks Celeste Headlee for National Public Radio's Day to Day program.  Here's the set-up:

The Federal Communications Commission is expected to decide next week whether satellite radio companies Sirius and X-M can merge. Satellite radio has roughly 20 million listeners, but new technologies are posing a challenge to market shares.  ¶  Celeste Headlee reports on the development of portable Internet radio. Then NPR's Alex Cohen gets a primer from Wilson Rothman, an editor at Gizmodo.com on the difference between leading radio technologies and Madeleine Brand talks with Mark Ramsey, president of Mercury Radio Research, about why the emergence of new technologies won't spell the end for terrestrial radio.

And you can listen to the audio at this NPR link (0:12:24).  The interview with Ramsey is particularly good.  Thanks to Roger Johnson for the heads up.  --Dennis

Slacker Portable Player (Finally) on the Way

Hate the name (but then I'm an early boomer), but Slacker the audio service looks really interesting.  I've posted about it four other times if you want to catch up (March 15, March 29, April 22 and June 19).  Slacker is a competitor with the so-far better known Pandora and last.fm in that it uses a station metaphor, permitting users to customize music to their preferences and those of others like them.  Rick Broida did a review of the Slacker beta for PC Magazine back in July to which I failed to link at the time.  It's now taking orders for a mid-December delivery of a player that refreshes "station" content via USB or WiFi.  Earlier reports had a satellite receiver dock coming that would give it true wide range mobile coverage.  There are still references to it on the Slacker site, so even though the dock hasn't been released, I presume it's still on the way.  Tom Gideon writes about the new player this month under the title, Slacker Portable Player (Finally) on the Way.  Link:  PC Magazine.

For commentary on this disruptive technology from a radio consultant's perspective, see Mark Ramsey, Slacker's personal radio player finally debuts.  Link:  Hear 2.0. 

Updated 17 November 2007:
Also see Daniel Langendorf, Slacker Portable player is finally here as alternative to iPod and Zune.  Link:  last100.  --Dennis

Media Conversations

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

Bad times ahead for terrestrial radio

Mark Washburn writes:

... Michael Harrison, publisher of the talk-radio magazine Talkers, told a group at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show that competing technologies -- like Internet, Wi-Fi, podcasts and cell phones -- would all but fill the niche they now occupy.  ¶  "These are dark times for terrestrial radio," Harrison said. "And most people in terrestrial radio are in denial of it." ...

... Harrison, who entered broadcasting in 1967 and has published Talkers since 1990, said he believes most listeners will abandon the traditional AM and FM radio services and migrate to new technologies in the next two decades.  ¶  "The next 15 years will be the demise of terrestrial radio as we know it and the rise of the extraterrestrial," he said. Just as Vaudeville gave way to movies and horses to the automobile, he said, radio will be overtaken by gadgets that serve people's needs more efficiently. ...

Link:  Charlotte Observer.  Internal link added.  Thanks to Kurt Hanson's Radio and Internet Newsletter for the tip.  --Dennis

The impact of wireless Internet on radio listening

Bridge Ratings is out with another interesting report, this one on the impact of emerging wireless Internet services (WiMax, et al.) on traditional radio listening.  It caught my eye because I've been advocating, so far without much success, marrying these devices with HD Radio to expand channels available to listeners via terrestrial radio.  This report suggests it will impact TSL of both terrestrial and satellite stations:

... By year 5 of in-car Wi-Fi acceptance, traditional radio can expect to see the amount of time spent listening to fall below 19 hours a week and by year 8 when we project that more than 23% of the U.S. public will have adopted wireless Internet technology in-car, weekly time spent listening to traditional radio will fall below 18 hours per week.  ¶  What about satellite radio? ¶  Satellite radio has found its greatest audience in-car but has the most to lose with wireless Internet radio reception. This study as well as previous Bridge Ratings studies conducted for the satellite radio industry, show that satellite radio subscribers consumer satellite radio at a far greater weekly rate than do listeners to traditional radio.  ¶  As wireless in-car becomes more accepted, weekly time-spent-listening to satellite radio will also be impacted. ...

Link:  Bridge Ratings.  --Dennis

The iPod touch: great ID meets the robber baron tradition

No doubt about it, Apple's iPhone and iPod touch continue that company's record of high class industrial design.  But if Steve Jobs's taste and focus make for great-looking consumer products, his tightly-integrated hardware/DRM/software business model is more a throwback to the great (and sometimes unfairly labeled) "robber baron" industrialists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  Ironically, this business style is about as far from the culture of the Web as any company active in this space today.  I hope Apple's design sense goes on forever, but the days for its business model are numbered.

The touch takes the iPhone, removes the mediocre camera and mediocre 2G GSM radio, and substitutes a Wi-Fi radio, and the maximum memory is a small 16 GB (though that is double the iPhone's).  My son, writing from Rotterdam, had the following reaction to the touch:

... This ipod, the full touchscreen ipod, I've been waiting for so long, it's incredible, exactly what we all wanted - except - 8gb/16gb?  This is next to nothing!  My ipod, the grandpa of ipods from a whole 4 years ago, is a 15gb.  ...

Most importantly to folks in my business, it continues the crippled version of the Safari browser.  Like a TV cable box with parental controls, it lets you access only media on the web that "Dad" Jobs wants you to access -- in this case, the iTunes Store of course, YouTube and one of the newest media companies, Starbucks (see Gerd Leonhard's reaction to the Starbucks announcement).  Only this isn't to keep you from naughty lyrics, it's to ensure you don't use any media that doesn't give Apple a cut.

The paucity of memory on the touch is puzzling, especially when Apple simultaneously released the iPod Classic with 160 GB of storage.  Why limit what you can store on the only device they have that permits paid downloads from iTunes?

On the subject of the Classic's large storage, read Bob Lefsetz's progressive vision of what Apple should do with this storage:

... It’s like we’re living in the twilight zone. The labels are stuck in the nineties and the public is in the twenty first century. Who even HAS 4,000 albums?  ¶  A lot of people. Oh, not as CDs. But as MP3s, stolen from the Net, their friends, their family.  ¶  People WANT music. The labels just can’t figure out how to sell it to them.  ¶  Took them over three years to even deliver it easily online at a reasonable price (2003’s iTunes Store). But, they still haven’t given people what they want. How about a 160 gig iPod PRELOADED with the greatest hits of the sixties? Or the history of dance music? Don’t bother to steal the music, you can get it, for an extra fifty bucks. ...

Link:  Lefsetz Letter.  Right on.  In the end, preloading will win out over even the iTunes Store -- because folks will realize that its superior pricing rationality and security will kill off virtually all piracy.  If the 2007 iPod Classic holds 40,000 songs.  With Moore's Law progression, we'll have a 1 TB iPod in five years.  Will be a nice retirement gift.  Hint, hint.

--Dennis

P.S.:  The picture above (taken at about the same age as Steve Jobs is now) is of "robber baron" James J. Hill, "The Empire Builder," whose railroad's advertising in Scandinavia and then its tracks were largely responsible for getting my grandparents and thousands of others to Minnesota in the 1880s.

Interview with Rafat Ali

Terry Heaton has a very good interview with journalist Rafat Ali, founder of paidContent.org, mocoNews.net and a third news site dealing with digital content in India.  I've been reading paidContent and mocoNews since they began.  No one does a better job of following the money relating to mobile and digital content.  Link:  Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog.  --Dennis

The State of the Media Democracy - Deloitte & Touch report

Deloitte & Touche USA LLP has a report based on an online survey conducted by Harrison Group.  Here are survey highlights:

High Demand for User-Generated Content

• 40 percent of all survey respondents are making their own entertainment (editing movies, music and photos)
  • 25 percent of Matures
  • 56 percent of all Millennials; leading Millennials (18-24) participate more
• More than one in 10 Millennials are actively uploading their own videos on the Internet
• 51 percent of all survey respondents are watching/reading content created by others
• 71 percent of Millennials, 56 percent of Xers; Boomers/Mature participation is less, but noteworthy
• 53 percent of Millennials would download more videos if  connection speeds were faster
• One-third of online content viewing is done on user-generated sites
  • Almost ¼ for Matures, ½ for Millennials

Long Live Traditional Media!

• Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations
  • Extensive amplification with the Millennials as they tell the most people about what they like
  • 52 percent of Xers are visiting television show Internet sites
• Printed magazines are an integral part of every generation’s life
  • 72 percent enjoy reading magazines over finding the same information online
  • 58 percent of Millennials agree magazines help them learn about what’s “in”
• Compared with online activities like surfing the Web and downloading music, all generations aspire to reading a book in the coming year

Advertising Insights

• 64 percent  tend to pay greater attention to print ads in magazines or newspapers than advertising on the Internet
• More than one-in-four would pay for online content vs. being exposed to ads
• Search engines and word of mouth are the most effective means for driving Web site traffic — 85 percent of Xers are influenced by someone’s recommendation
• 87 percent of respondents continually visit the same Web sites
• Generation Xers are a little more responsive to advertising

Future Products
Millennials are leading the way as far as embracing new technologies, games, entertainment platforms, user-generated content and communication tools:

• 64 percent want to easily connect their television to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to their television
• 60 percent want the ability to move their content to any device they own without any problems
• 57 percent want an entertainment and communication device that lets them do everything
• 49 percent want a computer or similar device that will be the center of their household media experience

You can download a PDF of select findings.   Link:  Deloitte.com.  --Dennis

Internet Radio Races To Break Free of the PC

Yesterday, Sarah McBride had an important article on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about the several Internet radio providers working to untether the content they distribute from the PC.  She features Slacker prominently in the article, which I think is particularly compelling because it combines "music learning" techniques to customize your "station" with innovative yet relatively inexpensive delivery technologies (non-real-time satellite and WiFi).  I've posted here about Slacker (use the search box on the right) and the other companies mentioned, so none of this is new to a careful reader, but she puts this together in a way that makes it hard for us legacy broadcasters to ignore the import of this development.  Link:  Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required).  --Dennis

The Screen Is Tiny, but ... comment

Comments on this blog aren't real visible unless you're coming directly to the post from "outside."  So every once in awhile someone posts a comment that I think should be "graduated" so email and RSS subscribers can see it.  This one, to Sunday's The Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big is from reader John Proffitt at KAKM in Anchorage:

As a Gen Xer myself, working in a public broadcasting entity, I can FEEL this graph every day.

I definitely feel like cell, TV and PC are closely related and just about equally important (each has its advantages and disadvantages).

I also can feel our TV (PBS) market is way, way older than me. We still run Lawrence Welk, for God's sake! And when we do TV pledge, a piddling amount of pledge comes in via the web. Radio does at least 30% online, and sometimes up at 50%. Clearly radio is younger.

Similarly, I'm the youngest manager in the company (if late 30's is young anymore) and I'm the only one with several key new technologies at home. Until this past winter, I was also the only manager with an iPod (or other portable media player).

Here are the two billion dollar questions, though...

[1] As time passes and each generation moves from the left side of the graph to the right side, will their media preferences shift with them in the same proportions? In other words, when I get to be 60 years old, will the PC still be the most important device, or will the TV take over my top preference by then?

[2] In what ways will the media / device landscape change in the next 30 years? Will some variant of IPTV come along? Will TV programming as we know it disappear, to be replaced with something new? Just how pervasive will on-demand digital media be by then?

As those of us on the leading edge of the baby boom sadly know, time marches on in accelerating fashion from where you are and 60 will be here before you know it.  --Dennis

New Media News Digest, 6/12-6/19/2007

Sondra Russell works for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and writes the following News Digest on a weekly basis.  I think it's a very nice piece of work, but it's distributed by email only.  So she's given me permission to quote it here so it can get RSS distribution and also be seen by people outside of public broadcasting.  Her email address is srussell [at] cpb [dot] org.  --Dennis

SONDRA’S SUMMARY

> The top story this week is that CNN and YouTube are co-sponsoring presidential debates.  As reported in the New York Times last week, CNN will host a debate between presidential candidates with questions culled from YouTube.  This highly hyped event may serve as inspiration for public broadcasters who are experimenting with new ways of engaging audiences during the 2008 elections.  Some are already wondering if the hype will match up to the reality – the YouTube clips are still going to be curated by the CNN team and host Andersen Cooper will provide follow-up questions, thus mitigating some of the populist nature of the Web.   

> The key theme this week is that cellphones are more important than televisions to the 26 and under crowd.  An infographic supporting a New York Times story about various networks’ ambitious cellphone initiatives indicates that both cellphones and computers are more important to younger generations than television. And this is before the iPhone is even released. 

 > The think piece this week is that NBC announced an online educational venture.  By leveraging its vast news archives, iCue (“Immerse, Compete, Understand, and Excel”) will serve as a supplement to Advanced Placement high school courses in American History, Government, and English.  Cost?  $10M.  Business model?  Subscription fees from schools and advertising on the site.  As pubcasters consider exploring the online space, there may be some lessons learned (both positive and negative) from NBC’s foray.

New Media News Digest, June 12th – June 19th, 2007

TELEVISION

Fox Entertainment Signs Internet TV Distributor Brightcove

From PaidContent: "Fox has tapped online TV distributor Brightcove to provide its networks and studio with ad-supported internet video channels. The pact will also give Fox the ability to target its broadband video directly to specific demos."

Sony Offers Web-Streaming Device As Option on HDTVs
From the WSJ: "The fight is intensifying in the battle to bring the Internet -- and all the video available on it -- to a television near you. Sony will include its Internet streaming device as an option in all of its new HD television models this year."

HD programming wars: Comcast says 800 HD channels by 2009
From ArsTechnica: "At a press conference I attended at CES early this year, DIRECTV proudly announced that it would have 100 HD channels available by year end. Comcast is trying to trump its competitor by saying that it will have over 800 HD channels by that time."

INTERNET

YouTube Passes Debates to a New Generation
From the NYT: "YouTube, which is owned by Google, and CNN are co-sponsoring a debate among the eight Democratic presidential candidates on July 23 in South Carolina, an event that could define the next phase of what has already been called the YouTube election."

Cellphones and Computers Rank Higher Than Televisions in the 18-to-26 Age Group
From the NYT -- an infographic in support of a story about broadcasters creating mobile content indicates that younger generations prefer their computers and cellphones more than their televisions.

Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big
ESPN isn't alone. Other companies, like CBS and MTV, as well as news organizations like The Associated Press and magazine concerns like the Hearst Corporation, are investing in original cellphone content.

Canadian New Media Fund Gets $27.3M from Government
From CBC: "Administered by Telefilm , the Canada New Media Fund was created in 2001 to support the development, production, marketing and distribution of original Canadian new media projects in both official languages."

Ad Revenues -- Up 16% Online, Down 0.3% For Radio

From TNS Media Intelligence: "Internet display advertising is projected to lead the market with 16.0 percent growth in 2007. Network TV expenditures are expected to increase by just 1.3 percent. Small declines are also projected for Radio (-0.3 percent)."

RADIO

Big Radio Makes a Grab for Internet Listeners 
From the NYT: "Confronted by a slow erosion of listeners who are turning to iPods, podcasts and other sources for entertainment, the radio corporations are trying to merge their over-the-air music and D.J. chatter with the Web."

EDUCATION

NBC Developing Educational Site for Students
From the NYT: "The network is to announce an online venture intended as a supplement to Advanced Placement high school courses in three subjects: American history, government and English. The effort draws heavily on its exhaustive film and video archives."

The Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big

Louise Story has a lengthy article with some good comparative analysis about ESPN's programming for cell phones, writing:

... Underlying the interest in cellphones as the Next Big Media Platform is a generation gap: younger people use cellphones more than their baby-boomer parents do — and for a lot more than chatting. More than three-quarters of 18- to 26-year-olds use some type of data services — compared with 44 percent of the general population — and their time spent messaging, downloading content, watching video and surfing around the mobile slipstream is also higher, according to Forrester.  ¶  “For the younger generation, the mobile phone is their most relevant device,” says Dan Novak, an executive at MediaFLO USA, a cellphone video network. “They don’t want just clips. They want long-form programming, they want shows that are simulcast, they basically want a TV-like experience." ...

Link:  New York Times.

Confessions of a Podcast Junkie

Graduate student Carie Windham has written a great article on the personal and educational aspects of podcasting.  Link:  EDUCAUSE Review [pdf version]  --Dennis

New Media News Digest, 5/28-6/4, 2007

Sondra Russell works for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and writes the following News Digest on a weekly basis.  I think it's a very nice piece of work, but it's distributed by email only.  So she's given me permission to quote it here so it can get RSS distribution and also be seen by people outside of public broadcasting.  Her email address is srussell [at] cpb [dot] org.  --Dennis

___________________________________________

Welcome to the New Media News Digest for the week of June 4th.  For those of you who are new, I comb and curate various new media sources on a weekly basis with an eye towards issues specifically related to new media activities within public broadcasting.  I welcome comments and feedback.  If you have received this from a friend or colleague, please email me to be added to the list of upcoming mailers.  If you would like to unsubscribe, please do the same.

Thanks,

Sondra Russell

SONDRA’S SUMMARY

> The big story this week is that Radiosophy will be offering a $60 HD Radio.  Why is this, in light of everything else going on this week, the top story?  Because commercial and public broadcasters have collectively invested hundreds of millions in HD Radio conversion, while audiences have stayed away in droves.  Surveys indicate that consumers don’t see spending $150-$200 on a special radio just to get a couple extra channels of CD quality programming, especially in light of cheaper, better alternatives such as online streaming audio and satellite radio.  However, consumers might be willing to spend $60 or, if the Radiosophy announcement is just the beginning of an industry-wide price drop, $30 or $40.

> The key theme this week is disintermediation.  Up until now, those who doubted the possibility of Internet video distribution rendering the television network obsolete could argue that, at the end of the day, people don’t want to watch television on their computer.  While there have been ways to download Internet-distributed video straight to the TV for a while now, Apple has finally made it consumer-grade with their announcement this week that YouTube will be accessible directly on the television, via AppleTV.  The first beneficiary of this move?  Possibly the audiences of Venezuela’s Radio Caracas Television, who announced this week that they will broadcast via YouTube despite having had broadcast operations shut down by President Hugo Chavez.  Students protested violently, but may get their RCT after all.

> The think piece this week is another Apple announcement – as part of a re-launched Apple Music Store, Apple has added iTunes U, a portal for universities to offer filmed lectures free online.   Many public television and radio stations already offer public service content online, such as university lectures and interviews with local political figures.  Public broadcasters’ podcasts have benefited greatly from the increased visibility and easy user interface offered by the Apple Music Store.  Could pubcasters find a way to partner with Apple to distribute these other types of public service content?

New Media News Digest, May 28th– June 4th, 2007

INTERNET

Apple Offers Free Educational Content on iTunes
From Apple: "Apple today announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities."

Apple Launches DRM Free Music
From Apple: "Apple today launched iTunes Plus DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings for just $1.29 per song."

EMI Signs Deal with YouTube
From the WSJ: "EMI Music, the music division of EMI Group, will make music videos and recordings available on Google's popular online-video Web site. YouTube visitors will also be able to include EMI content in their own video postings on the site."

TELEVISION

YouTube Coming to Apple TV
From Apple: "Beginning in mid-June, Apple TV will wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube and play them on a user’s widescreen TV."

Silenced Venezuelan TV station moves to YouTube
From CNN: "Radio Caracas Television, the station silenced by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, has found a way to continue its daily broadcasts -- on YouTube, the popular video Web site."

Hearst-Argyle, YouTube to Share Revenue From TV Video Clips
From the WSJ: "Hearst-Argyle Television Inc., one of the nation's largest operators of local TV stations, will distribute news, weather and entertainment video to Google Inc.'s YouTube in a revenue-sharing agreement."

RADIO

$60 HD Radio
From NYT: "The cost of receiving digital AM and FM signals will drop next week as Radiosophy releases its HD100 receiver for less than $60 with a rebate."

comScore Study Reveals That Males Between the Ages of 18-24 More Likely to Download Podcasts via iTunes

From ComScore: "An analysis of the iTunes podcasting audience revealed that males represented a significantly larger share of the audience than did females.  In addition, 18-24 year olds represented a substantial share of the audience." (Thanks to Dennis Haarsager)

CBS Buys Last.FM, an Online Radio Site
From the NYT: "CBS said yesterday that it had acquired Last.FM, an online radio and social-networking site, for $280 million to expand its digital offerings. The purchase is regarded as a way for CBS to grab an audience online."

Listen to your iTunes™ on your mobile phone

I've not tried this, but Mark Ramsey is pointing (link: hear2.0) to a new and so far free service from a company called nuTsie that permits you to listen to your iTunes™ playlist on your phone or on the web by exporting your library's metadata (not the actual music files) to nuTsie which then locates  the same tracks on its servers and plays them in shuffle mode.  --Dennis

The mobile consumer

From a Nielsen Co. press release:

Nielsen Wireless estimates that in the first quarter of 2007, more than 33 million persons 12 and older used mobile web in the past 30 days, and more than 8 million persons 12 and older viewed video on their mobile phone (this excludes videos created with a phone's camcorder function). According to the CTIA (the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry), there are more than 230 million wireless subscriptions in the U.S. Nielsen also estimates that:

• At least 7% of 18-34 year-olds viewed mobile video programming in the first quarter of 2007 while at least 25% used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet
• As of May 31, more than half, 55%, of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total incomes of $75,000 or above.
• Subscribers to different carriers vary in terms of cable status: people in Sprint households were 30% more likely than people in T-mobile households to have a digital broadcast satellite (DBS) system.  People in Verizon Wireless households are 26% more likely to have digital cable service in their home (39% of Verizon Wireless household persons had wired digital cable compared to 31% of U.S. Persons 2+).
• The mobile video audience skews somewhat older and male: 46% of the mobile video audience is 35 years or older and 54% of the audience is male.
• There are differences in traditional television viewing by wireless carrier:
  • The rating for the May 23 American Idol finale on FOX was higher among people in Verizon households than those in Sprint or AT&T households by differences of 11 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

• Looking at primary users of mobile video-enabled phones across the 2006-2007 TV season, American Idol earned the highest rating among Sprint subscribers, averaging a 13.2 rating during Tuesday telecasts and a 13.5 rating during Wednesday telecasts among Sprint's primary users of video-enabled phones. ...

Link:  Nielsen Media Research.

18-24 males more likely to download iTunes podcasts

From a comScore press release:

... An analysis of the iTunes podcasting audience revealed that males represented a significantly larger share (63 percent) of the audience than did females (37 percent).  In addition, 18-24 year olds represented a substantial share of the audience (29 percent) and were more than twice as likely as the average Internet user to download podcasts.  People between the ages of 35-54 represented about half of the podcasting audience and were also more likely than average to download podcasts. ...

Link:  comScore.  Thanks to Mark Ramsey for the link.  --Dennis

CBS buys Last.fm - and what it means

Mark Ramsey writes about the CBS acquisition of Last.fm, one of several next-generation Internet radio services that get smarter by adjusting to listener preferences:

...  Fast-forward two years and you'll see Last.fm integrated in all of CBS's radio websites which, for the first time, will enable customized versions of the analog stations you love - and whatever else your heart desires. Stations that could ultimately be available via mobile technologies. Stations that could theoretically include advertising.  ¶ It is inevitable that radio - or aspects of radio - will become personalized. ...

Link:  hear2.0.

Also see CBS Continues Interactive Strategy With Acquisition of Last.fm.  Link:  Radio World.

And Last.fm, CBS' $280 million hedge for its radio biz?  Link:  GigaOM.

Not unexpectedly, Mark sees this as bad news.   But I think that's true only if the radio industry sits back and does nothing.  Some of us will.  Some of us won't.  The relatively open HD Radio standard opens the door wide for innovation -- not to mention the Net as a new platform -- and surely some of us will step through.  Back in March, I posted a concept for a "many-to-many" radio that could easily be "socialized."  I'd agree with Mark that's the right direction.  Let's get busy.  --Dennis

Pandora Mobile Radio

Dave Van Dyke writes:

Sprint Nextel Corp and Pandora Media Inc., have teamed up to offer the personalized streaming radio service to its mobile phone users. And Pandora is likely not going to stop there. We figure Sprint is just the first of many mobile carriers. Pandora also announced this week an up-coming Wi-Fi music player. Uh-Oh! Faster than you can say "Here comes wireless Internet Radio", we've got a new contender. ...

Link:  Navigate the Future.

Also see Mark Hefflinger's, Pandora Personalized Web Radio Comes to Sprint Phones, Sonos Player.  Link:  DigitalMediaWire (with links).

For pictures, see Michael Arrington's, Prototype Of Pandora Wifi Device Shown ..., Link: TechCrunch.  Thanks to Scott Weatherly.

And May Wong, Sprint to Offer Pandora Streaming Radio.  Link AP via Chicago Tribune.

Updated 25 May, 2007:
Also see Tong Zhang's Sprint to Deliver Pandora for Personalized Streaming Radio on Mobile Phones.  Link: MobileTechReview.  --Dennis

Clear Channel Expands Mobile Services

Radio World reports:

Clear Channel Radio has introduced customized cell phone applications, extending interactive services aimed at listener cell phones.  ¶  Listeners of several Clear Channel stations in New York City can now send text messages into the studio, participate in contests, receive an alert before their favorite song plays, make requests and dedications, and view the last 10 songs played on participating stations. ...

Thanks to Scott Weatherly.  --Dennis

The Light at the End of the Tunnel: In-car Internet

Dave Van Dyke writes:

... 2007 will be the year cars and tech really mesh, thanks in part to Ford's Sync, a hands-free cell phone gizmo. It will also let you control your MP3 player using voice commands. Sync will be available on about a dozen 2007 car models in the fall and, yes, it works with those 100 million iPods out there.  ¶  But this is only the beginning. Future versions of Sync will incorporate Wi-Fi so you can download your email while driving through a Net cloud and then have the system read them to you.  ¶  And there's something called Autonet Mobile that wants to turn your car into a rolling hot spot. It will allow for high-speed Internet reception and seamless data streaming; that means you can listen to Internet radio, or browse the Internet, or pick up your email without signal drop-out. It also means everyone in the car could share one connection. ...

Link:  Navigate the Future.

Introducing the Future of Mobile TV

LG Electronics, which makes what may be the only ATSC DTV decoder chips that really work, and Harris Corp., the broadcast equipment manufacturer (transmitters, etc.), have "unveiled new, inexpensive technology that allows stations to zip local news and other video content to phones, portable video players, and in-car entertainment systems within a 45-mile radius."

Olga Kharif continues:

... Now, the Korean technology could bypass that approach, cutting out the wireless carriers. "We don't need carrier partners," says Jay Adrick, vice-president at Harris' broadcast communications division. Besides the LG and Harris announcement, Samsung unveiled a similar technology earlier this year. TV broadcasters like the idea that they will be able to keep control of their programming and advertising—rather than becoming beholden to wireless operators. Burgess says that members of the coalition, if it is formed, will decide on one technology standard, most likely LG's or Samsung's. They will also determine whether to offer mobile TV for free, or to charge a small fee for the service.  ¶  The potential alliance creates all sorts of problems for rivals. XM and Sirius have been working for years on ways to deliver video to cars. Sirius is expected to finally make video available in some 2008 model cars later this year. (To make matters worse, the LG technology will allow TV stations to transmit radio signals—so XM and Sirius may see more competition in their core radio business.) ...

Link:  BusinessWeek.

In LG, Harris Corp. Debut New Local TV Mobile Broadcast Technology, Mark Hefflinger reports, "... A spokesman for Harris told Reuters it would cost stations about $100,000 to $500,000 to upgrade their existing broadcast transmitters for the system, depending on market size and number of channels offered. ..."  Link: DigitalMediaWire.

Here is the press release from Harris Corp.

Lots of other stories on this development.  Here's the Google search. 

Now we know why LG built a 6th generation ATSC chip when the  5th generation one works pretty well in fixed locations.  --Dennis 

Mobile the 7th Mass Media is to internet like TV is to radio

Tomi T. Ahonen writes:

Mobile as the 7th mass media is as much superior to the internet, as TV is to radio. Today at 2.7 billion mobile phone users, there are three times as many mobile phones as personal computers (and over a quarter of all internet access is already from mobile phones). There are nearly twice as many mobile phones as TV sets. Twice as many people use messaging on a phone (SMS text messaging) as use e-mail on the web. But mobile was first a communication device. It emerged as the 7th mass media only by the year 2000. By far the youngest of the seven mass media, the mobile is also by far the least understood. ...

Link:  Communities Dominate Brands.

Mobile Internet Access

Eric Griffith has an article about Autonet, a new service that serves as a mobile wireless connection for yo