Paul the Mediageek notes National Public Radio’s Morning Edition ran a piece on pirate radio in Florida last week that screams “lame.” The reporter, WGCU news director Amy Tardif, only talked to a representative from Clear Channel (who whines about losing advertisers to a pirate), someone from the Florida Association of Broadcasters, and a cop on the hunt of a station. This makes her come off as a well-played, ignorant cracker. And the news hook is only a year and a half old. Possibly one of the worst pieces on the subject ever run on public broadcasting. Continue reading “Public Radio Hacks On Florida Pirate”
Category: Journalism
Clear Channel Tacitly Approves Newsroom Name Sales
Madison IMCsta turned pro blogger Kristian Knutsen has written a three–part series on Clear Channel stations in Madison and Milwaukee selling the naming rights to their newsrooms.
Kristian queried Clear Channel corporate about the deals and whether they’re part of any national trend: he got a response from someone at Brainerd Communications, a PR firm which specializes in corporate crisis management. “[C]orporate offices are not commenting. These were local decisions made by local stations.” Kristian thus surmises “the company does not disapprove of this new business direction, and considers newsroom sponsorships to be appropriate.” Continue reading “Clear Channel Tacitly Approves Newsroom Name Sales”
Newsroom Naming Rights: A National Trend?
There’s been buzz about two Clear Channel radio stations in Wisconsin that have sold off the naming rights to their newsrooms. WISN in Milwaukee christened the “PyraMax Bank News Center” last year; come January, anchors at Madison’s WIBA will report from the “Amcore Bank News Center.” WISN and WIBA constitute Clear Channel’s primary news presence in both markets and both stations carry conservative-talk formats.
The deals have been portrayed as a kind of throwback to the “Camel News Caravan” days. Sort of quaint, even. Any working/teaching journalist who believes this should hang it up and bundle themselves into a rocking chair to reminisce on the golden years. The menace of such sponsorship is the perception it stands to engender about who bankrolls your news. Not to mention that it’s tacky as f*ck. Wasn’t appropriate then, still not now. Continue reading “Newsroom Naming Rights: A National Trend?”
Powell Pimps Invasive Adverts
Former FCC chairman Mikey Powell joins Reactrix Media Systems as a “senior advisor.” This is in supplement to his main gig, moving large capital in telecom investment-land.
Reactrix is deploying what it calls “reactive media network” technology – motion-sensitive electronic billboard-style advertising – in malls, theatres, chain stores and other spaces of public commerce.
Mikey sez: “This new reactive media that Reactrix has pioneered, like the Internet before it, has the long-term potential to fundamentally change the way consumers receive and exchange information.” Add another feather to his stellar legacy.
Scene Reports: California, Illinois
California: Skidmark Bob just interviewed Monkey of the infamous Pirate Cat Radio. Monkey scored an early copy of Stephen Dunifer’s TV transmitter kit and put Pirate Cat TV on the air six months ago; its 80-watt signal can be seen on Channel 13 in the San Francisco area. Programming consists of a growing catalog of DIVX .avi files on a homebrew server with a terabyte of storage, and the station is actively soliciting more content.
As for Pirate Cat Radio, Monkey says there’s about 30 DJs presently, and the dues-paying fundraising model takes care of their needs. At the end of the interview he says the station will soon “upgrade” from 220 to 1,000 (!) watts, mostly by moving to a directional antenna system. Continue reading “Scene Reports: California, Illinois”
A Unique Perspective on Public Radio
Jack Mitchell is pretty cool. He was National Public Radio’s first hire, co-creator of All Things Considered, and rose from there to chair NPR’s Board of Directors. He’s now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and just wrote a book on the history of public radio.
I have yet to read Listener Supported but Jack just did an hour-long interview on our local public radio station (MP3 link / RA link) and he gave a colorful description of the political origins of NPR, at one point comparing the initial work environment to a commune (check stereotypes at the door, please). He also honestly and deftly handled some critical calls about the state of public broadcasting today.
At Madison I had a chance to take Jack’s class on “public, community and alternative media,” and it was pretty good – he’s got a nice, dry wit. He even let me take half a period to spell everyone about the days I had missed class for the Seattle Mosquito Fleet operation. Knowing public radio has roots in folks like Jack gives me a semblance of hope for its future.
Work Noise
During the National Conference for Media Reform I was lucky enough to sit down and throw a few questions at FCC Commissioner Michael Copps in 
formal interview-style (24:52, 11.4 MB), courtesy of Free Speech TV producer Lee Buric and John Grebe (Sounds of Dissent). As you can hear, we basically took turns in the chair.
The interruption of Grebe’s line by Jordan Goldberg, Copps’ senior legal advisor, kind of threw things off and made my own lines of inquiry a bit more circumspect (IBOC, microradio, and the future of the Telecom Act). Grebe was trying to get at the translator speculation/trafficking controversy. I felt like Copps played an adroit politician, in that he didn’t give up any substantive information. Continue reading “Work Noise”
The St. Louis Experience
I cannot claim to have participated much directly in the National Conference for Media Reform, given that I was paid to observe: busy recording, editing, and uploading stuff as the radio-centric house organ of sponsor Free Press. All of the conference audio and video is now up on their server and should be publicly available within the next few days. I expect Be the Media! blog traffic will continue to trickle in for a while as well.
Personally speaking, the best parts of the conference were not even related to the event itself. Thursday night’s benefit party for KDHX at the City Museum blew minds. Think of a funhouse for adults, with live bands and beer: it puts the vaunted Arch to shame. Then there were all of the friends both old and new who’d come into town for the weekend. The ratio of extracurricular fun to sleep that was taking place should have killed me (14 hours of crash time upon return home helped). Finally, I had the chance to tag-team (with Free Speech TV and Sounds of Dissent) an interview with FCC Commissioner Michael Copps (audio forthcoming), who artfully mostly-deflected questions on microradio, IBOC, and other sundry subjects. Watching politician-sweat break out up close can be fun! Continue reading “The St. Louis Experience”
NCMR Ahoy
It’s off to St. Louis for the National Conference for Media Reform. Things will be quiet here till next week, so I suggest clicking over to the Be the Media! blog where several of us attendees will be collectively chronicling thoughts. The action has already begun to flow, which is a good sign. I will do my best to satisfy the ear with daily summary pieces and, hopefully, oodles of raw audio enjoyment.
UC-IMC Buys Post Office
~30,000 square feet, including massive open space, suites of offices, and crazy hidden nooks and crannies (where postal inspectors once kept secret watch on the staff).
$218,000 goes a long way in east-central Illinois. The IMC already has about a third of that on hand, and the rest, it is hoped, can be paid by renting out space to other groups and such. The potential for a performance space nearly dwarfs anything else available off-campus. The post office still maintains a station in the building, but as tenants ($1 a year for the next ten): Uncle Sam say hi to your new landlord! Continue reading “UC-IMC Buys Post Office”