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Monday, February 19, 2007
A floor on the question 
| | I had a brainstorm-y idea I floated to NPR I will try out on you, too. Keep in mind that it's an ill-formed, un-thought-through idea, which you should feel free to kick the bejeezus out of. |
| | NPR values civil discourse. And, despite its reputation in some circles, it's committed to being non-partisan. So, suppose on pages devoted to particular segments or topics, NPR listeners were explicitly charged with pulling together links that represent the spectrum of opinion and thought on that topic. If it were a page about, say, the Libby trial, users would be asked to find Web references from the left and right, from US and elsewhere, from the scholarly to the flippant. If this were to work, it would presumably be because some small cadre of users stepped up to the task. Getting the "social physics" right would be crucial, of course.(This idea is spurred by Debatepedia, except it aims at a plurality of views, not a duopoly.) |
| | Bad idea? Impractical? Undesirable? Too much coffee, not enough reality? |
| | It's a good idea that needs to be fleshed out. Some thoughts about that. |
| | First, it's not just about opinions and thought. It's about facts. Getting connected obsessives to do research of the "more eyes make bugs shallower" sort will become essential to news coverage in any case. Let's come up with a system that helps that happen. |
| | Second, the trick will be getting the right aggregations going. Scaling has to be from the many sources to the few useful contributions that will work. And by "useful" I don't mean just to NPR, but to the listeners — and to the growing number of producers with which NPR and its stations will inevitably and necessarily affiliate themselves. Metadata will be involved, I presume, but IANAP, so I'm not sure. |
| | Third, we need to surface the kind of stuff that can, for example, a) help save us from terror attacks before they happen; b) help save us from going to war over bad intelligence data; c) help us end unnecessary conflicts; d) help improve the processes of democracy and governance; e) expose and deal with disagreements while keeping discourse civil. Not easy in any case, but an imporant challenge in the long run. |
| | One take-away for me from Jay's answer to Michel's question (which David brings up here) is that we can't get to the bottom of things either through arguments between polarized pundits or through high-minded professional journalism of the Old School that NPR still (commendably) embodies. We need Something Else too. Something we don't have yet; or do have but haven't pulled together. |
A ground-level view of the XM/Sirius merger in the sky
| | USA Today says Sirius and XM are going to merge. Mel Karmazin, possibly the wisest guy in commercial radio, will be the CEO. Gary Parsons, currrent CEO of XM, will be chairman. |
| | There are a number of problems with this merger; but they're also problems with satellite radio in general: |
| | 1) Antitrust. There are too few companies — just two — in satellite radio here in the U.S.; and soon there will be only one. Imagine if one company owned the whole FM band. It's like that. (Yes, I know Clear Channel sort-of does in many places, but what's dead about terrestrial radio is not on the table here.) The only thing keeping this merger out of antitrust territory is the still experimental nature of the whole medium, and the fact that neither company as it stands is known for its profitability. (Sirius reported positive cash flow only late last year.) |
| | 2) Program quality. The new company will presumably encourage production of radios that receive both services, which will be nice. But what will lack of competition between Sirius and XM do for programming on either of the former sides? There may be more money to buy better quality talent or whatever; but I find it hard to imagine how a drop in competition will improve anything. Which brings us to... |
| | 3) Monoculture. I don't care how diverse the programming becomes, it's still coming from too few companies. When the choice gets down to one, I guarantee that programming will have a homogenous quality to it. There's already a self-sameness to both Sirius and XM, and that's sure to be the case with Xirius or whatever they call the new company. And I say this as a generally pleased Sirius customer. At some point Xirius' homogeneity will not compete against the absolute heterogeneity that listeners already find outside the walled garden(s) of satellite radio. |
| | 4) Obsolescence. When the two services started (around a decade ago), a total of 300 different "channels" (around 150 apiece) seemed like a lot. The program choices for listeners on either XM or Sirius far exceeded the sum of available sources from terrestrial radio. But now the sum of all program choices runs into the thousands or perhaps even millions. Yes, satellite radio is live while most of the other choices are just stored files; but files are easier to distribute and lend themselves to iPod-style listening. (On the "T" this morning here in Boston, I noted that a quarter of all the commuters in my subway car were listening to something on earphones. I'm sure it wasn't radio — satellite or otherwise.) As Dave says, listeners want to program their own "stations". Many listeners, which we used to call "consumers" are now also producers, for themselves and others. Where does satellite radio fit in that picture? I don't think even Mel Karmazin knows. Meanwhile, the whole system continues to leverage an understanding of How Radio Works that is, to say the least, not current — much less future-proof. |
| | 5) Costs. The running costs of maintaining satellite radio infrastructure is high, to say the least. Too high? Not as long as the company remains profitable. Which brings us to... |
| | 6) Revenues. Subscriptions may be enough. But if they're not, what will happen when something better obsoletes the kind of advertising that has sustained radio for the duration? I may be wrong about this, but I've long believed that the inherent inefficiencies of broadcast advertising will doom the model in the long run. I haven't been right yet about that, so feel free to continue not believing me. |
| | I'm not saying I don't approve of the merger, by the way. If this is what we need to keep satellite radio alive, all the better. But I think it's important to keep the downsides in mind — not just for the merger, but for satellite radio itself. |
| | Of course, I can't resist a pitch for VRM here. If we make VRM work, listeners' equipped-to-pay interest in hearing Howard Stern, On the Media and Open Source Radio will help shape whatever intermediary technologies do the best job of satisfying demand. |
Lawsuits are not conversations
| | JerryRobertsAndFriends.org is where Jerry is looking for help in fighting just one of the lawsuits that have oozed out of the Santa Barbara News-Press meltdown. |
| | Ampersand¹s lawsuit says Paterno¹s article is "nothing but a biased, false and misleading diatribe" against McCaw and that "factual statements are affirmatively false or else they omit critical facts in order to portray events through the prism of the writer¹s agendaŠThe result is a one-sided article." McCaw, whose lawyer did not return a message seeking comment, has been silent throughout the controversy. The News-Press wrote in its Jan. 16 editorial that it is not commenting to any media because, as stated by the Santa Barbara Independent weekly newspaper; "N-P management is not talking to reporters because the meltdown involves personnel issues ... but also because management believes that certain media outlets' 'pattern of coverage has made it clear that understanding the complete story only gets in the way of sensationalism, defamation, and their agendas.' " |
| | I've never heard what "their agendas" are — at least not in a way that makes sense. It's mighty hard to take the high road with the News-Press when they speak only through lawyers, flacks, lawsuits, firings and linkproof editorials (nearly everything the paper publishes is behind a paywall) that strain credulity to the max. |
| | The behavior of the paper and its brass is so bizarre and self-defeating that it serves as a model for nothing any other institution is likely to do. But it has real victims. Jerry and Susan are just two of them. And their cause deserves wider attention. |
Tuning all over the place
| | It's Public Broadcasting Week here in Boston. I'll be posting a bunch of stuff here and elsewhere about that. The first one is set of photos and screen shots, most of which I took recently at home as I added a pile of stations to our Sonos home audio system. I took notes while I did that. They now run as captions under 54 pictures. |
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