Broadcast Paradox

Television Causes Debt? - Perhaps Not !

"Results indicate that television increases the tendency to borrow for household goods and to carry debt." says the article "Television Access Linked to Household Debt" in the November 4th issue of TV Technology (available on-line here) reviewing a paper by two Hunter College economics researchers.

No PhD am I, but I do remember some things from my college research methods course. I remember there being something about controlling for external validity. In their paper, Drs. Baker and George do not appear to have controlled for the effects of increased household newspaper and magazine (think Life and Look) subscriptions. [As their data deals with the 1950's and '60s.] Perhaps printed ads in the home are not a game changer, but think about the possibility that babies cause storks.

Where I've Been

So I haven't posted in the l-o-n-g-e-s-t time...
A recent reoganization (read downsizing) at my employer has left me busier than ever, but also wondering when I'll be next. That's what happens when you leave consulting for a staff gig.

So forgive me while I go about reinventing myself again, this time perhaps more 'social media-ish' and less engineering.

I've also changed my personal hosting provider to one that supports WordPress, soon as I figure it out I'll move this blog over and you can comment or rant.

- Techmanager

CES Wrap-Ups

Here are some blog summaries on how CES is morphing from just a hardware show to a harware and content show:

NewTeeVee: CES Scorecard: What You Need to Know

Jack Myers: NBCU and Sony Transform CES to 'Tech PLUS Content' Convention

Shelly Palmer (via Jack Myers): Key Take-aways from CES 2008: Shelly Palmer Report

Lost Remote (Entries Tagged "CES")

Warner Rejects HD DVD For BLU-RAY

Snipe Update

Snipes have gotten soo bad that even the New York Times has devoted space to the problem.
(And see my original blog post "Woo ! Swish ! Snipe !" from February '06.)

Why, Oh Why Can't I ?

This is not the blog entry I originally started to write...

I am now the proud owner of a video iPod. News junkie and uber-geek that I am, the first videos I watched on it were newscasts.

And then I didn't. Stupid me, I had totally forgotten that my iPod is Mac formatted and that the computer at my current gig is a PC.

When I recently replaced my first generation iPod, I just had to get the video model because I wanted to watch that day's ABC World News podcast and the Fox News Flashes on my commuter rail journey home. Fourty-five minutes of just my iPod and my noise canceling headphones, completely oblivious to the jerks talking too loud on their cellphones. (I have a special playlist of songs with lots of high frequency sounds that I turn up to earsplitting volume when I sit next to the worst walkie-talkie mode offenders. I'm beginning to loose my hearing anyway, so I get great pleasure in counter-annoying.)

So there I was on my first workday with my new gadget, and I plug it in to my desktop and iTunes politely asks if I want to re-format it. No, duh! So I walk it around the corner to the Art Director's office (who had already left) and logged in to my account on her Mac. Downloaded the World News Webcast, plugged-in my iPod, and "This file type cannot be played on this device." Now, although that was just a file type format blunder, that only happens occisionally (and whose fault - ABC or Apple), needless to say I have still not watched a same-day video podcast yet. After all, I'm already late for the train. Who has time to download podcasts in someone else's office? If Macs can read and make PC formatted CD-ROMs, why can't iTunes read and write to Mac and PC formatted iPods?

FCC Media Ownership Rules

The FCC is about to start the process of rewriting the media ownership rules again. One of my media friends e-mailed me about a campaign run by hearusnow.org, a project of consumers Union. They are urging the public to send a form letter to the FCC and the White House. I can't stand e-mailing form letters, so I worte an e-mail of my own. Not exactly my best writing:

"Originally contained in public utility law, the phrase "public interest, convenience and necessity" was incorporated into the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934.

I do not think that the ownership of massive amounts of radio stations by group owners such as Infinity and Clear Channel is in the 'public interest'. This is especially true in the case of Clear Channel, which also owns SFX Entertainment - a talent representative and major national concert promoter. Companies such as Infinity and Clear Channel now hove far too much control in what we hear on the radio and (if you're a rock fan) what concerts we can see in our local venues. It also amazes me that here in the New York City area, both all-news radio stations are owned by Infinity. So much for diverse voices !

The same problems now exist to a lesser extent with television networks as well. The ownership cap has snuck up from 25% to 35% to 39%.

The large radio and television station groups are all doing well financially. Let's not make it easy for them to buy up all of our country's large, profitable stations, leaving the Mom and Pop 'runt of the litter' stations to go bankrupt and have their liceneses bought by group owners who will pipe in programming by satellite and have no local presence.

Yes, owners should be allowed to make a profit. But the Communications Act says "public interest" not private interest. You have a chance to preserve the freedom of speech and the diversity of opinions that keep our counrty great and free. Yes, anyone can buy a printing press or start a blog, but not everyone can have a radio or television station. Until over-the-air broadcasting goes away completely, you have an obligation to multiply the voices heard and seen on our nations licensed frequencies."

"I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore"

Way off topic:

Network - one of my two favorite TV News movies was re-released last month with some special features not seen in the two previous (1998 & 2000) DVD releases. Truly, the evils that writer Paddy Chayefsky predicted in this 1976 movie have come home to roost. For example: entertaiment masquerading as news, corporate meddling and violent reality shows, just to name a few. (See page 14 of the 3/1/06 issue of The Hollywood Reporter for a thorough review of this 2-disc set.) The extras disc contains the Dinah! episodes featuring Peter Finch (1976) and Paddy Chayefsky (1977) as well as an hour-long Sidney Lumet retrospective.

And my other favorite? Broadcast News, of course! It didn't matter which of the three commercial network news divisions you worked for, the characters had their counterparts at all three. (Hint: I used to be "Bobby".)

WOO ! SWISH ! SNIPE !

As if it weren't bad enough that we have all these lower left snipes telling us what show we're watching and what's coming up next, at least one cable network has taken the practice to a new low with two innovations. SOAPNet's snipes now make noise coming on and going off, distracting you from the show's dialog. Not only that, but many of the snipes are there to tell you what's coming up in the plot (in the current act.) Guess they're trying to keep veiwers with shorter attention spans glued to plots that move at glacial speeds.

Prognostication

A lot of sites and blogs are doing 'Predictions for 2006' or the "Best _ _ _ _ _ of 2005." I'm not smart enough to do either of those. I simply think it is important to read the enrties refered to in "De-Ba’athification, Italian-style" and "The Unbundled Newsroom." I couldn't have said it better myself.

Sense and Sensibility

Being an electrical engineering school dropout rather than a J-school graduate, I developed my news chops by observing some of the best men in the business. (And yes, they were all men back then.) These guys had standards and their pearls became the policy book.

Why Live?
So I don't understand why, even in todays competitive environment, why anyone would want to show the landing of a disabled plane (or a high speed highway chase for that matter,) live without adding a few seconds of delay. If one of these jets (and there have been at least four nationally televised incidents since September 22nd,) were to explode live, I'd call it pornography, not breaking news. In todays server environment, it's so easy to add a delay.*

Perhaps it's only me that thinks that the post-WWII advances in the quality of journalism were permanent. I guess everyone in the control room and in the executive suite are yellow. (See Wikipedia.)

"This instrument, television, it can entertain, it can inform, yes, and it can even inspire. But it all depends on the will of the humans who operate it. Otherwise it is just lights and wires in a box." - Edward R. Murrow

UPDATE: 12/27/05 - Incident Number 5 - Enough Already ! Today it was only a cargo plane.

(*Note: Yes, it's much easier to just take the remote live. But as someone who strung two inch videotape from one VTR to another for a seven second delay - things are so much easier today.)