CBC's As It Happens producers seem to think that if you leave a host in the same chair for ten years - they will eventually become a Barbara Frum. I beg to differ. This continuing series will attempt to illustrate in what ways the hypothesis is incorrect.
Carol Off says she imagines a 5.5 kg nugget of gold would be like a bag of potatoes. The interviewee, Cordell Kent - owner of Ballarat's The Mining Exchange Gold Shop - immediately tries to point out that the specific gravity of gold is much higher than that of water (the main content in potatoes) ... so a 5.5 kg nugget of gold would not be anywhere near as big as a 5.5 kg bag of potatoes; it would be in fact, 19.3 times smaller.
But Off won't have it - her analogy stands - because she doesn't understand all that science gobbledygook. 'A lot of potatoes' she says - abruptly ending that line of the conversation.
Tact when shown to be wrong:0
Enabling the subject to express themselves:0
.. to be continued... (for not very much longer - hopefully)
Oh, (directed at the writing team) - and the question not asked (the thread not explored):
'Mr. Kent, are you trying to start a gold rush in the region with this sensational, almost unbelievable nugget find?'
I commented also, by way of constructive criticism, that the embeds available through the new player would annoyingly, play on load; and that how content available to embed would shortly thereafter disappear behind an itunes paywall. I commented on this second quality that, the appearing and then disappearing content destroyed the buzz the content was creating in the social networks. As an example, I posted the three of the most recent 'Featured' shows.
Wiretap's oldest post in the 'Feature' section (WireTap | Aug 10, 2012 | The Big Thrill | 25:20) has now gone dead in my blog's embed. Next week the second oldest post, the David Rakoff Tribute, will go dead. The week after that, "The Lothario" (a repeat from Season 2 - 2006/05/14) will follow the others to the itunes, open internet graveyard.
Interestingly - even though it is not a part of the Apple Inc. itunes paywall contract - the Season 2 post from 2006 will go likely go dead along with the others, because the webmasters at CBC have placed it in a new player, rather than the Season 2 player - which I embed here as an experiment:
WIRETAP | May 14, 2006 | The Lothario | 27:30
I fear that CBC executives will take from these observations that embeds interfere with the paywall - so disable embeds.
But what I have tried to show here, and in all these posts on WireTap over the years (as part of my learning), is that the social networks are a key part of the metric of social network marketing. Paywall if you like - but don't put up open internet episodes for a time and sequester them later behind a paywall. Pretending to an open internet meme and then pulling down content destroys the connections established in the social networks; and pisses of internet users going forward as they run into, not paywalls, but dead ends!
From observing CBC's online strategy from the user's point of view - when a company releases a security to the open internet it must stay up until it has run out of energy pushing eyes to the 'pay-for-view', most recent episode (perhaps, the life time of the production).
Therefore, sequester the most recent episode behind a paywall for a time - and then release it to the open internet, with all the fanfare and celebration that a release to the commons deserves. The smart phone market, people who have already purchased the episode in the 'immediate market', can then brag with-in the fanfare that they have already heard the episode - and then talk about it, adding to the buzz.
NPR's "This American Life" has the idea properly sussed. At their site all the episodes are up for free: to download, to stream at the site in a player, or via various smart phone apps.
To monetize, "This American Life" have a separate tab called 'Store' where content is sold as DVD's, in 'Collections' and 'Behind The Scenes' productions. Also T-Shirts, Books, Mugs and Posters from the shows periodic Live Events are offered - along with unique toys like a "Custom USB Drive With Rare, Unreleased Interviews (Plus TAL "Behind the Scenes" Video)".
Alert! Three CBC embeds will begin to play on load - to turn them off scroll down.
This Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein - I review the new "CBC Player".
The new video / audio player allows people to embed CBC content on their websites. These embeds can act as a portal through which users can transport to the CBC Player. In this case to the Wiretap Episode Archive: www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/WireTap/.
The new CBC Player - in it's radio incarnation - has two key issues:
1) Autoplay
The embeds begin playing with out prompt; which I will not have on my web site - except in this instance as it is a review of new technology. The reason I don't allow auto play content here is because if someone loads my blogs landing page, and this post is buried down on the front page - all three player will begin making noise and the user won't be able to easily find the off buttons - so they will 'bounce'.
I always ask the user whether of not they want content I offer.
WireTap | Aug 24, 2012 | The Lothario | 26:27(repeat, season 2, 2006-05-14)
WireTap | Aug 18, 2012 | David Rakoff Tribute | 26:29(new, 2012-08-18)
WireTap | Aug 10, 2012 | The Big Thrill | 25:20(repeat,season 7, 2011-05-20)
2) Appearing / Disappearing Content
Above, the August 18, 2012 content embed will disappear in a few weeks - as it is CBC's policy with regard to this particular production (a Wiretap / CBC co-production) - that only the two most recent episodes are made available at the CBC portal. I assume that - in order to drive paying customers to the itunes download - some time soon this show will be taken down; thus rendering the CBC Player embed here dead. That's bad for readers who got here via search, because of the CBC Player content embed. An unsatisfactory dead-end to their search of CBC content is likely to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth, and thus less likely to continue from here to the CBC Player.
I think the solution to this conundrum is to recognize that the itune's pay market - as opposed to the market defined by other devices - other user 'place' experiences - constitute two different markets. The up-to-the-minute, always-on wherever-you-are, smart phone market has a immediate temporal quality that defines it's value.The archive of past shows has a different value, and should be priced (or not) accordingly - at the same time it is important to remember that the two memes drive each other.
Therefore, the architecture of this two-stream-content-matrix is to offer the newest episode to itune's customers for some number of days - creating a buzz there - and then present it at the CBC Player page, creating a secondary buzz which will amplify the first wave. And leave them up --- so, as new episodes become available at the Player - and in turn connections in the social networks are established - they stay established; and thus maintain their value in driving eyes to the CBC pages. Once users get to the CBC archives they are very likely to pay to listen to the latest episode on itunes.
I wonder if itunes recommends a multi-media architecture for content producers? I wonder if they insist on this kind of architecture?
That is all.
(translations may vary according to sub-cultural bias)
CBC.ca/Radio is becoming a shopping mall, an itunes portal - a static encyclopedia of brand name URL place-holders. The path ensconced: Privatization, Digital Locks, and prison terms for 'Illegal Listening'
Of coarse we all know the conservatives have finally found some people at the top of the CBC that they can work with towards their dream of privatizing the CBC.
But to sell CBC it has to turn a profit, or at least break even. To push the institution towards this end, the majority Harper government (and before that, the Mulroney government) has been cutting CBC funding in every budget that they could. This directed an impetus by management to find other sources of revenue.
Now the push to monetize CBC.ca is in full swing.
Last year the CBC show "Wiretap" went from posting all their content online, to now, a brief window. Recent shows are up for 3 weeks - after which they disappear behind an itunes paywall.
I haven't been following the internet exsistance of "The Debaters" (another of my favourite shows) - so I don't know the history of their progress behind the paywall. All I can tell you is, as of now they offer 1 minute long snippets from each show. All content at "www.cbc.ca/thedebaters" is behind an itunes paywall. This is another way to copyright one's content on the web - these are audio URL place holders.
www.cbc.ca/thedebaters - "Menopause & Home Ownership"
Why does this suck?
Today's installment of The Debaters had a segment on Home Ownership, "Is it better to rent or to own?" (each show has 2 topics up for debate, each runs about 15 minutes).
I thought that posting this show online at "Occupy Toronto Market Exchange" would be a good fit. But with out a link to content I'm whistling in the wind.
Instead of aggregating interested people to CBC radio content, the note in facebook becomes a plaintiff to get rid of the paywall. A negative experience tallied for CBC; and a negative experience for viewers of my stream, and my brand: 'the tech guy who LINKS EVERYTHING' - takes a hit. CBC, my reputation, and my listeners, lose.
So we go from what the internet is all about - links - to what broadcast was/is all about, sequestering content and doling it out at a specific time and date. The broadcast model doesn't work on the intent - the real internet isn't just another place to put a television screen - it's a way for producers and consumers to exist in the same place - out of which may come brand new content we cannot imagine.
The broadcast model is nothing like what the new model promises - cooperation, communication, creativity - while broadcast offers deception, hidden content and a frustration of creative urges caused by this black boxing or "black magic" approach.
Why even have a website for "The Debaters"? (I know, so someone else doesn't steal the the brand, a place holder in the web.)
As is, the website is 'Web point Zero'. It's not as good as it's Wikipedia entry (which someone else at the collaborative has written). The Wikipedia article is a much better way to get info on the show than the show's own CBC/Radio page: it has no synopsis; it's a list of itune shopping opportunities; and an annoying audio player that brands Steve Patterson's voice in 59 second audio teases. Bounce!
But what I want from www.CBC.ca/radio is not a Wikipedia entry, I am expecting an interactive user Experience! For the most part, that means spreading the "magic" to my friends effectively, through the social tools - the social networking devices (FB, Google+, Twitter, Blogging.). From my experience that means a taste --- an entire episode embedded on my social network of choice best represents 'a taste' of a production --- and a link back to more of the same. (Then perhaps, a yearly archive that is behind an itunes paywall.)
The future of the internet is still unfolding - what it is going to be is still unclear - but we do know what it isn't. From recent experience we know the future of the web is NOT what CBC radio's entire web presence is now --- a static encyclopedia of brand name URL place-holders.
The Story of Anne, the homeless dog.
(http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/wiretap_20110212_45209.mp3 - will cease to exist soon)
When at age five the understanding that life entails death becomes a certainty he realizes that if his parents really loved him - they never would have had him.
"Life support machine" takes on new inflections.
What a well crafted story (life?).
I guess if someone decided they should offer this fellow a writing job - they'd have to consider that he would probably sabotage the gig as the opportunity would entail the job ending at some point.
Perhaps a Never Ending Story rewrite?
A dread of our horrible future leads him to a fetish for an appreciation for the present. And there's a word for that, a Welsh word, "Hiraeth".
I write about what Jonathan Goldstein does. In that way that makes me an artist... or a blogger.
Mining what other people do has a long history, and in that way it is art, but not like blogging.
So it peaked my interest when I saw that this year Wiretap episodes would only be available at the Wiretap site for a limited time, and then thereafter iTunes would be selling the episodes. Of coarse not all is what it appears to be, the site graciously has iTune sequestered episodes up in a widget in the side bar of the site.
This episode might be there when you go and look; and maybe not.
That our identity is defined by our connection to the community we live in. That our constructs of what is reality are full of rationalizations that relate back to our standings in our communities, and the power relationships there-in. And that where the words we use in the niceties of civilization we use actually to disguise the true meanings behind them.
Whether we are the diner or the dinner, in any given moment, we are one. I don't eat you, and you don't eat me; metaphorically at any rate.
Understanding the creative process I guess is the reason I keep listening to Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap. It's like the way I watch the story telling process over and over and over on TV knowing that one day I will learn how it keeps my attention. And then I won't need to watch that show any more.
But I 'like' those shows; but what does that mean?
Does it mean that I like it because I don't understand it... like some sort of entertaining Stockholm Syndrome? In fact I think I'll leave out the link to the show in this post, just to show that this is about that I do understand, that I'm not a victim - not a neurotic insane person who pretends to be entertained by things they don't really understand... wait a minute... Click
Or, how to 'long tail' a phone conversation you're eavesdropping on but can't hang up the receiver because they'd hear the click and find out.
Podcast of the March 27th 2010 show, "Bernice Meadows"
This Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein - I introduce a new player that's kind of like a frame that grabs listeners and sends them to the growing content silo at http://www.cbc.ca/wiretap/index.html?copy-audio.
That is all.
(translations may vary according to province & state)
Update: May 9th 2010 - I've done a little more research and found that the new audio page format is as open source as any there before - in fact you can copy and paste the whole show and the blurb and publish it as easy as pie.
To wit:
The World on a String
This week on WireTap, Howard teaches Jonathan how to say "Yes" to life. Should Jonathan be more spontaneous? Yes. Should he climb more trees? Yes. Should he give that mangy, rabies infested alley cat a hug? Yes!
So one less worry in your life - that CBC is preparing to destroy the commons - they are not. But the battle to keep podcasts of WireTap up at this site continues; another player has been taken down and I've put another one up (that's 4 players used so far).
Enjoy all my takes and podcasts of the shows by clicking on FilterBlogs "WireTap" label at the bottom of each post.
Free Range Content
It is my opinion that because this blog is an Ad Free website no copyright restrictions should apply here. The CBC legal department probably would offer a different opinion. They use the word 'clip' a lot over there. Here, I was providing a portal to listen the the entire WireTap show. Thus-ly this blog - in a strict interpretation of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 1998 (DMCA) - was in violation.
Odeo's business model was in violation of DMCA, forcing CBC to change their mp3 server and player... (Odeo site says, "Odeo will be down for maintenance and site improvements. We will restore service as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience.")
CBC has asked Google to Take Down my 'whole show' mp3 players.
Or both.
On Monday April 26th I replaced the Odeo mp3 players with Google mp3 players.
This week the players were again Taken Down. This means CBC's Legal Department sees offering the whole show as a player embed here as a copyright violation - and have asked Blogger to Take them Down.
Because Blogger will keep pulling down new players almost immediately (took one day this last time), it is now impossible to continue to bring you these FilterBlogs embeds of the show.
CBC Going 'NewsCorp' On Us?
As well, it looks like CBC is moving all their audio content to a new non-open source player. As of now, each shows podcast address are still available both at the WireTap Podcast page, and at the WireTap Audio page - however, they are sequestering the address inside a flash object that then (I think), asks another server for the address of the podcast. So now the CBC is ready, if they wish, to Take Down Podcast pages of any show and leave only the Audio pages - thus making embeds of any CBC content impossible, by anyone.
The Open Source Team here at FilterBlogs (me) continues to work diligently to keep these publicly paid-for productions 'Free Range Content'. I (we) will eventually find a work around.
The Ethics of Sharing
To check my ethical position here, I asked myself,
'What if a network I despise for their business practices, a for profit business like say, CTV took Johnathan's show and started making a list of the show week by week in podcast form?'
I would hate that. I would want the CRTC to go after CTV and make them stop, and delete all the shows. But it's not because I dislike CTV, it's because they would be selling ads to go on that WireTap page - they would be making a profit off of Jonathan Goldstein's work with out paying Johnathan.
FilterBlogs is a non-profit blog that exists towards the public good. I am building a network of people with similar interests, and in this one case, around 'WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein'. As the new media map takes shape networks like this one may have become an important ecosystem, a support structure to both the particular show and CBC Radio as a whole.
The CBC through they're Lawyer-ing department are getting caught in a downward spiraling whirl-pool where always preparing for the worst is infecting the corporate mindset and potentially blinding them collectively from perceiving that the flowering of new web applications, and the Internet Operating System that is forming as a result, is an epoch changing opportunity to connect the CBC better than ever to the country - and to the world.
The folks in the CBC's copyright department are victims of their lawyer-ing meme - they cannot escape themselves - poor things.
Technology will leave these copyright enforcers, and every client they represent in a "dust bin" of the history technological progress.
(bangs shoe on podium)
Bye...! :)
Please see Michael Geist's website (University of Ottawa, Canada Research Chair at the in Internet and E-commerce Law) for info and actions you can take to defend your Internet Civil Rights and help keep the web open.
Or, how to 'long tail' a phone conversation you're eavesdropping on but can't hang up the receiver because they'd hear the click and find out.
Podcast of the April 24th 2010 show, "The World on a String".
This Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein - is happiness all in our heads?
In a place where all our needs are satisfied, has happiness become unachievable? With no essential struggle now necessary for life or liberty is the pursuit of happiness now just an existential game? Are the prisons of our minds the only prisons that really matter?
What of the oppressed amongst us? Is our happiness also offering a helping hand to those stuck in boxes of their own making?
What of those who will not free themselves? Is freedom from unhappiness a responsibility to imprison those who will not free themselves? Perhaps torture... Should we torture those who will not be free, until they admit they are happy?
Or perhaps happiness is the freedom to choose a life path - and it's consequences.
Or, how to 'longtail' a phone conversation you're eavesdropping on but can't hang up the receiver because they'd hear the click and find out.
Podcast of the March 12th 2010 show, "Visiting Hours"
This Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein, I glean an appreciation of the difference between "Owning the Podium" and being caught in the torch-glare of a drugged mob that's struggling with the difference between being god, and just being. Also, I see the reason why, when something awful that stops a room happens, sometimes there's a mute of inappropriate laughter.
When it's over, my question, "Why shouldn't writing be an Olympic Sport?" - is answered.
Or, how to 'long tail' a phone conversation you're eavesdropping on but can't hang up the receiver because they'd hear the click and find out.
Podcast of the March 6th 2010 show, "My Imposter"
On the previous episode ofThis Week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein I experienced the glow of deceitful pretense, usurping WireTap's search traffic by tapeworming myself between listeners of the CBC podcast and the show. I cloaked my ambition with the pretense of a guerrilla action in support of the Open-Web; claiming I was "adding a layer" to the "experience" of listening to the radio.
(I even went so far as to take the trouble to hack a player and mp3 feed from WireTap's website.)
Now, this week on A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein, I find out that for more than a year, the evil blogger Ben Dugas has been greedily immersing himself in the experience of actually being Jonathan Goldstein by impersonating him on Twitter! AND... Goldstein actually has a conversation with the Prick on the show!
Well that's the last time I'll spend a Saturday afternoon after the 1:30 PM CBC Radio One airing of WireTap composing link bait literary criticism towards the public good!
Or, how to 'long tail' a phone conversation you're eavesdropping on but can't hang up the receiver because they'd hear the click and find out.
Podcast of the February 13th 2010 show, "A Matter of Taste"
This Week on "A Translation of WireTap with host Jonathan Goldstein": Sometimes there is no theme tying everything together, 'Loaning' out your password while drunk & Drilling deep into the history of someone you don't really like and should have unfollowed a long time ago.
"The fact is, the crafts' of Carol Off and Barbra Budd, and the As it Happens team, has matured since 2007 - but more importantly, the show is tackling the hard issues again."
In a rant about CBC Radio's show "As it Happens" (published January 23, 2007) - a show I love - I picked on the hosts Carol Off and Barbara Budd for not being competent as journalist and story teller. I thought then that the surface of the thing - the presenters - were the gut of the problem; that the faces of the production were not competent enough to deliver the promise of the show - using technology to create a Marshall McLuhan-ist "Global Village".
Over the past few months I've found myself drifting back to the show. I still think the production values of the show lacked a certain level of competence between 1997 and 2007. But now, with that, I'm including Mary Lou Finlay in my critique of the face of the show; surly there must be some other factor functioning here.
The fact is, the crafts' of Carol Off and Barbra Budd, and the As it Happens team, has matured since 2007 - but more importantly, the show is tackling the hard issues again.
So I owe an apology to the hosts, it wasn't their fault the show sucked. Sorry.
As it Happens sucked because it was missing hard content.
At one point I remember a decision to lighten up the first half hour of the show. This was at the demographic height of the baby-boom-echo, people who listened to the show were upset with hard content as they were sitting down to diner with their young children; so the lead in a news show was buried, left until the middle of the show. This changed the nature of the beast; the show became softer and softer over time.
I remember back in the days of the first neo-con federal government in this country (September 17, 1984, to June 25, 1993) the pressure was on CBC. The Feds were reducing funding year after year and implicit in the Mulroney government's actions was an inference that the content of the network needed to change for success to be guaranteed. (No producer would ever admit to this; that government pressure had effected content would be like saying you had lost the war - you were incompetent at your job.)
In "The Secret Mulroney Tapes" (Google Books) a book by Peter C. Newman the author hi-lights Mulroneys pet peeve, the 'liberal media'. Mulroney saw the liberal media as his greatest impedament to completing his adgenda. He still rants about this every time parliament drags him back to answer the latest allegations of treason. In Canada the cornerstone of liberal media is the CBC - in that it isn't corporate media (with the neo-con/corporate global empire agenda).
So what's happing now? Another neo-con government inhabits Ottawa and the neo-con global dance continues?
One answer may be that lately, while we have a neo-con government, it has always been a minority government - and a minority government acts as a 'check and balance' to the incredible power of the Prime Ministers Office. Prime Minister Stephan Harper strictly manages information just as Mulroney tried to do; but the pressure on the CBC seems to be relaxing.
And better Art would appear to be a result. 8-).
Now years into funding cutbacks many of the CBC's content producers are Independent or "out of house" and thus, at arms length. The baby-boomers are again with out their children. That we are at war gives CBC power as it always has. The connectivity of CBC to the audience has increased as the CBC begins to prefect it's Web 2.0 functionality.
CBC is in a renaissance in this observers opinion, and As it Happens has always been a cornerstone of what CBC is.
None of this should belittle the fact that the research, the writing, the art is the kernal of production, individuals working together in a creative process create great things.
I've been listening to CBC Radio's As It Happens for 30 years. Barbara Frum was weaving the story back then, with Alan Maitland drawing the pictures with voice.
Over the years many great hosts have sat in those chairs; many great producers and writers have created magic behind the scenes.
"It takes a special talent to deliver a radio script..." says the current announcers biography. Barbara Budd does not have that talent.
Perhaps the writing staff can't compose; the narrative is usually so badly butchered I can't tell if the writing was good or not. The trips-ups, flubs and miss-takes of rhythm are too much to bear.
They say a great actor can't save a bad script - but a good script can save a bad actor; perhaps in this case it's a mixture of both the bads.
Carol Off doesn't help. The introduction to the production says, "As It Happens is like taking a trip around the world five nights a week." It has become one of those Red-Eyes you wish you'd never booked. The hour and a half used to fly by - when the people who worked on the show understood the reference in the introduction to Marshall McLuhan's Global Village.
Carol Off treats her role as "medium-intermediate" as if it's an old stale formula. Instead of taking us on a trip around the world, she convinces us with every burdensome, half-baked, lineal question that the show isn't really modern at all.
The guest is left telling the whole story from beginning to end while Carol waits for a pause where she can interject one of a list of questions the team came up in the pre-production meeting; trying to make apparent some pseudo-intellectual point.
Happily, there is a solution to all this. In August I heard two masters at work on the show: Helen Mann and C. David Johnson.
Really enjoyed their work this summer, a special team.
