John McDermott

Category: media blog

  • My need for TV aggregation

    My need for TV aggregation

    I was listening to the Firewall and Iceberg podcast where they were discussing Community and whether or not the show did a big number for Yahoo.

    One of the things they touched upon was how platforms still matter.

    I LOVE Community, but kept finding myself falling behind in episodes.  Why? Because it was not on the DVR.

    Oh yes sure it was On-Demand, all I had to do was switch the input on the TV, fire up the AppleTV or the Roku, zip on over to Yahoo Screen and hit play.  Yet, moving a thumb five times across two remotes sometimes seems like an ordeal when you have a 97% full DVR one thumb away on the remote that is already in your hand.

    I need the shows on one list.  The DVR menu.

    Then I thought some more about some other things I am not watching for no good reason.

    Daredevil.  Folks told me it was awesome.  I can afford Netflix.  I even have a 30 day trial waiting.  But..if I activate it am I going to watch 13 episodes of Daredevil in a row?  No.  But I am afraid to start the clock or whatever other irrational fear holds me back.  So I do nothing and see what’s on the DVR.

    Amazon Prime.  I have it.  I like it a lot.  I rarely use it.  Why?  Menus and switching and the aforementioned 97% full DVR.

    Yes I will always go out of my way to find appointment programming.  Make a new Star Trek series and you can put it on the most obscure thing ever and I will find a way.  However if you want me to watch it now or +3, you might want to find a way to put it on my DVR.

     

  • Link: How the Cash Flows in Spotify Streams – WSJ

    Really interesting read on royalties.

    I teach a college class on radio and love diving into the royalties discussion with the students and watching when their eyes have that a-ha moment.  “The Great Streaming War” (as I call it in class) continues.  We live in interesting exciting times in audio.

    On Spotify, not all songs are created equal; sometimes not even the same song is created equal—at least when it comes to how its creators are compensated.

    Source: How the Cash Flows in Spotify Streams – WSJ

  • Link: The Most Common Mistakes Sports Radio Program Directors Are Making | AboutSportsRadio.com

    Source: The Most Common Mistakes Sports Radio Program Directors Are Making | AboutSportsRadio.com

  • Link: Your Buddy, Your Boy, Your Bookie: Scott Ferrall on the Art of Sports Radio «

    A lengthy profile of Scott Ferrall which for me was fascinating at points (industry inside baseball) and some paragraphs I skipped (mainly the middle, but it gets back to radio programming at the end.)

    Anyway…..THIS

    Today, if you listen to sports radio, its essential components — hot takes, ticker updates, commercials — feel like things from another media epoch. “We had all these conversations about newspapers 10 years ago,” said Bob Sturm, a host at 1310 The Ticket in Dallas. “If you’re in radio, you have to know we’re all on borrowed time.”

    Source: Your Buddy, Your Boy, Your Bookie: Scott Ferrall on the Art of Sports Radio «

  • Link: Verizon Knows More About What You Watch On FiOS Than You Do – Consumerist

    I wish I were teaching tonight, this would be a fun one to to with the class about modern privacy.  Is this a bad thing that Verizon knows what you are watching?

    You call and ask for a smaller, less expensive bundle of channels. “I never really watch them anyway,” you say. But the Verizon rep on the other end of the phone can see that you watch a solid 30 channels in any given month, and that you spend 8 hours a week watching premium channel content. You probably enjoy that content. Perhaps they can entice you to stay on board for another year if they give you HBO and Starz for free?

    Source: Verizon Knows More About What You Watch On FiOS Than You Do – Consumerist

  • Link: Marc Maron’s WTF Show is Ready for Better Podcast Advertising | | Observer

    Good read…

    Smales says it would take a little work, but there’s no reason why podcasters couldn’t send different versions of a show (that is, the same show with different ads) to different users based on the limited information an IP address reveals

    Source: Marc Maron’s WTF Show is Ready for Better Podcast Advertising | | Observer

  • Link > Radio World: The Evolving Face of Radio Production

    Very fun read if you like production elements as much as I do.

    Source: Radio World: The Evolving Face of Radio Production

  • Link: GM Patents A Way To Auction Off Your Radio Presets

    Link: GM Patents A Way To Auction Off Your Radio Presets

    Well this should be very very interesting.  How would you feel about a car where Preset 1 was the local Top 40 station and Preset 2 was I dunno let’s say a digital only station from one of the big players, and you couldn’t change the presets?

    GM was issued a patent for a “System and method for auctioning geoboxed flexible, semi-locked or locked radio presets” earlier this month, which would allow the automaker to sell the individual buttons on your stereo to third parties.

    Source: GM Patents A Way To Auction Off Your Radio Presets

  • Link and comment: An Oral History of Major League Soccers Frenzied First Season | Complex

    A bit of a stretch for this blog, but it’s a great tale of trying to make a soccer league for people who don’t like soccer.  To bring this back to radio/media, I used to have discussions with one executive about how we kept tweaking the very popular comedy channels to appeal to people who weren’t interested in the comedy channels instead of super-serving the folks who liked them, and trying to find more like-minded folks.  It made no sense to me, especially on a subscription service. Fish where the fish are.

    Anyway, if you don’t like soccer, boy do we have a soccer league for you!  Good stuff…

    From a unique structure and laughable team names, to garish uniforms and crazy rule changes, how the sport’s biggest North American league kicked off.

    Source: An Oral History of Major League Soccers Frenzied First Season | Complex

    Twenty years on I think MLS is fantastic.  I understand what it is.  It’s not the Premier League, I get it.  But it is fun for me to follow, I go to games, and I love the way they standardized the national TV package so that I know where to find games on television on Friday (UniMas) and Sunday (ESPN/FS1).  Nice job MLS.  Now about those kick-ins…SMH.

  • New station – Bill Engvall: I Am The DJ on Slacker Radio

    New station – Bill Engvall: I Am The DJ on Slacker Radio

    Bill Engvall on Slacker Radio

     

    Thanks again to the gang at Slacker Radio for letting me take the car out for a drive.  Today we launched I Am The DJ: Bill Engvall.  It was great to work with Bill again after working together back at Blue Collar Radio at the old place.

    Bill had a blast doing this one, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

    Comedian Bill Engvall has appeared on shows like “Family Guy,” “Dancing With the Stars,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show,” and his own “The Bill Engvall Show.” We wanted to know more about what makes him tick, so we had Bill curate and host this station featuring his favorite bits as well as material from comedians he admires, like George Lopez, Ron White, Steve Martin and more.