Media Watch

My day job is coodinating new media products for listeners of seven midwest radio stations, then developing marketing partnerships to support those products. As a matter of necessity, I pay close attention to industry analysts, listeners, web visitors and my customers. When Gary Fries, the president/CEO of our industry's trade organization, says we need to move faster toward digital advancements, he does so after a quarter century of pressure by all segments to get with the ages. Electronic invoicing and audience measuring tools are desperately needed, and all of the individual elements need to speak the same language. Gone, or soon to be, are some of the most antiquated systems for quantifying the value of broadcast and new media to advertisers and their agencies. Instead of simply showing how many people are being reached, we need to demonstrate with a good level of accuracy a genuine return on marketing investments. I have always believed my industry has been 15 to

Now requiring a 1-year service contract, TiVo is gradually pricing themselves out of business, and it's more than a money issue for users. When it becomes too costly in terms of convenience and freedom, subscription growth will slow, and hardened TiVo nuts like me will stop using their settop boxes in lieu of MythTV and other Open Source platforms. The first big news out of the TiVo camp in a long time was their decision to allow networks to "red flag" shows, which can limit when a program can be watched, how long it can be saved to the hard drive and whether it can be copied using the TiVo-To-Go feature. TiVo has been extremely easy to use, and that has been its major selling point all along; no one who tried it didn't love TiVo. But the limitations just got to be too great for this to be a viable product in my home. One example is its proprietary file format. I want standard MPEG files that you can import/export/edit and save as long as I damn-well feel li

This is clearly not a small thing. Podcasting has unquestionably hit the maintream -- repeatedly. And they're not just 2-5 minute 'casts; I frequently see mainstream media producing 20 to 60-minute shows, some longer. Podcasts are largely free, although some big names, like Rush Limbaugh, have managed to collect a fee from their fanbase in exchange for their exclusive content. For those that stumbled across this post accidentally, Podcasting is an audio (and video, in some cases) form of "blogging", using a communications protocol known as RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, which enables anyone to automatically receive feeds to which they subscribe, similar to email. Wired News: Tracking Rita: Interactive

Read carefully this story. It says, in essence, that the President cannot manage, for its definition is "getting things done through other people". This imbecile couldn't lead a dog catcher. Health Emergency Declared for Texas, La. - Yahoo! News

My advice to the right-wingers in American politics is this: beware! The open source community is mobilizing to shut you down. I don't know from where, but the 'libs' are going to hunt you down and take away your 'G' membership cards. Just giving you fair warning. Peace out.

Despite clear and documented evidence to the contrary, US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist maintains ignorance to his own assets. Frist's sale of the "blind trust" fetched an undisclosed amount, but his earlier statements indicate values in the range of $7 to $35 million. Okay. We don't know if this particular transaction was illegal or not, but we damn-well know now that the Frist family are the epitomy of the bloated & greedy healthcare industry -- being the largets for-profit hospital company in America. One quesiton certainly looms: do you trust Senator Frist to be the next leader of the free world? Just asking. Prosecutors, SEC Probe Frist Stock Sale - Yahoo! News

New University of Iowa law professor (and former Bostonian) Erin Buzuvis apparently came to Hawkeye country to make trouble. She says Coach Hayden Fry promoted homophobia by having the visitor locker room at Kinnick Stadium painted pink and plans to change her new home. Doggonit! I knew that should have been a screening question in the hiring process. Funny. "Buz" sounds a bit like a "Butch". TheIowaChannel.com - Sports - Professor Says Pink Locker Room Promotes Sexism, Homophobia : "Homophobia"