30 Years Ago Today... (Aug 20, 2008)

The Wires (Aug 20, 2008)

Dave Kohl: The NFL has expanded another revenue stream, but could also indirectly benefit from informal research. Sprint's "NFL Mobile Live" is being expanded for the upcoming season, with Sprint users having access to live NFL games via some of the paid plans it offers. The NFL will likely be supplied with reports as to what teams, games, and players are being selected by paying customers.

PC World: Faced with huge song royalty increases, Net radio may soon face extinction. That is according to Internet radio Webcaster Pandora's founder Tim Westergren. He told the Washington Post his popular music Webcasting site is about to go offline because of increases in royalties his company must pay to the music industry. Westergren says that the Copyright Royalty Board's agreement with SoundExchange, the royalties collecting arm of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), is about to increase fees Pandora pays and thereby turn its small profits into a deficit. This year, according to Westergren, Pandora's royalty fees accounted for 70 percent of its $25 million in revenue. Based on the Copyright Royalty Board's decree, by 2010, Pandora's royalty fees will soon double from where they were 2 years ago. And that, Westergren says, will put his firm in the red. Read the rest of the article at the link.

Free The Airwaves: From Google's "Free The Airwaves" -- One of America's most valuable natural resources is our "white spaces" - the radio airwaves, or spectrum, that have long carried analog TV signals. Three-fourths of the white spaces are completely unused today, and - especially once TV is broadcast in digital only starting in 2009 - could be used to kick-start a revolution in wireless technology, including universal wireless online access and numerous new products and services that can't even be imagined today. This fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide whether to make this spectrum available for anyone to use. At Google, we think more open access to the white spaces is essential, not only for companies like ours, but for society in general.

Delaware News Journal: TiVo. Netflix. Satellite radio. "World of Warcraft." The iPhone. The BlackBerry. Audible.com. Flickr. Amazon Prime. The list of new digital services and gadgets keeps growing. There's just one catch: Much of today's technology comes with subscription fees that might not seem like a lot individually, but can add up to hundreds of dollars in new expenses.

Inside Music Media: New Arbitron People Meter information for July in several of its markets shows some impressive listening by affluent and educated people on the job at their workplace. The Internet may be responsible for about 3% of the midday listening Monday through Friday and according to Radio & the Internet Publisher Kurt Hanson, that’s a big deal. I like Hanson’s analysis.

Mel Phillips: The judge who ruled that Jammie Thomas owed $222,222 for her downloaded and shared music files has had a change of heart - The judge has learned since that making songs available is not a copyright violation and is now weighing granting Jammie a new trial.

Happy Hare: I am encouraged about some of the up and coming young radio talents but, this is a salute to the greats of the 50’s and 60’s: America’s Finest Radio Generation. Gary Allyn, Neil Ross, Mel Hall and I recall some of those talents, and how they interacted, a nearly lost art.

KSCF/San Diego midday host Jeff Stewart adds APD duties.

CLEAR CHANNEL is "changing channels" on XM, eliminating the simulcast of Country WSIX/NASHVILLE as well as the SUNNY format, and launching a new Classic Rock format called ROCK@RANDOM on channel 161.

KJLA To Cease Analog Next Week (Aug 19, 2008)

KJLA channel 57, a 5000 kilowatter operating out of Ventura, is abandoning broadcasting after August 27 and will become a digital only television station. It operates its digital signal on channel 49 as KJLA-DT and will remain there while channel 57, in the 52-69 UHF channel band, will be reallocated by the government for other uses.

KJLA (as KSTV) was once considered to be a station that serves the Santa Barbara area, but has since reaimed itself to become a station for the far more lucrative Los Angeles market with the help of a Los Angeles-based translator, KSMV, in Simi Valley. The translator helped the station gain must-carry status for most of the cable systems in the western Los Angeles market area in 1998. The tradeoff was that KSTV had to abandon the WB affilliation, because KTLA's WB affilliation was representative there, and had to reprogram itself. They changed their calls to KJLA in July of 1998. It currently is an affilliate of the LATV billingual network.

The first TV station in the Southern California area to end analog broadcasting, KVMD channel 31 in 29 Palms, ended its analog signal in 2003. It's digital channel continues on 23.

No other TV stations in the nearby areas are yet known to end analog transmissions sooner than the February 17 deadline.

With the elimination of KJLA, Tijuana's XHUAA, which also broadcasts on channel 57, won't have the co-channel interference in the northern parts of San Diego county anymore.

UCSD To Get Digital on 11? (Aug 19, 2008)

KTTV from Los Angeles broadcasts on channel 11, so the power for K35DG would have to be nulled enough to the north to protect the southern reception of KTTV.

On February 18, KTTV like most other full powered stations would have shut off its analog signal and move its digital signal to channel 11.

The low powered TV stations are excused from the mandatory conversion, so that they could broadcast in analog for some time.

Channel 39 May Still Have an San Diego Station? (Aug 19, 2008)

McGraw-Hill Broadcasting, owner of KGTV, KGTV-DT, and KZSD-LP (channel 41), has filed with the FCC a digital LPTV application for displacement with a plan to move its KZSD-LP signal to the frequency of channel 39.

Earlier, McGraw-Hill filed an application to allow a digital version of KZSD to broadcast on channel 25 once KGTV-DT moves to channel 10 in February. It's analog signal on channel 10 will cease then.

The Wires (Aug 19, 2008)

Washington Post: Pandora May Pull The Plug! “A LAST STAND FOR WEBCASTING” APPROACHES, SAYS PANDORA’S WESTERGREN: Pandora will soon face “a pull-the-plug kind of decision,” because of the high CRB royalty rates, founder Tim Westergren (pictured right) told The Washington Post. “We’re losing money as it is…The moment we think this problem in Washington is not going to get solved, we have to pull the plug because all we’re doing is wasting money.” Though Pandora has indicated in the past that it will have to shut down if the current royalty rates are not reformed — which reportedly costs 70% of the company’s revenue — this is the strongest rhetoric the Internet radio service has yet used. The Washington Post also reports that U.S. Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) is currently helping negotiate “a last-minute deal between webcasters and SoundExchange,” but he is frustrated by the process: “Most of the rate issues have not been resolved…If it doesn’t get much more dramatic quickly, I will extricate myself from the process.” Berman (pictured left) is chairman of the Congressional Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, which held a hearing in June to discuss a performance royalty for broadcast radio (RAIN coverage here). Berman, representing California where (along with New York) U.S. major labels are based, sponsors the House bill that would implement such a royalty for terrestrial radio. Webcasters and the record industry are particularly at odds over the monetization of Internet radio. SoundExchange complains that webcasters “have done too little to make money from playing their songs.” Though Pandora does not currently run audio ads, Westergren reported that they will soon broadcast “subtle” audio sponsorship ads, similar to those found on NPR (“The next half hour is brought to you by…”). Currently, 25% of the service’s work-force is dedicated to ad sales. Read the full Washington Post article at the link provided in this paragraph.

Los Angeles Times: U.S. INTERNET SPEED SLUGGISH COMPARED TO JAPAN, FINLAND: A new study by the Communication Workers of America finds that the U.S. has a median download speed of 2.35 megabits per second, a figure that when compared to Japan’s 63.6 mbps and Finland’s 21.7 mbps, places the U.S. at an overall Internet speed ranking of 15th. “We’re behind the rest of the world and it really matters. The jobs of the future depend on having the best networks possible,” said Debbie Goldman, coordinator for the Communication Workers of America. Read more at the L.A. Times link.

Salem to Stream with Streamaudio: Salem Communications announced that it has entered into an agreement to stream its music and talk radio stations on the Internet with StreamAudio. Salem Communications and StreamAudio have entered into an agreement for StreamAudio to be the streaming provider for Salem’s radio stations. Salem owns and operates ninety-five radio stations in the U.S.; StreamAudio is the leading provider of cost-effective streaming solutions for terrestrial radio groups in the U.S.

Free The Airwaves: From Google's "Free The Airwaves" -- One of America's most valuable natural resources is our "white spaces" - the radio airwaves, or spectrum, that have long carried analog TV signals. Three-fourths of the white spaces are completely unused today, and - especially once TV is broadcast in digital only starting in 2009 - could be used to kick-start a revolution in wireless technology, including universal wireless online access and numerous new products and services that can't even be imagined today. This fall, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will decide whether to make this spectrum available for anyone to use. At Google, we think more open access to the white spaces is essential, not only for companies like ours, but for society in general

Gorman Media Blog: The RIAA claims the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives them the right to go after streaming audio for royalty payments. It’s based on the false assumption that all digital recordings are a perfect duplication of the master copy. Since streaming audio is digitally delivered - the RIAA wants streaming audio broadcasters to pay its collection agency, SoundExchange, for airplay. The reality is that most digitally delivered music and spoken word on the Internet is highly compressed audio. A perfect duplication it is not.

The Wires (Aug 18, 2008)

El Paso Times: A Senate bill allowing analog TV broadcasts near Mexico to continue for an additional four years was approved.

Broadcasting Cable: Broadcasters say development of a new digital TV standard which will let them transmit video to cell phones and other portable devices is going smoothly, and that they remain on track to have a working system in place by early 2009. The creation of a new “Mobile-Handheld” (M-H) standard has drawn strong interest from both stations and technology vendors since it was officially started by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) in May 2007. The mobile DTV standards process got a significant boost in May when the two large consumer electronics companies who had submitted competing technical proposals to ATSC, LG and Samsung, agreed to work together on a joint system and avoid what could have been a protracted standards battle.

Feedback (Aug 18, 2008)

GOOD MORNING:

I happen to be one of many struck by GM'S dropping health care.

the first several thing that come to mine is:

A. After 65 is when you need coverage, (I understand GM point), but that is not fair to long term employees.Wagoner, is set for life. as well as all the other top executives

B. We watch Wagoner give out millions to Delphi, to Asian country's by the million. but he(GM) will not take care of there own.

C. GM expects the retirement and others of the community to still purchase GM products. Why! what allegiance do they have to us or we to them. Just one of GM problem they don't walk as they talk.(1994??)

D This problem has been coming for a long Time not just over night. They were probably told by a 7,8 Grade or unclassified person that we were not heading for the best of times, but who listens.Now we are told that bankruptcy may in the wing. GM has no business been in that shape. If proper management were doing there jobs. NOT looking for more money to feather there nest..

I would hope that more people would vent there spleen and let GM know what some of there employee think of them and the management of the Cooperation.

D. Market didn't drop totally because of economic condition, Might you look at styling

Mr. Lutz has done wonder since he returned..

Some bodies are 10, 20,years old. others may be older. Lets face GM did not keep up with the times to be a leader.Maybe they should give us some of there millions to keep Health Insurance going. Just an idea for the people that X number of years.they keep insured and some just have reduced benefits. There will be more of us reducing the amount to be spent than there will at Wagoners age.

Larry

Complaint to the Union-Tribune (Aug 18, 2008)

With the elimination of TV Week, I have no choice but to stop reading your paper. TV Week was a shadow of its glory days in the 70s. It listed too many niche cable channels and ignored many of the local terrestrial broadcast channels. It would have been better if it concentrated on mostly the local and major L.A. channels and just list the first-run cable TV highlights in a special section, but all those cable channels literally destroyed the TV listings business as the number of channels got bigger, the number of TV listing pages got smaller.

TV Week could have gone a local direction as TV listing websites already list hundreds of cable channels, but they're not that good in listing all of the local channels available in a given city.

Tanny and DFSX Part Ways (Aug 18, 2008)

The two sites are now separate once again.

David Tanny's site houses his CD and related matters here:
http://www.davidtanny.com/

The DFSXRadio.com site (redesigned with more sections) with separate playlists for The Mad Music Comedy Zone, I Still Get Demented Podcast Edition, David's Top 10, and several shows that used to run on the old DFSX.
http://www.dfsxradio.com/

Also updated with playlists for the Mad Music Show, Manic Mondays, Bofore Radio, and Mad Music Dementia Top 20 With DJ Particle (not including the 2004-07 era) is the Songs.Davesfunstuff website.
http://www.songs.davesfunstuff.com/

Top 5 Headlines Of The Week (Aug 11-17, 2008)

4. It's August. Better clear out the brush in the country side before the October wildfires begin. Seriously!

3. No number 3. Editor writing a complaint to the Union-Tribune for dropping TV Week.

2. Michael Phelps Mania Sweeps Nation

1. David Tanny's CD "Yes Parking Anytime" is now available for purchase at cdbaby.com

No More Sunday Union-Tribune For Me (Aug 18, 2008)

No more TV Week.

The only reason I buy it is now for Parade, but now that I can read it on parade.com, as most all of the features are on that website, it's no longer necessary to buy the paper anymore.

The coupons are often for products I don't care about, and the comics could be found on the web, I guess it's finally time to ditch the Sunday paper and go without the Union-Tribune for good.

Funds Raised From Not Buying the Union-Tribune (Aug 17, 2008)

Issues not purchased: 8/1, 8/2, 8/4-8/9, 8/11-8/17: $12.25

Total savings: $52.75

That's halfway towards my $100 savings. Now that I've dropped the Sunday edition, expect more of my money to stay with me, which is more important anyway, instead of going to the deep pockets of the inept owner David Copley who just don't care about the quality of the paper anymore.