Making Themselves Heard ... Through Silence

Internet radio has quietly become a preferred form of media for office workers and persons wanting access to very specialized types of music and other radio programming. Internet radio stations run the gamut from well-financed corporate startups to amateur stations backed by little money or professional expertise.

But there's trouble in Internet Radioland. A restructuring of royalties that the online stations must pay to legally play copyrighted music has many online broadcasters claiming that they will be driven off the Internet. Their protest takes place today in the form of a day of silence. A National Public Radio story discusses the situation.

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #59



***MEDIA SURVEY RESULTS, PART 3-Over the next several weeks, I'll be giving you the results of a mass media survey given to all MC101 students with their final exam during the spring semester. Here is how the spring MC101s answered the following survey question...

How popular will satellite radio be in 10 years?
A. Most people will subscribe to it, just as most people subscribe to cable or satellite TV. (43%)
B. It will be popular among truckers, traveling salesmen and other who spend a lot of time in their vehicles. Otherwise, most people will not pay for radio. (26%)
C. It will draw only a small percentage of the radio audience. (21%)
D. It will be mostly extinct. (9%)

A Future for Newspapers?

Today's medianote seems appropriate given that we finished the chapter on the newspapaer industry today. Yes, they have been influential locally and nationally for 150 years, but do newspapers have much of a future? This Reuters story says, well, maybe.

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #58



***MORE MEDIA SURVEY RESULTS-Over the next several weeks, I'll be giving you the results of a mass media survey given to all MC101 students with their final exam during the spring semester. Here is how the spring MC101s answered the following survey question...

In 10 years, newspapers?
A. Will mostly be on paper. (5%)
B. Will be split between paper and web versions. (43%)
C. Will mostly be on the web. (41%)
D. Will be mostly extinct. (11%)

Wii Pledge Our Allegiance...

Hey, you in the back row! Shut that book and get back to your Game Boy!

Today's medianote is about a new school in New York that will build its academic emphasis around video games. Is this brilliant way to get 21st Century middle-schoolers to come to school? Is it a bad joke?

We discussed the pros and cons of this inventive curriculum after listening to a National Public Radio story in which some academic experts discussed the unusual public school experiment.
Gabcast! Club MediaNote #57




At the end of the spring semester, all MC101s were invited to participate in the first-ever 'Back of the Scantron' media survey.

***MEDIA SURVEY RESULTS-Over the next several weeks, I'll be giving you the results of the mass media survey given to all MC101 students with their final exam during the spring semester. Here is how the spring MC101s answered the following survey question...

Will college textbooks be on paper in 10 years?
A. Yes. There will be little change. (4%)
B. There will be some paper textbooks and some digital textbooks. (46%)
C. Most students will have digital textbooks, but a few will be on paper. (23%)
D. Paper textbooks will be like vinyl records... a thing of the past. (4%)

TV Ads: Not Dead

Mark Twain once famously said that rumors of his death were greatly exaggerated. In 2007, the 30-second television ad is, according to some pundits, about to become irrelevant, done in by TiVo, the Internet, too many channels, and other stuff.

Well, early signals from ABC and Fox are that advertising revenue is up, and that even programs that draw something other than the favored young male demographic were enjouing brisk ad sales. The "Up-fronts" allow big advertisers to lock in big ad buys at discounted prices, but the catch is they have to do this in the spring, well before the fall season begins.

According to this Los Angeles Times story, Fox has been selling ads at rates about 9 percent higher than last year and ABC at about 10 percent more. The advertisers are going to get one big concession, though: they will pay ad rates based on the number of viewers who watch the commercials, not the number who watch the show.

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #56

Mall Mouse

Sure, there are people who hang out in virtual worlds the way that previous generations had people who hung out in video arcades or, before that, pinball parlors. But could a virtual world ever rival the mall as a place to socialize and shop? Is there anyone who would rather be a mall mouse than a mall rat?

That question was at the center of today's medianote. It comes from a National Public Radio story about the growing corporate presence in Second Life and other virtual worlds where the online citizens are encouraged to buy stuff.

On Monday, June 25 I will begin to take money for our field trip to the Hollywood Bowl on Friday, July 13. Tickets are $9.

The Last 15 Feet ...

For years there has been much commentary about how to get digital TV shows and movie downloads from the computer screen to the television screen. Bridging that last 15 feet has been quite difficult. Many of the world's top technology companies are hard at work on the problem.

Microsoft, of course, wants to be a dominant player at this. According to this recent Yahoo! News story, they have renamed their IPTV (which stands for Internet Protocol TV, but sounds like something that Bart Simpson made up) the much blander-sounding Microsoft Mediaroom. And while the renaming of a product generally doesn't make it work any better, it did give this humble blogger an opportunity to discuss Internet-based television with his sparkling new and minty fresh summer MC101 class.

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #54

Summer 2007 Students: Watch This Space...

We had a full house for Mass Comm 101 on the first day of Summer Session 2007.

Beginning tomorrow, Mass Comm 101 will feature medianotes near the start of class. Check in with Club Medianote to get a summary of recent medianotes, and more.

Spring 2007 Students: Thanks!

Final Exam study sessions and free pizza ... a Mass Comm 101 tradition.

Before this humble blogger launches into a riveting discussion of the final medianote of the semester, he'd like to say thanks to all the students who made the Spring 2007 Mass Comm 101 classes possible. Without you, he'd be presenting medianotes to a large, empty room. And that would be somewhere between pathetic and disturbing. On to the show ...

A recent National Public Radio story features an interview with an Advertising Age writer who turned off his television for a week while he brought up his web browser. It was an experiment in whether it is possible to have a satisfying television watching experience without turning on a television. He found it was hard work finding his favorite shows on the Internet.

MWF classes only

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #53



***SURVEY UPDATE The first-ever Mass Comm 101 'Back of the Scantron' survey will have 14 questions. MC101 students will be asked to predict the the near future prospects of various mass media. Thanks to the students who submitted questions by email or through the comments section of this blog.

Plato on a Palm Pilot

Dailylit.com is turning some of the world's greatest literature into emails and text messages that can be read in five minutes or less. Of course, it takes 151 email installments to read Plato's Republic and 430 to read Anna Karenina.

The website is distributing 370 (mostly) classic texts for free. Users can decide if they want to be sent installments 3, 5, or 7 days a week. Those opting for daily distribution are on the hook for 35 minutes of weekly reading.

The company plans to move into charging for the service, with Dailylit sharing revenues with pubilshers. According to a recent Reuters article, Berlitz has signed up for the right to distribute five-minute language lessons.

Could this possibly work for college textbooks?

Gabcast! Club MediaNote #52