02.02.06

Air America Radio takes lesson from crack dealers

Posted in iPod, politics, iTunes, around the web, podcasting, air america, air america radio, al franken, broadcast, liberal, podcast, podcasts, rachel maddow, radio, randi rhodes, talk, talk radio at 8:25 pm by admin

What’s the first thing you learn when watching those after-school specials on video in health class in middle school?

The drug dealer always gives you enough free smack to get you hooked. Then, it’s going to cost you.

This is the path that liberal talk radio network Air America Radio appears to be taking with its podcast content. I am shamelessly hooked on listening to the Rachel Maddow Show each morning, and I have been a devoted fan of the show since the beginning of last year. The show’s podcast has taken me from riding the PATH train from New Jersey to New York City early last year, all the way to my commute from San Jose to Sunnyvale on the opposite coast.

I woke up Monday morning and started up my iPod only to hear a scary robotic woman informing me twice that as of February 7, Air America podcasts will no longer be offered for free, and that I would be required to subscribe to the podcast through Air America Radio Premium, the new paid podcast service. After taking a moment to contemplate why Dr. Sbaitso’s wife was chosen to tell me the bad news instead of Air America’s regular voice talent, my heart quickly sunk. I’m so used to enjoying a good thing for free that the thought of having to pay for it is positively irritating. However, I can’t imagine my morning without it, so I’m not really sure what choice I have.

Now that I’ve had a few days of that scary robotic lady in my ear at the beginning of all of my Air America podcasts (I’ve named her Ariana), I’m beginning to realize that charging for these podcasts only makes … *gulp*… sense. In perusing the Wikipedia article about podcasting, I came across an interesting statement that hadn’t crossed my mind previously:

“Some podcasters found that exposure to iTunes’ huge number of downloaders threatened to make great demands on their bandwidth and related expenses.”

It’s really easy to forget that commercial radio is a business - emphasis on the word “commercial”. These podcasts are provided commercial-free at no charge, yet the bandwidth bill is being paid by someone. No advertising money is being made from podcasts, and I would imagine that I’m not the only person who no longer listens over the air now that I can easily bypass an hour of commercials per show, and listen on my own schedule.

So, while it still frustrates me, it makes sense that Air America has chosen to offer its podcasts as a premium service. So, what’s it gonna cost me? This is the pricing structure from the premium website:

Some observations: the “Single Show Membership” is grossly overpriced. If I can have every show for under $6 per month (paid yearly), why would I pay only $1 less per month to have a single-show subscription? I imagine that this is the reason the pricing structure is set up in this way. A little bit more money gets you everything. It’s clearly a better value, which means that most people (including myself) will probably choose this option, but most people may still only download one show. Essentially, that extra dollar pays for the option to download other shows.

The important lesson in all of this is that if something is in high enough demand, people will pay money to access it. Whether it’s being done to make a profit, or just to offset the expense of making the content available, content fees seem to be the only viable way (short of advertising) to capitalize on the popularity of podcasting.

Will there continue to be thousands of free podcasts available for download? Probably. Are we going to have to start paying for the really great ones?

Unfortunately, I think it’s almost certain.

Tags: air america, air america radio, al franken, broadcast, iPod, iTunes, liberal, podcast, podcasting, podcasts, rachel maddow, radio, randi rhodes, talk, talk radio

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01.31.06

MOAD: Media Overload Anxiety Disorder

Posted in music, iPod, podcasting, podcasts, radio, talk radio, satire, techno-babble, media, mental health, MOAD, satellite radio, XM at 12:48 am by admin

I’m afraid to say that my iPod might be trudging down the same dark path that sealed the fate of my XM Satellite Radio. No, not being stolen from my glove box through the smashed window of my car in San Francisco on Thanksgiving. I fear that the overwhelming amount of content on my iPod (8,793 songs and counting) could eventually spell doom for the device in the same way that I was compelled me to stop paying for my XM subscription several months ago (prior to the above mentioned robbery).

When I purchased my XM tuner, the draw was that I would have a massive selection of commercial-free music channels so that I would never get bored with what I was listening to. The iPod successfully eliminated my interest in satellite radio music, because I could have thousands of songs in my car or in my pocket, and my programming choices were far more tailored to me, because I became the program director of my own commercial-free radio station. In fact, while I can’t prove it for sure, I would imagine that my libary, which could get me from New York to Los Angeles by car and then back again without ever repeating a single song, is probably more complete than the one they’re using at any given Top 40 radio station in America.

So it’s easy to see why XM music is useless to me. However, I kept paying my $10 per month for the sake of listening to Air America Radio and XM’s “extreme talk” station in my car and at work. Talk radio became an addiction, and for that reason I decided to keep paying the bill.

Then came podcasting.

Now, I have 4 or 5 podcasts that I listen to every day, over the span of several hours. The Rachel Maddow Show and the Al Franken Show in the morning, This Week in Tech on Mondays, Democracy Now in the afternoon, and the hilarious Feast of Fools in the evening.

That’s a pretty full schedule!

So when am I listening to these 8,793 songs? Rarely. Maybe when I’m running on the treadmill, or walking around at the mall trying to be standoffish and avoiding making eye contact with people. In fact, I’ve only listened to 7,813 of the tracks currently on my iPod. The rest remain untouched. You do the math.

The cause behind this is MOAD, or Media Overload Anxiety Disorder. While not officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a mental illness, its effects can be incredibly crippling. Symptoms may include the endless need to rate and categorize songs, micromanagement of playlists, the impulsive fast-forwarding of a song to the end prior to skipping it merely for the sake of ensuring that the play count is properly incremented, along with various other classic anxiety symptoms.

I propose that the mind’s way of dealing with this painful and life-altering syndrome is to regress into a more simple way of life. Much in the way that the Amish renounce technology, or the Republicans renounce ethics, a MOAD sufferer will eventually renounce the need to categorize and organize thousands of songs by sustaining him or herself almost solely on volatile content that needs no rating, remains fresh on a daily basis, and is fully disposable after it has been consumed.

In a nutshell: the podcast.

Each day, the podcasts I have listened to are deleted automatically from my iPod, and new ones are automatically synchronized. I don’t have to rate episodes, or put them into special genres, or distinguish between 18 different remixes, because they’re just daily shows. That’s it. End of story. I remain entertained and happy, barely even paying notice to the Chumbawumba and Vengaboys tracks lurking deep in the cavernous pit of unplayed songs on my iPod.

While there is no cure for MOAD, it’s definitely possible to treat it through education and prevention. I would imagine that this involves only carrying around music that I actually intend to listen to, and letting the useless crap clutter my hard drive at home where it belongs.

Please remember this new acronym, because like all good acronyms it certainly deserves to be the subject of numerous conferences, websites, books, and media events. Please contact me in person to schedule speaking engagements.

Tags: iPod, media, mental health, MOAD, music, podcasting, podcasts, radio, satellite radio, satire, talk radio, XM

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