There’s a lot to like about the CBC’s new blast of podcasts. First and foremost is 20-odd mp3s of some of the best goddamn radio in the free world.
Everything else is secondary.
It’s a big step forward for an place that is often criticized for being 2 steps behind. We have a ways to go, but we’re going the right way.
We did a survey and it told us that the people downloading these things are not regular CBC Radio listeners. This is a whole new audience for us, which is nice. And in case Richard Stursberg is reading, the post I wrote about that survey is one of the most popular I ever wrote. Googlers come from around the world to learn about DIY CBC-TV on Demand.
There’s also the fact that the West Coast Radio3 web nerds finally broke the Dalet barrier, getting that crusty old system to give up mp3s.
But most interesting for me is that the main guy behind all this is freelancer Tod Maffin. You might remember him from a lot of things, one of them being CBCUnplugged, his lockout blog of last year. Both CBC Management and CMG Union reps got their asses handed to them when Tod’s site became the de facto online headquarters for timely, accurate, dogma-free CBC lockoutainment.
It was so well-done that when an agreement to end the lockout was finally reached, negotiators on both sides leaked the news to Tod directly, which allowed CBCUnplugged to scoop both sides.
Now, CBC managers are not all stupid and shortsighted. And when the whole thing was over, and the CBC decided it needed to do more podcasting, it hired the g that killed them to get them on track.
Now, I met Tod. I like Tod. I like Tod’s blogs. And full disclosure: I shortchanged Tod on our last bar bill.
There is a direct line from CBCUnplugged to the podcasts being offered today. That the CBC and Krista Harris recognized him for what he was – an ally, not an enemy – is to their credit.
If there was anything good to come out of that stupid lockout, this is one of them.
5 Comments
The tech solution above sounds suspiciously like…radio. Very funny post.
Marconi where are you when we need you?
Check this site. You can purchase the parts for a crystal radio set…the purest audio going. The parts are only a few bucks and no batteries required. Ever. Can you spell f-r-e-e-d-o-m.
Build a radio in 10 minutes.
http://sci-toys.com/scitoys/scitoys/radio/ten_minute_radio.html
Perhaps someday we’ll have the technology to wirelessly transmit the podcasting data to small, compact playback devices. That way they won’t need on-board memory or other storage devices.
Then, we could perhaps develop a server that could upload to an infinite number of these ‘receivers’. We’d save a ton on bandwidth and could deliver near-cd audio quality podcasts as opposed to today’s yucky ones.
We could perhaps install more than one of these wireless servers, and figure out a way to allow several to wirelessly upload simultaneously. The playback devices would need a selector to go from feed to feed, but this would not be so complicated.
Maybe we could build the playback units into car dashboards and portable CD players too.
Tod for President!
Classy. (That was sarcasm, incidentally.)
I don’t fear him, I just don’t really trust him either.