Distance Ed Ideas -

• The Future of Television
  Is it OK to talk about a story in Newsweek other than the brief item on Guantanomo Bay that has everyone so upset? I can? Thank you.
  
  Steven Levy has a big story this week on the future of television. What I find especially interesting is that it deals with how scale is transforming the medium. We used to think of TV as an appliance that we put as the centerpiece of our living or family room, and that we would make an appointment to watch it from that location. Today, Levy points out, television ranges from giant HDTV screens that rival movie theaters to tiny screens carrying news and miniature television series on mobile phones. When I wrote the chapter in my Intro to Mass Comm book on television, I divided it into sections on broadcast and cable/satellite. Is there a third or fourth division I need to be thinking about now? Good stuff. Also, Conan O'Brien gives his view of the future of television, and Brad Stone looks at alternatives to traditional 30-second advertising spots.
• Lost Features First Leading Character Who Doesn't Speak English
  Strictly speaking, Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim speaks much better English than Korean. (Just watch him as the evil lawyer Gavin on Angel reruns.) But his character on the mysterious show Lost is the first on American television to be a lead who never speaks English. Given the overall shortage of Asian characters on American television, Kim's character is all the more interesting. (Washington Post)
• Digital Rights Management Issues
  If you don't know what Digital Rights Management (DRM) is yet, you will soon. It's one of the big issues in the media business right now. Let's start with the central advantage of and problem with digital media content - you can make perfect copies of digital media files that won't degrade over time and can be copied again and again and again. This is why you can rip a song of a CD, make it into an MP3 file, and then trade it around the world using a peer-to-peer file sharing network. Media companies have a name for this behavior - they call it stealing. The music industry has already been forever changed by file sharing of digital music, the change is coming in the movie business, but what really worries content producers is HDTV. Because with HDTV the networks will be broadcasting high-quality digital signals for everyone to receive. Who can then make perfect copies that can be.... well, you know the story. In fact, one of the major issues holding up full-fledged adoption of HDTV is the whole issue of content copy protection.

• So what all the content producers want these days is Digital Rights Management - a way to control how digital media files can be used and distributed. Apple, for example, has fairly flexible DRM for the songs you download from iTunes, as long as you use them in the iTunes program or an iPod. Otherwise you're out of luck. Here's a couple of items from around the web recently on DRM:

• • Viewers Still Have Rights Dept. - FCC Can't Mandate Copy Protection on Digital Television
    Lately, it seems that every time you turn around the FCC and congress have granted more and more control over media content to the media companies that distribute materials and give less and less control to consumers. For example, it is legal for you to make a backup copy of a DVD for personal use, but illegal for you to break the copy protection built into the disc. So it's a positive move for consumers that a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday that an FCC rule that would keep people from transmitting digital television files over the Internet was beyond its authority. (Washington Post)
  • Court Bans FCC Broadcast Flag (c|net)
    A somewhat more technical discussion of the "broadcast flag" that would indicate that a digital recording shouldn't be sent over the Internet. What is interesting is the diversity of interests here. Content providers want the restrictions on how consumers can use digital recordings of broadcast materials, but home electronics companies don't want the restrictions. (They want to sell consumers cool toys to use these recordings.) (c|net)
• What's Indecent? TV and Radio Try To Come To Terms With New Standards
  Ever since Janet Jackson showed her nipple at the Super Bowl more than a year ago, broadcasters have been agonizing over what's indecent. And activists have been more than willing to weigh in with their opinions. USA Today takes a look at how shock jocks, TV programmers, and audience members are reacting. There's also a good sidebar on how cable and satellite providers are reacting to calls for limits on what gets put transmitted on non-broadcast television.
• on Stewart Tells All
  Comedian and commentator of the moment (for the last year!) Jon Stewart gives an extended interview to Wired magazine. Stewart's The Daily Show is often listed as the number one source of news for brighter college students. To me, the most interesting thing about the show is that Stewart professes indifference to the fact that clips from his show are posted all over the Internet, and that you can even download the entire show if you want. He tells Wired:
  
  I'm surprised people don't have cables coming out of their asses, because that's going to be a new thing. You're just going to get it directly fed into you. I look at systems like the Internet as a convenience. I look at it as the same as cable or anything else. Everything is geared toward more individualized consumption. Getting it off the Internet is no different than getting it off TV.
  
  Stewart also talks at length about his "stop hurting America" visit to CNN's Crossfire. (He also has a great game on his site - Newshunter 2 - Beat the Press!)
  
• Spanish-Language TV Channels Battling It Out With Telenovelas
  When we look at about television ratings, most of the talk focuses on either the Big Four broadcast networks or the major English-language cable channels. But in markets with large Hispanic populations, Spanish-language broadcaster Univision can oftentimes draw more viewers than any of the major English-language channels. And that's not counting programming from the second place Telemundo Spanish-language channel. Univision and Telemundo have broadcast stations in many major urban markets, and are on cable in many more. This article from the Washington Post looks at some of the most popular programming on the Spanish channels - telenovelas. Telenovelas are limited-run (6 months or so) soap operas full of "steamy betrayal, class conflict and tragic love."
  
• ABC Offering Primetime Shows in Spanish
  One of the little-known features most stereo televisions offer is the SAP, or secondary audio programming. This can be used for a variety of functions, such as described video for the blind, or completely separate audio programming. But a growing use of it is to provide a Spanish simulcast of the dialog on popular shows. The ABC television network is going to offer all of its primetime programming in Spanish this fall, with several being dubbed in Spanish (including Lost, Desperate Housewives, and George Lopez) and the rest being closed-captioned in Spanish. Why? Because research shows that about half of the 41 million Hispanics in the U.S. watch programming primarily in Spanish.
  
  
• The Earthquake In Slow Motion Continues
  Journalist Ken Auletta, writing in his book Three Blind Mice wrote that the television networks were facing an earthquake in slow motion in the late 1980s. There was the rise of cable, the growth of VCRs, the growth of new broadcast networks, and audience members who started to think that they ought to be able to control what they watched and when they watched it.
  
  That earthquake continue rattling on through the 90s and Y2Ks with the growth of digital cable, satellite television, and the digital video recorder.
  
  And then on Wednesday, Oct. 12, Apple set off what may turn out to be one of the biggest tremors in this ongoing quake. Apple announced a new version of the iPod music player that would now handle video files as well as music. All well and good, you say. We've had cool digital video players before. But the big news was that Apple was partnering with Disney to sell ABC's top rated television shows through the iTunes music store. These programs, including Lost and Desperate Housewives, will be available the day after they air on the network and will cost $1.95. They will come without commercials. So, for $1.95 you can download a legal copy of your favorite show to watch on either your computer or your iPod.
  
  What makes this so revolutionary is that it is changing the entire economic framework for television programming. Instead of selling audiences to advertisers, Apple is selling programs to consumers, who will pay directly for the programming.
  
  As I told my freshmen in class this morning, all mass media have both a hardware and a software component. There's been cool video hardware before (though you would be hard pressed to find anything cooler than an iPod). But there has not been a truly revolutionary new source of programming for these devices that can be used by ordinary people. The fact that Disney is willing to sell their top television titles the day after they air on broadcast in a form that you can keep and replay as often as you want is truly a major change in the media world.
  
  Mark my words, Oct. 12, 2005, was a big day.
  
• The Earthquake Continues - You Read It Here First
  On Oct. 14, I wrote that October 12th, 2005, was the beginning of the next phase of the earthquake in slow motion that's been shaking up the television industry since the late 1980s. It wasn't that Apple's newly announced video iPod was revolutionary, it was that Apple was selling individual episodes of ABC's prime time lineup the day after they aired for $1.99, without commercials. The problem the broadcast networks are facing is that people just don't want to watch commercials anymore, but commercials pay the bills. What's the alternative? Apple is suggesting on-demand, pay-per-view video that you can keep on your computer or iPod as long as you want.
  
  Now CBS and NBC are following suit, albeit with a more limited and less revolutionary approach. These two networks will sell commercial-free episodes of current series for 99 cents each through Comcast and DirectTV. Read the USA Today article for specific details about the two different systems. But the big difference is that the ABC programs are lower quality video, but available long term and can be moved among different devices. The CBS/NBC shows will be full broadcast-quality video, but will have limited availability. In the case of NBC, viewers will only be able to hold onto the programs for a week.
  
  Of course, not everyone is enthralled with all the new choices. Some people, believe it or not, just want to watch a bit of basic broadcast television. As USA Today is reporting, only 3 percent of the people who don't have premium digital TV service say that they want it. The earthquake is clearly continuing.
• Of Course, If She Had Been Wealthy and White The Cable Channels Would Have Been All Over This Story For Two Weeks Dept. - What's Really Wrong With The Press
  Lakesha Parker, age 33, was murdered by persons unknown 12 days ago in an elementary schoolyard in inner-city Washington DC. The murder was caught on a surveillance camera, but but the picture quality is bad because any lights in the area were burnt out. According to Washington Post columnist Colbert I. King, DC school officials took 12 days to replace missing locks at the school and had yet to replace a bullet-pocked door.
  
  According to a search of Google news, the only major published item on the case was by King. A broader search of Google showed a three graph mention in the Post in a crime round up.
  
  Don't tell me all the same old sanctimonious crap about left/right bias. You want to know what's wrong with the press? It hasn't learned the lesson of Katrina. It pays lip service to the idea that people who aren't wealthy and white count, but it doesn't believe it. Laci Peterson, who has been buried, and had her killer tried and convicted, had 275 links pop up for a story that her mother will collect her life insurance! Natalee Holloway? 568 Google News links.
  
  Carp all you want about the differences between Fox and CNN, neither network acknowledges Parker exists.
  
  But, you know, the debate over Merry Christmas is vastly more newsworthy than a woman being murdered in a schoolyard.
• Keith Olbermann and Brian Lamb Chat
  C-SPAN's Brian Lamb had MSNBC host Keith Olbermann on as his guest on Q&A Sunday. (Q&A is Lamb's replacement for the longtime Booknotes show. In practice, the show isn't that different from the old one except that he has a few more options for guests.)
  
  Olbermann is the sometimes controversial host of MSNBC's even news and commentary show Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Olbermann is known for being outspoken, being critical of the current administration, and labeling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly as the "Worst Person in the World."
  
  Some have charged that Olbermann is biased against the Bush administration. Olbermann gives a compelling response - he's critical of whoever is the current administration. As Olbermann points out, he did 228 consecutive shows when Clinton was president on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
  
  But overall, the interview is fascinating. Olbermann talks about knowing people on three of the planes that were crashed on Sept. 11, what it's like putting together a daily news show, what he thinks of Fox News (the words "flying monkey's" come up on occasion), and about working as a sports broadcaster. (BTW, one of the first guests on Q&A was Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes)
  
  What has always impressed me about the interview shows on C-SPAN vs. those everywhere else is that the guest is actually allowed to answer the questions. Watch the streaming video of the program (there's a link on the page), but take a peek at the transcript. For every 10 words Lamb uses, his guests use 200. (A quick check of a random interaction from this program has Lamb asking a 28-word question and getting a 227-word answer. Show me another host who gives his guest that much room.)
  
  As an interesting follow up to the C-SPAN interview, Olbermann blogs about a Lloyd Grove column from the New York Daily News that he says seriously misrepresented what he said in the interview.
  
  UPDATE: The Olbermann-O'Reilly Rap From OTM (MP3 Audio)