Digital Celebrities

partridge writes "Carson Daly's simulacrum is the new Max Headroom. I guess this makes Clear Channel Communications the current embodiment of Network 23? Now we just have to wait for the blipverts to start making consumer's heads explode."

Comments

The long, slow, death of the DJ.

[Fugly]

The on-air personality is inches away from being a thing of the past. I have a lot of friends that work in radio. Most of them have had the stations they work for bought by clear channel. Most of my friends that are still on-air personalities (many are unemployeed these days) are being pumped out to at least 3 stations with little tweaks being done to the audio to make it sound like they are local. Frequently celebrity interviews are mocked up from a stock tape of the celebrity answering questions with the DJ's voice dubbed between even.

I keep hoping that eventually people will notice how sterile, packaged and crappy it is and that independent stations will be able to compete by way of superior programming. However, apparently people don't give a rats ass. They don't even notice how shitty radio is these days.

porn stars

[AssFace]

I don't understand why this isn't done across the board with porn stars. considering how far they have come in 3d these days - just scan in a model for cheap and then they can do far more work.
hell, you could even get rough mo-cap done once at a franction of the cost of needing her around all the time.
the audio is obviously even easier than the carson thing.

hell - you could have a system where you customize it so that the person watching it can choose what they want - color hair, skin tone, % bodyfat, etc.
or even to the point of doing famous people, etc.

is it still cheaper to pay real people to do it all?
I could see if the technology wasn't there, but it would seem people would line up even at the level of playstation is right now.

then again, I'm not really all that much into porn, so perhaps this is already out there and I'm just out of the loop.

Re:porn stars

[stratjakt]

>>Is it still cheaper to pay real people to do it all?

Let's see..

CGI rendered porn model - millions in development, artwork and rendering time, plus expensive render farms to do the computations.

Drug addict in her late teens - $20 worth of crack and a Sony Handycam.

Yes, it's cheaper.

Re:Did I miss the point?

[Fugly]

So... what's the BFD as long as he doesn't soound like a Speak N Spell?

If you work in the industry, the BFD is that one guy just did your job in 20 different cities. It sucks for you because the number of available jobs has now shrunk to nothing. It sucks for the public because now they're all getting the same canned crap. There's one thing for dinner and if you don't like it, tough luck. It sucks for the public because there are fewer local on-air personalities that truly understand the experience of being a New Yorker, Clevelander, Los... um... Angeleser... um... whatever.

It's great for Clear Channel though because they just eliminated 19 paychecks. It looks great on the books and looks great to the stockholders. It's a shame that over the last 50 years it's destroyed one hell of a brilliant creative medium.

Turning test?

[MountainLogic]

If a generic local DJ can be replaced with such a simple tool then we are not loosing much. If the most brain-dead table look-up can pass the Turing test then perhaps local DJs need to do their homework, learn more about their community and really have somthing to offer.

Rather than describe this as wiz-bang tech, I'd describe it as poor content production by local DJs. Don't get me wrong, I do want good local content. I do not want junk generic content spewed by a "local DJ" (read moved in from out of state last week).

From Clear Channel itself:

[dcuny]

I grabbed the following from the Clear Channel site. They appear to be quite proud of this technology. After all, it directly benefits us, the consumer!

• Despite Clear Channel Radio's far reaching geography, radio remains a live and local medium in every market the company serves.

Except, of course, when it's not actually live nor local.

• Clear Channel Radio's size, however, allows it to leverage state-of-the-art technology and large-market on-air talent to deliver premium programming to smaller towns.

"Leverage" is must be a euphanism for "use our market power to drive everyone else out of business".

"Premium programming to smaller towns" is a nice phrase... You certainly don't want any local DJ on the airwaves. Thank goodness for Clear Channel!

• Hugely popular shows can be broadcast all over the country, giving listeners the programming and diversity they crave no matter where they are.

Ever wonder what "diversity" means? According to Clear Channel, it's "everyone listening to the same thing."

There's a difference between "everyone is forced to listen to it" and "hugely popular". Pretty much everyone had to eat cafeteria food in my elementry school, but I don't recall it being "hugely popular."

• Clear Channel uses digital voice tracking and in-market feeds to deliver a sound that is live and local.

Except, of course, that it's neither live nor local. Oops, I'm repeating myself.

The biggest scam is that the audience is largely unaware that it's canned, which means that your profit stream is based on the idea of deceiving to your customers. Any what justifies this?

Oh, yes... Premium profits.

• Technology enhancements across the board are changing the way Clear Channel logs inventory, sells airtime, programs radio stations, bills advertisers and runs promotions. Result: Greater value for both advertisers and listeners.

Thanks again, Clear Channel! Those tunes sound so much better, now that you more efficiently sell huge blocks of advertising time through national markets.

It's pledge drive at my local NPR station. I'm suddenly feeling much, much more guilty for not contributing.