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Viacom Launches Podcast-Only Radio Station
prostoalex writes "Figuring out it couldn't get any worse, Viacom is turning an underperforming talk radio station in San Francisco into podcasting central. KYOU Radio performed so poorly in the ratings that it would not even show up on the official Arbitron radio rankings for the city of San Francisco. Now the Web site of the station owned by $56.5 billion corporation features a hip young look and claims to be the Open Source Radio. Visitors can upload the podcasts of their own in MP3, AIFF, AVI or WMA formats (no OGG support by someone who's so accepting of open source)."
Mp3 may be better than ogg, but shouldn't this open source radio support all popular formats? This is a great idea, however although the exclusion of the ogg vorbis format is insignificant, it is troubling. Why would they leave this format out when it would be easy to include it?
This sig is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
From a business perspective this is genius. Content costs nothing because it's created by users and everything they make is pure profit. People will tune in to see if their content was picked or not.
Of course, it will probably end up being just as crappy as local public access channels. Except, instead of seeing teenagers prank call McDonald's it'll be wannabe Art Bells ranting about how George W. Bush is hiding Osama bin Laden on the dark side of the moon.
Call me crazy, but I fail to see what all the hubbub is about podcasting (I also dislike the name). I think it is kind of neat as an idea, but I just don't see any financial strategy behind this that is in anyway sustainable. This isn't meant to be flamebait, I am really curious.
Can anyone explain this to me?
Does anyone know any relevent links about this topic?
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cou
I personally would like for this to mean the return of old-timey radio dramas. After all, I can't imagine that this would ever be done by anyone other than amateurs. Our local college radio station has something similar to a radio drama (although it's a bit more of a narrative) every monday night, and it's actually quite enjoyable.
free music
Please take the sentence above and insert "the web" where "podcasting" is currently placed. You could say much the same thing about the web lacking a financial strategy for content-oriented sites, especially back in 1999. But it evolved, at least somewhat. The same thing will happen to podcasts.
Of greater importance, though, is that something can be totally paradigm-shifting but not generate a lot of cash. If 20 million people soon do most of their "radio" listening by podcast, the implications to society are enormous regardless of how much money is being made.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Uh, Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Sirius, where Howard Stern is heading in 2006.
Return the airwaves to the public. We could use those frequencies more efficiently with muni wifi !
Get rid of the FCC. Pure shills for monopolists.
Does EVERY fucking article concerning compressed audio have to stick this little jab into each headline?
Slashdot's open source... "no WC3 conformity by someone who's so accepting of open source"
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Are you insane? It's used by all PlaysForSure online music stores... i.e. just about everything except iTunes.
Wow - the fact you got modded as troll when you hit on the only problem with this scheme shows how little people here know about radio.
Folks, at its best Podcasting is supposed to break us free from the crappy world of FCC filtered, Clear Channel backed pablum that has been hoisted on us. Podcasting is the RESPONSE to years of having our airwaves taken away from us by govermental force and used by a few corporations to tell us what and when to listen to the music they want to seel us or to listen to the news they demand we belive.
Podcasting, heck any methodology that subverts the traditional communications paradigm of "We own you, you listen to what we tell you to" is a great and glorious thing. It gives us the possibility of finding our own voices, of putting out our own content and of sharing in these things across the whole of humanity.
But now those same tradionalists who took the airwaves from us want to join in the revoltuion against them? Something smell fishy to you yet?
Lets break the KYOU thing down
Infinity looses its biggest ever cash cow (Stern) and is DESPERATE for a new "thing". So whats new? (not much you..that should get the nprheads)
Podcasting, which is just mp3s passed around via automated apps (bashpodder being imnsfho the best) goes from 0 to Hyperspace speeds in under a year...
Many podcasters are living on the steam that they are changing the course of history, that each and every days recounting of thier lunch choices is a signal to the world of paradigm shifting import that EVERYONE needs to hear..(ok so some podcasters are not into this ego shit eating contest and yes some podcasts are just that fucking damn good and should be listened to... but enough fit this description that the idea holds.)
SO here is Infinity DESPERATE for Something New
SO here are some Podcaster DESPERATE to be heard
Hey look, linkup synchup dontcha just wana throw up..because...
INfinity pays NOTHING for the content, they sell ads and make the revenue, and the content is filtered to FCC cleaness standards to boot.
So the Podcasters have to be FCC filtered, thier works make revenue for Infinity alone, and man does this begin to sound like some radio execs wet dream or what?
Folks, this is fishy at best and a subversion of what indipendent media is suppose to be about at worst. I say no thanks.
Burn Radio Burn
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
A shoutcast server does not use AM radio so I don't really see how it is the "same thing". In one case you are broadcasting over the Internet to a certain set of listeners (mostly people sitting at their computers). In the other you are broadcasting over the airwaves (e.g. to people in cars).
This is a serious question:
What happens when someone uploads another's music as their own?
That is probably the most pathetic attempt at making a website look hip and edgy. The marketing execs probably thought they were being clever when they suggested
Bob: hey lets turn the K into a K with a fist coming out of the top, like the K is defiant.
Jim: Yes, Brilliant! A defiant K, our focus groups show that MTV watching youth identify with the defiant K.
Come on what a total joke. Viacom being the leader of the new revolution, and claiming to be the Open Source Radio yet there is nothing overtly open source about the whole thing. Where is the Source in this anyways?
Possibly those interested in alternate views could check out kboo.fm and wbai.org, which do not pledge allegiance to Viacom or ClearChannel.
Nothing to hear here folks, turn the dial.