NPR's Gaming Podcast

Via Joystiq and Kyle Orland comes the news that National Public Radio is going to be hosting a gaming-related podcast. The show will be hosted by Kyle (of VGMWatch), stand-up artist Ralph Cooper, and All Things Considered games reviewer Robert Holt. From the article: "Kyle - 'You really need to know what art is before you can determine whether video games are art.' Ralph - 'I feel like a lot of video games, at least right now, they're not really trying to make statements.' Rob - 'When I was in Grand Theft Auto ... I was driving through the city and listening to the radio and I drove over a hill and I saw ... this huge moon rise over the horizon, I was just in it at that point. I just knew that this was not your normal game. Of course, I could have just been beating up hookers...'"

Comments

Re:Well I won't be listening...

[gkhan1]

You obviously arn't listening to any good ones! NPR has some great ones, such as Wait, wait, don't tell me! (funny as hell) and NPR:Books, which is great if you're interested in books an literature. Slate's daily podcast is also very, very interesting. As for gaming, Gamespot's The Hotspot is great. TV Guide hosts TVGuide Talk a great podcast on television. If you're a super-nerd The Word Nerds are alot of fun. That's just naming a few of my favourites.

The greatest one of all however is Filmspotting (formerly Cinecast), a movie podcast which frankly is the best reviewers in all of media. A normal review contains what, 3-4 minutes of discussion, maybe 6-7 if it's an article. The Filmspotting guys routinely talk for seventeen (17!) minutes about a movie, incredibly smart and intellectual discussion that really dives deep into actors, scripts, direction, theme, etc. of every movie it reviews. That is what makes podcasting great, by not being contrained by a corporation, people are free to create their own formats, and have complete creative control. Most often that means it's gonna suck, but when it doesn't you get something like Filmspotting which is frankly unparalelled in quality.

Re:NPR's Podcasts

[shawb]

I think it more goes to show that Americans can produce something worthwhile when it is not an advertiser pays for-profit system.

It really really makes sense. In traditional transactions the customer is the entity which pays for the transaction. In advertising supported media, the customer would therefore be the advertiser. What is the advertiser purchasing? The viewing time of the audience. So, this means that the audience is the PRODUCT rather than the customer.

It makes sense that a company will do its best to provide the best product it can to the customer, so advertising supported television will do it's best to provide the best audience to the advertisers. What sort of people make the best product then? Those easilly swayed by advertising. That means it is fiscally irresponsible for an advertising supported media company to produce intelligent, thought provoking material. Profitable shows have to be able to appeal to the lowest common denominator, if they appeal to more discerning audiences that has very little effect on the bottom line, and indeed makes for a more inferior product. The TV show/radio broadcast/etc is simply used to ensnare viewers, they are more like the machines in a factory that actually make the product the customer buys. It makes sense that TV and most radio appeals mainly to the lowest common denominator, and in fact creating programming that makes the audence dumber, or at least puts them in a trance-like state where in theory they are more susceptible to advertising. Ever look into the eyes of someone who has been watching TV for a while? Usually a complete blank stare. And it takes a little time to shake the haze off once their concentration is broken from the tube.

So, in advertiser supported media you may occasionally get a smart show that appeals primarilly to intelligent, discerning people but this is expected to be a fluke rather than the norm. If you want good quality stuff, you either have to go the routes audience supported rather than advertiser supported: either a donation based model such as public television/radio or college radio, or you go with an entirely subscription based model as HBO or Showtime does. Not that everything on audience supported media will be good, and not that everything on advertiser supported media will be good, but audience supported media will carry a much higher proportion of quality programming even if the advertisements themselves are omitted.