Wal*Mart is rapidly running out of potential retail locations, so they are trying to find new revenue sources outside their huge stores.
Honestly, I don't feel too badly about them killing Netflix as I'm getting tired of the Netflix pop-up banner ads. We're not talking about a 100 year old family establishment...Netflix is just another corporation. If people don't care when Wal*Mart destroys their downtown communities I doubt that they'll care when a two year old mail order firm bites the dust.
Also, it was funny in another post someone quoting Ted Turner as being "against" the new rules when he controls so many media companies. Mr. consolidation is complaining of consolidation.
He owned one televison station (WTCG, channel 17 in Atlanta) which became a Superstation (WTBS) through distribution on cable networks that he did not own. He owned one news station (CNN) that became a national/internation news station because it was distributed through systems that he did not own. Turner, although rich, was at the mercy of Time/Warner, Cablevision, etc. as they controlled the distribution network. He never controlled the media distribution, and in fact he was bought out by the media conglomerates. Probably the only irony here is that he's complaining even though he made tons of money by selling to the very folks he is complaining about.
Obviously you can have any station you want since stations that want to continue providing "variety" get bought up by whomever feels like having them. Go ahead, just go grab one.
Maybe I could have bought one twenty or thirty years ago, but not anymore. Media giants have driven prices for stations through the roof, and there is no way an independent owner can run a profitable station to compete with the conglomerates.
The consolidation of radio is like the consolidation and homogenization of communities in America (and the world). Instead of a local diner, you have a McDonalds. Instead of a druggist, shoe store, book store, deli, and grocery store you have a Wal*Mart. Leave town, drive ten miles, and repeat.
You won't find a CD from the local rock/jazz/rap artist at the local Wal*Mart, and you won't hear it on the local classic rock station either (not unless Clear Channel corporate adds it to the national playlist).
Gosh, how things have changed (not). Other voices and points of view somehow got on the air.
Don't you mean "other voice and point of view"? It used to be plural, but now it's just ClearChannel (coast to coast). I couldn't care less if it's liberal or conservative chatter, I just want the person pumping stuff on the airwaves in my community to be responsive to the local listeners and not the national audience as determined by Arbitron/Nielsen.
Ten years ago when you heard Howard Stern you knew you were close to NY City. Now you just know you're near some city (or maybe a medium sized town).
I'll agree NY radio has quantity, but not variety. It's the Wal*Mart quantity/variety formula...plenty of stuff so long as it's stuff that Wal*Mart wants to sell you. NY has plenty of radio so long as you like what Infinity/Clearchannel is pushing that day.
Richard Neer wrote a great book about the rise and fall of FM radio in NY. His book covers just a part of the story of the decline of variety in NY radio, and only marginally about the FCC rules changes over the years.
I will agree that I'm better off in NY than most other markets. WFUV-FM (90.7) is my refuge from programmed schlock. However, radio in general in NY has gone downhill in variety and quality in the past twenty years, and that is sad.
I live in the NY metro area and most of the radio stations with decent signals are owned and programmed by national corporations. There are smaller local stations (including college stations), but they have weaker signals which affects reception for those of us stuck in a vehicle. Now that the FCC has loosened the rules even more, I expect that even the smaller stations on the more obscure frequencies will be gobbled up as well.
Smaller markets are targets as well, since Clearchannel can buy a station and then staff it with a few engineers and one salesman. The on-air staff all resides in some national production facility and they are piped over fiber to the station and inserted between songs as necessary. Automated radio was a joke in the 1970's, now it's the rule for many small markets around the country.
Radio station, tv station, newspaper, magazine, ISP, record store, record label, movie studio, movie theater, all owned by one company. Sound good to you?
The current rule change is just a continuation of rules changes from the past. The worst changes were done years ago when the limit on number of stations owned nationwide was lifted. That allowed radio to become truly homogenous across the country rather than reflecting the local community. Howard Stern in the mornings, Opie and Anthony in the afternoons, pumping out the same show everywhere iva transmitters in cities far and wide. Infinity gets to fire a bunch of staff by automating their stations all over the US. Funny that it cut both ways...when Opie and Anthony caused controversy in NY they got fired and that meant they got fired everywhere.:-)
Although I despise the idea of paying for radio in the car, I hope XM sucks enough listeners from regular AM/FM that the media conglomerates are forced to program for the communities they serve. This is probably a pipe dream since Clear Channel and Hughes/DirecTV is parterned with XM, so little by little all the airwaves are being sucked up (literally).
When I was in college radio at MIT, we were so paranoid about the FCC. Did we run enough public service announcements (PSA's), were we serving the community, did anyone play anything offensive on the air, etc. Your station license was up for renewal every year, and you spent weeks before the renewal running announcements about public comments and other BS just in case someone wanted to try and grab the frequency from you. Now (from what I understand), renewals are every five years, and I can't remember the last time I heard a TV or radio station mention that their license was up for renewal. So much for public ownership of the airwaves. Support your local stations and pirate radio.
Great to hear a media "mogul" weigh in against the further consolidation of media in America. I had some dealings with Ted during my college radio days and he's a straight shooter. Back in those days he was battling to make a mark with his "Superstation" via cable distribution. Now, people like Murdoch just buy more stations if they want to reach new markets.
So true...I play Asheron's Call and found that the worst parts of the game were the tedious things like shopping for magic supplies and running from place to place (commuting). Over time the game designers have eased the pain of shopping and added more portals and other ways to jump quickly from place to place, allowing players to spend more time killing stuff.:-)
More info about the settlement deal on the MS site. The biggest coup for MS in this deal might be the collaboration with AOL on DRM. Where does that leave Apple and Real? And the Instant Messenger portion of the deal might also turn out to be a big win for MS.
You're right....I just tossed all the tapes I made in the 80's (copied off HBO). With DirecTV and TiVo, who has time to watch all the great stuff that gets recorded? Sure you can burn the shows to disk for later viewing, but if you can't keep up with the 35 hours (minimum) of stuff on the TiVo already when will you have time to watch the 500 hours of stuff you burned to DVD?
Plus in a year or two it'll all be available on demand anyway, for about the price of a blank disk.
People sell virtual characters and objects from MMPORPG's all the time on eBay, so some of the gamers could argue monetary loss of posessions. How about people who have paid the monthly fee to level their character...do they get reimbursed?
However, in this particular case it sounds like the carnage was limited to newbie areas where it was unlikely that characters had much in the way of equipment or experience. In addition, they can just roll back the servers for 24 hours and get most everyone's stuff back.
It's considered "news" because the Matrix Reloaded is such a marketing success. Every media outlet is trying to find a way to come up with a new story covering the movie, so this P2P article is just another angle. If a sea of Keanu biographies and rehashes of the Matrix philosophy, this P2P article probably seemed "new" to the editors even though it's just another article about piracy/sharing.
I'm just a recreational diver as well, and I use my dive computer primarily as a record keeping device. It's an easy way to track my times and depths over two dives for later entry into my dive log. For dive time calculations, I use the tables. It's conservative, but I'd rather miss a few minutes of bottom time and be healthy than rely on the calculations in the computer.
It sounds to me like the market for these computers was agressive divers...people who were trying to push the limits of safe dive times. That means the company should have been even more vigilant of there calcuation methodology, especially considering the price those computers went for.
And as far as fly time, NAUI recommends 24 hours wait time after a dive before flying...extremely conservative, but one again I prefer to be safe (especially since it's a hobby!).
LOL...you may be right. And 80% of America probably won't see Matrix Reloaded, but you wouldn't know it by the media coverage. So the most popular movie and the most popular TV show are only seen by 20% of the population yet covered by 95% of the media.
By 95% I don't mean 95% of the publications, but by the total actual circulation for each publication. So Time, People or Entertainment Weekly carry a much greater weight than Mother Jones, Harpers, and Scientific American.
Tha article is marginally about Matrix Reloaded. Frank Rich's main focus is on media control of American culture and information. He compares the hype of the film to the media coverage of the war. The consolidation of control of our information sources, and the lack of competition between media moguls is his primary concern. The current situation is bad enough, but in a few weeks the FCC will probably remove even more restrictions allowing even greater consolidation.
The most interesting thing about the article (IMHO) was Barry Diller's comment that most execs don't care about the films their studios make. They are distanced from the creative side of the film and only care about the profits and marketing possibilities. I hadn't considered that much, but it's interesting to note how far we've come from the days when David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock battled daily over "Rebecca".
The Matrix Reloaded took in $135 million in four days, and 230 million people voted for the finals of American Idol. That is the state of American culture today....draw your own conclusions.
I guess the cause of problem would have to be clear before they would risk a second crew. If they were positive that tiles fell off because of some debris then they could send a rescue. If they knew tiles fell off but didn't know the cause, then I think they would not want to send up the second ship until they investigated fully.
Wouldn't NASA wait to determine the cause of the problem before launching a second crew into space? What if Atlantis gets up there and discovers "Hey, same thing happened to us...can you send ANOTHER rescue ship?". It took several weeks just to start narrowing down the cause from all the theories, and even now that they have plenty of info NASA still isn't sending shuttles up into space.
The most likely way something like this would succeed would be for MS (for example) to bundle this with their MSN service, perhaps partnered with Verizon DSL service. Sell it as a stand-alone subscription for $10 per month to AOL and Earthlink users, but offer it "free" to MSN DSL subscribers. Then it becomes a value-added piece of their online offerings and puts them at an advantage over AOL and Apple (Apple is ultimately doomed with the $1 per song fee).
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They were just testing the service, not doing full-blown promotions in all their stores.
Honestly, I don't feel too badly about them killing Netflix as I'm getting tired of the Netflix pop-up banner ads. We're not talking about a 100 year old family establishment...Netflix is just another corporation. If people don't care when Wal*Mart destroys their downtown communities I doubt that they'll care when a two year old mail order firm bites the dust.
The strongest parts of the story (IMHO) involved the humans who helped the visitors in exchange for positions of power.
If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat.
Otherwise, we'll track you down via DNA testing!
Wouldn't that just attract aliens?
If you add a circular saw blade then it will.
He owned one televison station (WTCG, channel 17 in Atlanta) which became a Superstation (WTBS) through distribution on cable networks that he did not own. He owned one news station (CNN) that became a national/internation news station because it was distributed through systems that he did not own. Turner, although rich, was at the mercy of Time/Warner, Cablevision, etc. as they controlled the distribution network. He never controlled the media distribution, and in fact he was bought out by the media conglomerates. Probably the only irony here is that he's complaining even though he made tons of money by selling to the very folks he is complaining about.
Obviously you can have any station you want since stations that want to continue providing "variety" get bought up by whomever feels like having them. Go ahead, just go grab one.
Maybe I could have bought one twenty or thirty years ago, but not anymore. Media giants have driven prices for stations through the roof, and there is no way an independent owner can run a profitable station to compete with the conglomerates.
The consolidation of radio is like the consolidation and homogenization of communities in America (and the world). Instead of a local diner, you have a McDonalds. Instead of a druggist, shoe store, book store, deli, and grocery store you have a Wal*Mart. Leave town, drive ten miles, and repeat.
You won't find a CD from the local rock/jazz/rap artist at the local Wal*Mart, and you won't hear it on the local classic rock station either (not unless Clear Channel corporate adds it to the national playlist).
Gosh, how things have changed (not). Other voices and points of view somehow got on the air.
Don't you mean "other voice and point of view"? It used to be plural, but now it's just ClearChannel (coast to coast). I couldn't care less if it's liberal or conservative chatter, I just want the person pumping stuff on the airwaves in my community to be responsive to the local listeners and not the national audience as determined by Arbitron/Nielsen.
Ten years ago when you heard Howard Stern you knew you were close to NY City. Now you just know you're near some city (or maybe a medium sized town).
I'll agree NY radio has quantity, but not variety. It's the Wal*Mart quantity/variety formula...plenty of stuff so long as it's stuff that Wal*Mart wants to sell you. NY has plenty of radio so long as you like what Infinity/Clearchannel is pushing that day.
Richard Neer wrote a great book about the rise and fall of FM radio in NY. His book covers just a part of the story of the decline of variety in NY radio, and only marginally about the FCC rules changes over the years.
I will agree that I'm better off in NY than most other markets. WFUV-FM (90.7) is my refuge from programmed schlock. However, radio in general in NY has gone downhill in variety and quality in the past twenty years, and that is sad.
I live in the NY metro area and most of the radio stations with decent signals are owned and programmed by national corporations. There are smaller local stations (including college stations), but they have weaker signals which affects reception for those of us stuck in a vehicle. Now that the FCC has loosened the rules even more, I expect that even the smaller stations on the more obscure frequencies will be gobbled up as well.
Smaller markets are targets as well, since Clearchannel can buy a station and then staff it with a few engineers and one salesman. The on-air staff all resides in some national production facility and they are piped over fiber to the station and inserted between songs as necessary. Automated radio was a joke in the 1970's, now it's the rule for many small markets around the country.
Radio station, tv station, newspaper, magazine, ISP, record store, record label, movie studio, movie theater, all owned by one company. Sound good to you?
The current rule change is just a continuation of rules changes from the past. The worst changes were done years ago when the limit on number of stations owned nationwide was lifted. That allowed radio to become truly homogenous across the country rather than reflecting the local community. Howard Stern in the mornings, Opie and Anthony in the afternoons, pumping out the same show everywhere iva transmitters in cities far and wide. Infinity gets to fire a bunch of staff by automating their stations all over the US. Funny that it cut both ways...when Opie and Anthony caused controversy in NY they got fired and that meant they got fired everywhere. :-)
Although I despise the idea of paying for radio in the car, I hope XM sucks enough listeners from regular AM/FM that the media conglomerates are forced to program for the communities they serve. This is probably a pipe dream since Clear Channel and Hughes/DirecTV is parterned with XM, so little by little all the airwaves are being sucked up (literally).
When I was in college radio at MIT, we were so paranoid about the FCC. Did we run enough public service announcements (PSA's), were we serving the community, did anyone play anything offensive on the air, etc. Your station license was up for renewal every year, and you spent weeks before the renewal running announcements about public comments and other BS just in case someone wanted to try and grab the frequency from you. Now (from what I understand), renewals are every five years, and I can't remember the last time I heard a TV or radio station mention that their license was up for renewal. So much for public ownership of the airwaves. Support your local stations and pirate radio.
Great to hear a media "mogul" weigh in against the further consolidation of media in America. I had some dealings with Ted during my college radio days and he's a straight shooter. Back in those days he was battling to make a mark with his "Superstation" via cable distribution. Now, people like Murdoch just buy more stations if they want to reach new markets.
So true...I play Asheron's Call and found that the worst parts of the game were the tedious things like shopping for magic supplies and running from place to place (commuting). Over time the game designers have eased the pain of shopping and added more portals and other ways to jump quickly from place to place, allowing players to spend more time killing stuff. :-)
More info about the settlement deal on the MS site. The biggest coup for MS in this deal might be the collaboration with AOL on DRM. Where does that leave Apple and Real? And the Instant Messenger portion of the deal might also turn out to be a big win for MS.
You're right....I just tossed all the tapes I made in the 80's (copied off HBO). With DirecTV and TiVo, who has time to watch all the great stuff that gets recorded? Sure you can burn the shows to disk for later viewing, but if you can't keep up with the 35 hours (minimum) of stuff on the TiVo already when will you have time to watch the 500 hours of stuff you burned to DVD?
Plus in a year or two it'll all be available on demand anyway, for about the price of a blank disk.
However, in this particular case it sounds like the carnage was limited to newbie areas where it was unlikely that characters had much in the way of equipment or experience. In addition, they can just roll back the servers for 24 hours and get most everyone's stuff back.
Yeah...I'd love to see that attorney fees for this settlement.
It's considered "news" because the Matrix Reloaded is such a marketing success. Every media outlet is trying to find a way to come up with a new story covering the movie, so this P2P article is just another angle. If a sea of Keanu biographies and rehashes of the Matrix philosophy, this P2P article probably seemed "new" to the editors even though it's just another article about piracy/sharing.
It sounds to me like the market for these computers was agressive divers...people who were trying to push the limits of safe dive times. That means the company should have been even more vigilant of there calcuation methodology, especially considering the price those computers went for.
And as far as fly time, NAUI recommends 24 hours wait time after a dive before flying...extremely conservative, but one again I prefer to be safe (especially since it's a hobby!).
LOL...you may be right. And 80% of America probably won't see Matrix Reloaded, but you wouldn't know it by the media coverage. So the most popular movie and the most popular TV show are only seen by 20% of the population yet covered by 95% of the media.
By 95% I don't mean 95% of the publications, but by the total actual circulation for each publication. So Time, People or Entertainment Weekly carry a much greater weight than Mother Jones, Harpers, and Scientific American.
Tha article is marginally about Matrix Reloaded. Frank Rich's main focus is on media control of American culture and information. He compares the hype of the film to the media coverage of the war. The consolidation of control of our information sources, and the lack of competition between media moguls is his primary concern. The current situation is bad enough, but in a few weeks the FCC will probably remove even more restrictions allowing even greater consolidation.
The most interesting thing about the article (IMHO) was Barry Diller's comment that most execs don't care about the films their studios make. They are distanced from the creative side of the film and only care about the profits and marketing possibilities. I hadn't considered that much, but it's interesting to note how far we've come from the days when David O. Selznick and Alfred Hitchcock battled daily over "Rebecca".
The Matrix Reloaded took in $135 million in four days, and 230 million people voted for the finals of American Idol. That is the state of American culture today....draw your own conclusions.
Wow...PL/1. Brings me back to my college days at MIT, studying PL/1, FORTRAN, and LISP(!), and playing Zork on the old PDP machines in the AI labs.
I guess the cause of problem would have to be clear before they would risk a second crew. If they were positive that tiles fell off because of some debris then they could send a rescue. If they knew tiles fell off but didn't know the cause, then I think they would not want to send up the second ship until they investigated fully.
Wouldn't NASA wait to determine the cause of the problem before launching a second crew into space? What if Atlantis gets up there and discovers "Hey, same thing happened to us...can you send ANOTHER rescue ship?". It took several weeks just to start narrowing down the cause from all the theories, and even now that they have plenty of info NASA still isn't sending shuttles up into space.
The most likely way something like this would succeed would be for MS (for example) to bundle this with their MSN service, perhaps partnered with Verizon DSL service. Sell it as a stand-alone subscription for $10 per month to AOL and Earthlink users, but offer it "free" to MSN DSL subscribers. Then it becomes a value-added piece of their online offerings and puts them at an advantage over AOL and Apple (Apple is ultimately doomed with the $1 per song fee).