Brian leads off by asking:
How soon before the networks, who are all putting out their own pay-for-streaming channels, transition slowly to streaming only and broadcast vanishes completely? (Or, if not completely, becomes the least desirable platform.)
I can’t even say for sure when it’s safe to leave my house, but I have the same prediction you do. At some point things will flip, and new shows will premier on the networks’ streaming channels and then re-appear on the broadcast network.
I think we’re a few years away from that, but this pandemic could easily hasten or slow that process by one or two years.
Seems to me it’s a safe bet though that five years from now television, as we know it, will be very different. I hope I can get out of my house by then.
RyderDA wonders:
On your advice, I've been listening to Rick Bro Radio and Great Big Radio; they're both awesome, so thanks for the recommendation! But a question regarding them: they are advertising free, and free to listen to. I don't understand the business model. If they are paying license fees for the music they play, that's gotta be funded somehow. So how does it work?
The honest answer is that both Rich Brother Robbin (richbroradio.com) and Howard Hoffman (GreatBigRadio.com) lose money. Their stations are a labor of love. And as long as the royalty fees aren’t too exorbitant, I suspect they’ll keep pumping out the hits. They do it because they love radio, love to entertain, and love the music that radio, in its futile quest for demographics, has forgotten.
Both Rich and Howard are providing a great service. If you would like to donate to either or both, I’m sure they’d be very grateful.
From cd1515 comes a baseball question.
If you were still doing games, how tough would it be to do them now with no fans in the stands?
And what do you think about announcers doing games remotely from a studio?
It would be extremely hard to call games from an empty stadium. The crowd really provides the excitement, both to the announcers and the players. Players talk about “the tenth man” – they really do feed off the energy of the crowd.
Same with announcers. In the minors I’ve called games where the stadiums were essentially empty. It’s very difficult. You feel like you’re in a vacuum.
And if there are no people in the stands, why not call the game from home or a studio? Especially for the older announcers – why put yourself at risk? How well will stadiums be sanitized? Even with a reduced crew you still need stadium operations people, you still will be in close quarters in elevators, and small broadcast booths.
Then there are the other logistics. Will everyone be quarantined in a hotel? How sterilized is the hotel? Will hotel workers be quarantined? Will stadium operations crews be quarantined? What about travel? How sterilized will team buses be, and airplanes?
So if I’m an announcer and know that the background sound will be the same at my house as it would be in a stadium, then I’d rather do it from my living room.
Yes, I’ll miss daily interaction with the manager and players, but I can Zoom so I’ll still have my pipeline to the skipper.
Jason Benetti of ESPN is calling those Korean League games from his house and he sounds just fine. (Although he sounds great whatever he does.)
And finally, from -3- :
With everybody hunkered down to avoid the Trump Flu, is traffic going up on the archives? Or is it just old weirdoes like me reading through?
Readership is up, which sort of surprises me. A large percentage of my readers log on at work during business hours. Sure, many can still work from home, but quite a few can’t and have lost their jobs. I was expecting my traffic to go down. But happily it has not.
Podcasts, on a whole, have gone down during this lockdown. That surprises me too. You figure folks would now have more time to catch up on podcasts, but most people clearly must be listening during outside workouts or commuting under normal conditions.
Fortunately, my numbers on HOLLYWOOD AND LEVINE have held steady, and I thank you for that. I’ve got some nifty guests coming up – a comedy writer who’s had a very colorful career, and an eight-time JEOPARDY champion who won $228,000.
What’s your Friday Question? Stay safe. Wear your mask.
from By Ken Levine
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