Of course, nearly everyone is talking about the Christmas/Boxing Day Tsunami in South Asia. I really wanted to make a donation, but I couldn’t find anywhere I could do that online without a credit card. Then I saw that PayPal had a link for donating to UNICEF. I’m still going to try making a donation the old fashioned way because I only have a little bit of money in my PayPal account. (I have to transfer money to PayPal before sending it, and that takes a long time.)
Anyway, thanks PayPal.
Radio and things like it have become popular topics of late. There’s podcasting, studies indicating declines in traditional radio listenership, and here in Canada the CRTC’s subscription radio hearings. I personally find all of this very interesting. I’ve always liked radio, but these days I very rarely tune into broadcast radio. I think that’s because the broadcasters in my area either don’t air stuff I want to hear, or they don’t air it when I have time to listen.
How any of the traditional radio companies will respond to all these things depends on how they see the business they are in. This is the point of recent no nonsense tip posted on the Radio Marketing Nexus blog recently. Mark Ramsay asks the question “what business is radio in?” A question he answers it in a very thought provoking way.
Ramsay states that radio stations aren’t actually in the “radio” business, but instead are in one of two related businesses: audio entertainment or audio information. Based on that premise he concludes that “local” isn’t nearly as important as some broadcasters think it is. He makes an especially good case for this with “audio entertainement” stations (music, sports-talk, talk, or personality). With audio information (news, sports, traffic, weather) there is still value in the local connection, but that’s starting to be eroded by the Internet.
It would seem that the real advantages of radio are that its ubiquitous (or nearly so), and it has warmth (the human voice). But, I think the point is that radio shouldn’t be focused on “stations” or radio. On the audio entertainment side, he suggests that radio should operate more like network television: national shows that recruit big talent. This makes some sense because right now at least radio is still in the position that network TV used to be in, before specialty cable stations really took off. Regarding, audio information he says, “I believe Information personalities are as important as information content and that fact further reduces the advantage of being ‘local’.”
There’s some other points and details, but I really just wanted to post about this to give myself an opportunity to think it through. I’ve heard the local, local, local mantra a lot, and it’s challenging to think that maybe its not as important as I’ve been told. Generally, I think the kernel here applies to most businesses. A successful business is defined in terms of its relationship to the rest of the world, rather than the details of its operation. On the Taking Care of Business (TLC) TV show they always talk about “selling ideas”.
I’m not sure what happened, but whatever it was appears to have been solved. Hub.Org has their servers back online now, and I can update my weblog. It’s a weird coincidence that the server went offline right around the time I wanted to post something, considering that I hadn’t posted in a long while.
Newfoundland Resource Protest
Whatever else may be said about The Hon. Danny Williams, it appears he’s far from alone in his protest against the Government of Canada. It was recently reported that the municipal governments in St. John’s, Mount Pearl and Corner Brook had also removed the flag. And, today I read about a local company in Newfoundland had stopped sales of its Canadian themed swimwear.
The CEO of the company even posted a letter on the swimwear line’s website with some interesting comments. I won’t quote the whole letter (although I do suggest reading it), but I did want to include this portion:
Of course, not everyone is happy about the situation. Many feel that it’s improper to use the Maple Leaf for partisan politics. But, regardless of what anyone thinks the national flag represents both the nation and the government. It’s difficult to truly protest the actions of the federal government while prominently displaying the chief symbol of its authority. (And, I must note, that it’s a little hypocritical for the leader of our present government to reprimand someone else for making the national flag a political tool. If it’s permissible to promote the federal government with the flag, I think it’s also okay to protest against that government with it.)
I may or may not post more about my own views of this situation, but at this point I will say that I’m happy to see the people of Newfoundland and Labrador asserting themselves about the offshore revenue issue. It’s clearly impossible to remove the Maple Leaf without angering many other Canadians. I would hope, however, that the majority will look past the flag and see the more important question. In the words of His Worship Andy Wells, Mayor of St. John’s, as reported by CTV.ca, “The majority of Newfoundlanders support Premier Williams’ position on this issue — it’s part of a larger problem we have with our whole relationship with Canada.”
Update (30 Jan 2005): The Unabashedly Canadian site was put back online as of 13 January 2005. The original letter was archived and I have changed the link above.