Category: Uncategorized

Tuesday Thursday begins the Senate Commerce Committee’s orgy of telecom hearings with every pandering lawmaker’s favorite topic: broadcast indecency. It all starts at 10 AM EST. The lineup of invited panelists is heavy on broadcast and media execs, though anti-indecency crusader Brent Bozell from the Parents Television Council, and Jeff McIntyre from the American Psychological…

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Data retention is not an easy issue these days. Infoworld reports that a physicist and storage expert at IBM warns that most burned CDs and DVDs will last only 2 – 5 years under typical conditions. Basically, he says the dyes used in the discs can degrade over time. Rather against popular opinion, he recommends…

I really am not the world’s greatest zinester. Ever since the transition to WordPress there’s been no links to the mediageek zine page, and there’s not been any page or info for mediageek zine #3 which came out last June. Finally I’ve got the new zine page together and added the ability to order the…

Following right up on my post arguing that podcasting is revitalizing radio — today the Washington Post announces that it will be programming a DC-area station with Post-derived content: Post publisher Jones said in his memo to staff that “this is an innovative way of presenting Washington Post journalism to Washington area radio listeners. The…

The Council on Library and Information Resources has just released a report evaluating “Copyright Issues Relevant to Digital Preservation and Dissemination of Pre-1972 Commercial Sound Recordings by Libraries and Archives.” As one might expect, because of copyright law’s restrictions on copying recordings to modern formats, even when no commercially produced version exists, it is often…

Will poor FCC Chairman Kevin Martin get another Republican commissioner for Christmas? According to the National Journal’s Insider Update there are two new names being floated to replace Kathleen Abernathy. They’re both telecomm industry insiders with plenty of industry connections, so we can rest assured that the public interest will not be a primary concern…

I received word by email on Monday that WRFA-LP, 107.9 FM in Jamestown, New York is now airing the mediageek radioshow on Wednesdays at 3:00 PM. That bring the total to 7 radio stations that air mediageek, including host station WEFT in Champaign, IL. In fact, WEFT is the only full-power station in the lineup…

Jason Scott, creator of the BBS Documentary, was four days ahead of me in commenting on the Times story about the poor broke independent filmmakers I commented on earlier today. He takes the gloves off, and it’s a one-two punch: It is maddening to me to read this, to see yet another set of filmmakers…

A week and a half ago the NY Times ran a piece about two independent filmmakers who are drowning in debt, even though their film has been screened at 16 different festivals. The catch is that it hasn’t been picked up for distribution. This observation from the article certainly rings true: And Geoffrey Gilmore, director…