Stilgherrian » abc

Episode 25 online!

Stilgherrian — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:11:27 +0000

Yes, Stilgherrian Live has returned, and last night’s episode of Stilgherrian Live Delta, episode 25, is online for your (re)viewing pleasure.

I was grumpy because we started 40 minutes late. A technical fault at Ustream prevented people hearing the audio, so we just had to wait. I’m not good at waiting. I was rude. Sorry.

Still, when we finally got on air I introduced “Stilgherrian’s Street View” and pondered the ideal 8-person orgy. People chose the striking Fairfax journalists as Cnut of the Week, the clearest winners ever, beating Glenn Milne and the strange cheer squad at The Australia who want Peter Costello to lead the Liberal Party, and US Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

There was also Sheena Easton. Twice.

Have a squizz and let me know what you think!

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Links for 26 May 2008 through 01 June 2008

del.icio.us — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:01:28 +0000

Stilgherrian’s links for 26 May 2008 through 01 June 2008, gathered semi-automatically and covering a disturbing range of topics:

NSLU2-Linux: Technical information for hacking the Linksys NSLU2 NAS device, along with the Synology DS101, the Iomega NAS100d, the D-Link DSMG600 and other ixp4xx-based devices with large attached storage.
Hacking WD MyBook World Ed: Western Digital's My Book World Edition network storage device is actually a little Linux RAID server. This Wiki has technical information on how to hack them.
Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse: Well, she does. And here's the website. Proof that people have too much time on their hands.
A twittering experiment | eicolab: An interesting use Twitter, with a comment added by yours truly.
Friends, Enemies and My Army | Viddler.com: Another recent presentation by Mark Pesce, this one at the 2008 Next Wave Festival, Melbourne, on 25 May 2008. A nice trip through the power of Twitter, the "nuclear option", and the surprising influence of Josh Marshall's army.
Phoenix Lander “Talks” to Twitterers | NYTimes.com: Includes an interview with the NASA employee who's been playing the part of the Mars Phoenix spacecraft on Twitter (@MarsPhoenix).
Australian Strategic Policy Institute: "One for the feed reader", I've been told. I haven't explored this site yet.
A discussion paper on the singular use of “they”: This link looks like it solves this question forever. If only people read it…
Twitter Co-Opted by Users as Better SMS, Social Media Platform | URBEINGRECORDED: Yet another superb essay on the impact of Twitter.
The Gruen Transfer | ABC TV: A new TV series looking at the art and science of persuasion as used by the advertising industry. Much good stuff here.
Ern Malley | Wikipedia: Not exactly a new story, but I was recently reminded of this wonderful literary hoax from the 1940s.
Scaling a Microblogging Service - Part I | Hueniverse: A comprehensive but fairly technical explanation of the problems Twitter faces.
The Digital Media Revolution | YouTube: Mark Pesce, Technology Futurist speaks about the Digital Media Revolution at the SAGEM conference, April 2008, in Adelaide. Will the government heed his advice? In 5 parts, this links to part 1.
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address | YouTube: An inspirational 15 mins about the importance of following your dream, even if the end result isn't clear. "You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking back."

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Wayne Swan’s “Yes Minister” moment

Stilgherrian — Tue, 13 May 2008 23:30:54 +0000

After he’d given the Budget Speech to parliament last night, Treasurer Wayne Swan was interviewed by the ABC’s PM program — where he delivered what I think has to be the best line of the night.

Swan was explaining that unlike his Liberal predecessor Peter Costello’s Future Fund, which was never spent on anything, Labor’s future funds would be spent on “contemporary” infrastructure needs. Journalist Mark Colvin asked how they could still be called future funds.

MARK COLVIN: I mean, if they’re not for the future, what are they for? Why aren’t they just government spending?

WAYNE SWAN: No, no. You’re confusing the name Future Fund with a fund for the future.

Yes, I can see how he’d be confused…

[Update 10.30am: Here's the relevant piece of audio.]

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Covering the Federal Budget for Crikey

Stilgherrian — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:43:27 +0000

Joy (I think). I’m part of Crikey’s commentary team for Australia’s 2008 Federal Budget to be announced tonight at 7.30pm Sydney time. It’s the first budget for Chairman Rudd’s Labor government, and the first for treasurer Wayne Swan, so it’s bound to interesting.

My role — at least as I understand it, ‘cos I haven’t actually spoken with my editor yet — is to look at it from a geek perspective. That’ll include, I imagine, issues I’ve previously covered for Crikey: Internet censorship, the ABC’s move into Internet TV, social media, the national broadband network…

But what else should I look out for?

When I asked on the Link mailing list, here’s a partial list of the suggestions I got:

Functional separation of Telstra into wholesale / retail / pay TV entities.
The laptops for schools program — what hardware? networking? training? maintenance?
Copyrights & patents, including government-funded enforcement of music copyrights — something the music industry has been lobbying for.
Assistance for IT startups, both hardware and software.

I’m also wondering just how forward-looking the budget will be. The brain cells are already firing. What can you add to the list?

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Ranting in the Sunday Age

Stilgherrian — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 02:00:52 +0000

Following my semi-snarky review of ABC Playback in Crikey last week, journalist Melinda Houston thought I might have something valuable to say for her piece in Melbourne’s Sunday Age yesterday. Apparently I did, ‘cos my quote led the piece, and there was a slab of me later.

The article opened thusly:

“I SUSPECT many people who have had extremely successful careers in television are baffled by what’s happening now,” says former broadcaster and now new media consultant Stilgherrian (yes, just the single name — very 21st century). “They need to spend an afternoon with a bunch of 15-year-olds.”

The self-confessed uber-geek is one of a coterie of middle-aged men who have lost patience with traditional broadcasting. But if he was 15, or even 25, he’d be the norm. Rumours of the death of television may be exaggerated, but there’s no doubt it’s taken a hit.

It’s worth reading the entire article, because it’s a good summary of how the Internet is affecting TV, aimed at a mainstream audience. However I’ll quote my own bits here, just in case Fairfax decide to take it offline one day.

“Commercial television networks have an infrastructure built around the industry, and the world, operating in a certain way,” says Stilgherrian. “And it doesn’t work that way any more. They’re used to fixing viewers into a habit — 7.30 Sunday night, sit down and watch television.”

But teens and those in their 20s are used to the exact opposite. “The next generation — and I’m talking five years from now — will be astounded to think of television as a big box in a dedicated room, just as the idea of having to go to a particular part of the house to make a phone call now seems completely ridiculous,” Stilgherrian says. “Fast connections and portability mean that young people are very fluid in the way they use these technologies. They’ve never known a time when there wasn’t the internet. It’s like a time before cars or phones or electricity or running water.”

The broadcasters are largely relying on compelling content to counter this trend, but it’s a strategy with inbuilt flaws. “There’s no allowance for the fact that just because someone didn’t watch something at the time it was broadcast, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to watch it,” Stilgherrian says.

But it is impossible to measure — and therefore generate revenue from — the other ways things are watched. You can look at the number of downloads from a website, but where does it go from there? How many more times is it distributed? That’s when it gets tricky.

“Free-to-air television won’t die. Any more than radio died, or newspapers,” Stilgherrian says. “But it will have to evolve. The broadcast signal needs to become less important as a proportion of the total revenue mix. And there are people in these organisations who understand that. The question is, are they decision makers?”

Now, where can I get a hard-copy of the Sunday Age in Sydney…?

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Attending BarCampSydney 3

Stilgherrian — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:53:43 +0000

I’ve decided to go to BarCampSydney 3 this weekend, at least the Sunday session anyway. What sort of things could I usefully contribute? I’m thinking a discussion on internet TV, given my writing about ABC Playback this week, or perhaps try to figure out wt we can do about the Australia 2020 Summit.

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Crikey essay: ABC Playback is a backwards step

Stilgherrian — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:34:42 +0000

Crikey has just published my article ABC Playback is a backwards step as a “Crikey essay”, no less. It combines the themes of my pieces about ABC Playback and the CBC BitTorrent trial.

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Canada’s CBC groks The Torrent too

Stilgherrian — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 23:35:06 +0000

Following Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s highly-successful trial of using BitTorrent for program distribution, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has just released a prime-time episode of Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister onto the torrent globally.

According to the last100 report, the CBC’s media release was clear:

“The show will be completely free (and legal) for you to download, share & burn to your heart’s desire.”

In a follow-up post Inside story: the making of a legal TV ‘torrent’, ~~freelance producer~~ Interactive Producer for CBC Guinevere Orvis explains how they got the approvals sorted ~~within the CBC~~.

The issues, as always, were ownership, demographics, tracking, monetising and rights and approvals — especially the last two.

Rights are hands down the number one challenge to getting traditional TV online. It’s also not an unreasonable request for content producers to demand rights to work they made, it can just be a very difficult process to get them all… think dribbling a football type difficult. If the idea of a legal TV torrent was going to die, it would likely be in the chain of approvals we had to get including: union agreements, music licenses, lawyer approval, co-owner (Magna International Inc) approval, marketing and sales okay, business development reps, communication strategy, and finally approval from the network programming office. Yep, that’s a mouthful…

So why isn’t your favourite show on BitTorrent already? Officially I mean Take your pick: licensing, rights, approvals, sponsorships, business partnerships, control, business model, statistics, or simple resistance to change. I expect it would take a pretty big fight to get shows shared that are co-owned by multiple companies or which have extensive licensing contracts, like NHL games. There needs to be a fundamental shift in thinking about digital distribution before all of these stakeholders realize it’s a good idea and that’s one of the reasons that our experiment is so important. There will be no precedent, no metrics and no business model will ever develop if broadcasters don’t start somewhere. What we’re learning from this could help form the basis of a broader understanding and acceptance of BitTorrent among rights holders.

As I said yesterday, this is exactly what the Australian Broadcasting Corporation should be doing with ABC Playback.

The CBC had one factor working in their favour, says Orvis:

As a public broadcaster, our mandate to “be made available throughout Canada by the most appropriate and efficient means” really helped the cause.

And, as I said yesterday, the fact that the ABC Charter keeps repeating the word “broadcast” probably doesn’t help here. (Hat-tip to Boing Boing.)

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ABC Playback: so this is the future of television…? Nope!

Stilgherrian — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:22:16 +0000

On Thursday an email told me that I’m a beta tester for ABC Playback, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Internet TV trial. So here we go…

I’ll gloss over the geeky stuff because the massively-brained Simon Rumble has already done a technical reconnaissance. Just three key points there from me:

It uses a Flash front end over XML program listings. Simon reckons it’ll be easy to hack up a Linux version for those who can’t use the official Windows and Mac interface. Or who want to avoid the pointless animations. Or who’d rather an easier-to-read high-contrast interface than trendy translucency.
A 30-minute program is compressed to a mere 130MB, which seems a reasonable compromise between quality and bandwidth — at least for infotainment — given the ABC’s need to serve regional audiences out on the Information Super-goat-track.
Did we really need to spend taxpayers’ money putting a clock in the top right of the screen? Computers already have clocks.

Technically it works just fine… but that’s not the real issue…

Disappointingly, ABC Playback seems more like the last gasp of old-style broadcast TV than a prelude to something new and wonderful.

Currently we’re offered three channels — though “channel” is a curious word in this context, since they’re just menu items.

ABC CatchUp has a selection of programs from ABC1 and ABC2 available for a week after their original broadcast. Right now that selection is limited: The Bill (inevitable, I guess), games review program Good Game, At The Movies, The New Inventors and How Art Made The World.
ABC Real is archived “factual and documentary” material — currently only the Sex in the Bush series about Aussie fauna on the bonk and the “magnificent documentary” The Kimberley: Land of the Wandjina.
ABC Shop is just “previews” (i.e. advertising) for DVDs you can buy. I shall not mention it again. I shall not view it again: the ABC Shop already has a website.

This article seems to be about threes, so here’s a third set: the three reasons I was disappointed.

The program selection was unappealing. OK, it’s only a test. I’m guessing the programs on offer were chosen to be “representative”. I can almost hear the dialog: “Well, The Bill is popular, we’d better have that, and David and Margaret too. Better have something for young people, what about Good Game? Oh, and something arty…” But why not have, say, The 7.30 Report and Lateline and the many other programs which are already available for download? Apart from How Art Made The World, everything on ABC CatchUp was disposable.
The catch-up is still tied to broadcast schedules. Only episode 2 of How Art Made The World was available, and because it was originally screened on Tuesday night, it’s only available for another 3 days. Who wants to start a series from episode 2? The Bill has already disappeared because it’s Saturday and new episodes are broadcast tonight — but this is precisely the time that a fan would want to catch up if they’d missed out last week.
I can’t save things for later. Perhaps this is the same point, but as ABC CatchUp is currently structured I have to watch episode 2 of How Art Made The World this week. I have to watch episode 3 next week. Why can’t I just spend a quiet evening watching the entire series? After all, it’s already been paid for, so the ABC’s aim should be to increase the audience, not put blocks in the way.

Actually there’s a fourth disappointment. I have to go to this “special place”, ABC Playback, to watch the programs. This isn’t how people are choosing to view online media.

Increasingly, people watch media where they want to watch it — in a proprietary system like iTunes or Windows Media Player, or an open system like Miro TV.

They expect to be able to use the media aggregator of their choice, to compile playlists of material from any source, and consume it when they want. In this respect, ABC Playback is a backwards step. It can’t be integrated with an existing media-consumption framework (unless someone like Simon hacks it), the playlists can contain only the ABC programs on offer, and things disappear according to arbitrary rules.

And there’s a fifth disappointment: I can’t schedule program downloads to happen late at night during my ISP’s off-peak time. I can only download as I watch.

Actually there’s a sixth disappointment too: where are the RSS feeds?

Again, I have to go to the special website and log in, just to see if there’s anything new. Wrong.

I do understand this is a trial. I do understand that storage space might be limited, or that there might be copyright restrictions — but they’re not my problems. This is precisely the old-medium thinking that needs to be overcome. And that’s where the effort needs to be expended — not on meaningless Flash animations to impress senior management.

Delivering broadcast-quality video to lots of viewers over the Internet isn’t rocket science. It’s just storage space and bandwidth — routine engineering problems. And as Norway’s national broadcaster has already demonstrated, it’s easy if you use BitTorrent instead of fearing it.

What the ABC needs to address is how it delivers its Charter obligations in the new age of the Internet.

(a) to provide within Australia innovative and comprehensive broadcasting services of a high standard as part of the Australian broadcasting system consisting of national, commercial and public sectors and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, to provide:

(i) broadcasting programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community; and
(ii) broadcasting programs of an educational nature;

(b) to transmit to countries outside Australia broadcasting programs of news, current affairs, entertainment and cultural enrichment that will:

(i) encourage awareness of Australia and an international understanding of Australian attitudes on world affairs; and
(ii) enable Australian citizens living or travelling outside Australia to obtain information about Australian affairs and Australian attitudes on world affairs; and

(c) to encourage and promote the musical, dramatic and other performing arts in Australia.

Perhaps in the case of ABC Television, that word “broadcast” keeps causing problems…

“Broadcast” still has that sense of “we spend millions of dollars making packaged entities called ‘programs’ which we then transmit at you”. In radio — and perhaps especially in the 4000-odd hours of talk and talkback radio I produced for the ABC — there’s already the sense of “broadcasting” as “managing a dialog”.

And this is the real challenge. How does the ABC contribute to “a sense of national identity” when everybody who isn’t totally poverty-stricken has a computer or telephone with a camera, a microphone and editing tools? When they all have access to broadcast services like Ustream or Justin.TV?

Talking about “national identity” is no longer the purview of a professional media class… and that’s where I’ll leave this already-long thought for today.

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ABC expands on the Internet

Stilgherrian — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:53:03 +0000

Crikey has a story today about the ABC launching 3 new Internet TV channels at the end of the month, as well as 60 local websites. Expect to see more details on TV and online tonight, and in the newspapers tomorrow. I’ll be writing some sort of response in the morning too.

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7.30 Report: Govt moves to improve porn filter

Stilgherrian — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:42:46 +0000

Last night’s piece on The 7.30 Report, Govt moves to improve porn filter, is finally online. No video of the story itself, just the transcript, but there’s “extended” video interviews with two of the talking heads, Dr Michael Flood and Professor Catharine Lumby. Commentary later.

[Update 7 March: A video of The 7.30 Report story is now online courtesy of somebodythinkofthechildren.com.]

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Mark Pesce on the “forward” button

Stilgherrian — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 13:31:38 +0000

Mark Pesce has knocked off a quick piece for the ABC on how the power of the “forward” button is changing politics. He reckons it’s a bit rushed, but I think it still has value.

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Joining the ABC Advisory Council

Stilgherrian — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:17:36 +0000

I’m tempted to apply for a spot on the ABC Advisory Council. I reckon I’d have something worthwhile to contribute. But am I close enough to their ideal of a fine upstanding citizen to fit with the others? “It’s your ABC,” but only for middle-class whites, plus a token Asian who’s a member of various committees so that’s OK.

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“Whose ABC?”: the first 100 pages

Stilgherrian — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 07:58:29 +0000

I’ve just read the first 100 pages of Whose ABC? The Australian Broadcasting Corporation 1983-2006. I’m enjoying the journey, but I’m wondering if “eminent historian” K S Inglis is talking about the same organisation where I worked from 1984 to 1991.

You see, at my ABC we used to make programs.

Inglis’ ABC is a boardroom, a managing director’s office, and the occasional brawl with politicians.

So while I half-recognise what he’s talking about — someone called Geoffrey Whitehead as MD, the re-naming of Radio Two to Radio National and all that — very little of what he’s saying seems to reflect the day-to-day reality of broadcasting.

Here’s all he has to say about Mother and Son, one of Australia’s most successful TV comedies:

The adroit drama series, Mother and Son, a ’situation comedy’ written by Geoffrey Atherden and performed by Ruth Cracknell as foxy old mother and Garry McDonald as outwitted balding son, happened to be housed in the department of music and entertainment.

That’s it. Nothing about the style of the program or its success, just the politics of it not being produced by the drama department.

And the next two sentences are all he has to say about one of Australia’s most important cultural institutions:

That conglomerate [the music and entertainment department] put out a variety of items from symphony orchestra concerts to the venerableCountdown, an hour of pop music in which rock stars mimed to their own recordings. This was the only program outside the department of children’s and education created for young people, and remained by far the most popular ABC program with viewers from ten to seventeen years old.

And that’s it. Presenter Ian “Molly” Meldrum doesn’t even rate a mention, nor does the ill-fated Countdown Revolution resurrection attempt of 1989.

You’d think that maybe a paragraph, gosh, perhaps even a page about each of these more-than-successful programs might be warranted? Perhaps something about how they reflected and shaped Australian society? You know, those… what do you call them? Yes, the audience.

Somehow it seems far more important to mention which school the presenters went to.

Geraldine Doogue, a vivacious and glamorous presence in Nationwide… had been educated in Perth by Sisters of Mercy and teachers at the University of Western Australia…

So quaint. So terribly old-school establishment.

Also rather quaint is Inglis’ reference to radio “sessions” which are “conducted” by someone. Even back in the 80s we talked about “programs” which had “presenters”.

While a history of the ABC does need to cover its management, strategies and political governance, surely there should be just as much importance placed on the programs, the program-makers and the audience?

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More OTT political rhetoric

Stilgherrian — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 01:43:55 +0000

With the ABC’s new editorial guidelines announced yesterday, it’s given the right-wingers an excuse to engage in some over-the-top rhetoric — proving that hyperbole isn’t the preserve of the left calling everyone a fascist. Best effort so far has to be this one from Murdoch-land:

With its poor performance, entrenched ideological bias and ‘Vietcong-style’ industrial strife, surely it’s time we sold the public broadcaster, maintains Rudi Michelson.

Yes, apparently ABC staff members have been creeping through the jungle at night, slaughtering villagers and setting fire to ammunition dumps…