Steve and Vikki Back in the Hizzy

Don't you love my subject line? I'm so down with the assonance. I promise that's not a dirty word.

So, last week WSB-FM (B 98.5) announced that Steve and Vikki, formerly of Star 94, will come back to the air this summer after their no-compete clauses have run their course.

I was never somebody that listened to Steve and Vikki a lot, but obviously they have a huge fan based out there. I think this is a win for B 98.5 and I actually think this is an interesting turn for Atlanta radio.

In the last 3-4 months, shows like The Zakk Tyler Morning Show (929 Dave FM) and Star 94's Morning Mess have come to market with out-of-town talent trying to find a solid audience in ATL. I don't listen to either show, but I also don't really know anybody who does. The women I work with seem to all listen to The Bert Show (Q100).

So, what intrigues me about Steve and Vikki's return is the fact that they are so locally entrenched. They've been part of Atlanta mornings for about 20 years. They are members of the community who put down roots in ATL rather than people for whom Atlanta is new territory. I'm curious to see how big a dip in ratings both Star 94 and Dave FM take thanks to Steve and Vikki's return. I could be crazy. My impression is that neither one of these new shows have taken off and given that B 98.5 is guaranteed to poach some of Star and Dave's audience with loyal Steve and Vikki listeners, I'm curious if this could be a big blow to the long-term success of either Zakk Tyler or the Morning Mess.

Time and Arbitron numbers will tell.

To HD or not to HD?

For a while now, the only local newscasts that have been on the air in high definition (HD) are WSB-TV and 11 Alive (WXIA-TV). 11 Alive came into the ATL HD scene first - coming online back in 2006 with WSB-TV coming on board in either late 2006 or early 2007 (if memory serves me right).

This leaves Fox 5 (WAGA-TV) and CBS 46 (WGCL-TV) still hanging out in standard-definition land. But where does that leave these two non-HD stations come February 17, 2009 when analog broadcast signals will sign off for the final time rendering many people's TVs useless*? Actually, these two stations will be just fine because they've been broadcasting digitally for quite some time now.

See, a lot of people don't realize that HDTV and digital broadcast signals are not necessarily synonomus. It works like this. An HD broadcast can only be carried by a digital broadcast signal. But a digital signal doesn't have to carry an HD broadcast.

HDTV refers more to the resolution of the images that the TV signal is carrying. In fact, when you watch an HD event such as a newscast, NASCAR race or football game, it's really more about the HD quality of the cameras used to shoot the event than the signal that is carrying it to your home (though if it's HDTV, you are inherently getting a digital signal - confused yet?).

Back to the point. At this point, I'm sure both Fox 5 and CBS 46 have at least loose timelines for when they will convert their newscasts to HD, but the point is that there's no hurry. Their digital signal is up there, already beaming out to your TV set.

Of after all this explanation, it's probably worth noting that most of us aren't picking up that signal anyway, since we get our TV from Dish or Cable. Hopefully that means this whole post wasn't for nothing.

Stay tuned.

Scott H.

*Actually, regular old TVs aren't useless if you have digital cable or satellite

Everybody say "Hoooooooooo....Regular Guys"

I generally enjoy reading the work of Rodney Ho, the AJC's beat reporter on radio and television happenings in Atlanta.  I think he does a pretty good job covering the changing landscape.  I don't care much for the "comments" functionality that the AJC folks have built into his page, but I'm sure thats not his decision.  In fact, the whole "comments" section below actual stories on AJC.com is a whole other post for a whole other day.

This morning, Rodney was live in the studios of Rock 100.5 with The Regular Guys (TRG) to do a live on-air interview.  Rodney tried this on TRG's very first day back, but was actually kicked out of the studio by Cumulus management after initially being invited in by Larry Wachs (one of the The Regular Guys).  It says a lot about Rodney to come back after that.  Working in the PR-related field, I know a lot of journalists that would have cut all ties after being treat like that - or at least written a scathing article about it.

While the 10-15 minute interview was full of one-liners by Larry, Eric Von Haessler and Southside Steve (The whole Regular Guys crew), I was struck by a couple of pockets of sincerity.  When Rodney asked the fellas about the demise of 99X (a whipping boy for The Regular Guys back in their 96 Rock days), both Larry and Eric responded very respectfully.  They acknowledged that they really respected what 99X had done over the years in the ATL market, especially Leslie Fram (who really was kind of an alternative rock pionieer, IMHO).  Larry very diplomatically said that he feels 99X had just run its course and that today it's hard to be alternative in a world where everybody seemingly wants to be different.  It was a rare moment of candor to me and I thought it was actually very nice of both Larry and Eric.

Moving on, I never did listen to TRG's show when they were briefly at WGST-AM, but it is apparently a time they would like to forget.  They characterized it as one of the worst periods in their lives.  They discussed what they consider to be a huge cultural difference between Cumulus and Clear Channel (owners of 96.1 FM, WGST-AM and others).  The difference, according to them, being that Cumulus employees like their jobs and are happy to come into work.

Finally, there was an interesting media convergence moment where Eric asked Rodney if his notes from this interview would appear in the paper.  Rodney seemed unsure, but remarked that they would definitely be online.  "That's what everybody cares about, right?" said Ho.  For a paper like the AJC which has a plummeting subscription base, it was interesting  to hear one of its own reporters noting that people essentially only care about the Web site now.

Stop the presses.

Scott H.

DaveFM Changeup

So, we're still in week 1 of DaveFM's new morning show, "The Zakk Tyler Morning Show."  If you pay any attention to radio, you knew the station probably wasn't going to stick with Orff, Denzel and that girl I liked doing news.  Not necessarily because that trio wasn't doing a good job of weather, news, traffic and music, but because every radio station has to have a "show" for morning drive that it feels like carves an identity for the station.  It is apparently written into every general manager's DNA.

What's funny is that based on Dave's playlist and the "no rules" mentality the station seems to have, I thought the way they were doing their mornings was great.

Enter Zakk Tyler and his obligatory sidekick Sweet Baby Jaye (or Jane - can't understand what he says).  As near as I can tell, it's a formulaic radio morning show like so many others around the ATL market.   I don't mean that really as a knock, but as a matter of fact.  Time will tell whether or not they are good fit for the listenership of DaveFM.  My knee-jerk is to say that they will not fit in right.  I'll eagerly await the AJC's Rodney Ho to report Arbitron numbers for the show.

What's funny is that with all the morning show turnover and signal swappings going on around town, I'm surprised to find myself listening to 680 The Fan's morning show with Christopher Rude.  When I get tired of that I find myself switching to 97.1 The River.  Sure, I'm hearing "Dream On" for the 6th or 7th morning in a row, but with Lexie Kaye piloting a solo show, it's an oddity that seems to do the trick.  Kinda like Orff, Denzel and that girl did for me at DaveFM.  

Of course this is all a moot point once I get a good FM transmitter for my iPod Touch.  Love that thing!

Don't touch that dial.

Scott H.

Super Tuesday 2008 - Web Video Breakdown

After remaining safely shielded from the barrage of Super Tuesday coverage (cue dramatic music!) during my workday, I decided to take a somewhat in-depth look to see how the local Atlanta TV and print media were (or were not) using live video as part of their strategy for coverage during non-broadcast/non-press time (7 p.m. - 9 p.m.).   Given that this is the first really big local news story in a while, I wanted to see if 2, 5, 11 & 46 would bust out the live streaming servers to take their coverage past air time.

I also decided to sample how the major TV networks were (or were not) leveraging live video on their own sites.  Without further ado, here's what I found sprinkled with some mild editorializing along the way.

Ahem.

AJC.com (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution):  I wondered if the Atlanta Journal-Constitution might try to do some sort of Super Tuesday video coverage, since I know the folks over there are really trying to lock down the top spot for online news distribution in the ATL and want video to be part of that.  To my surprise, I really didn't see any updated video.  It seemed the AJC had shifted back into full-on newspaper mode at least for one night.  I thought at the very least, they might link to video from wsbtv.com (the two outlets are both owned by Cox).  This brings me to my next player.

WSBTV.com (Channel 2):  From the looks of it, Channel 2 chose not to extend its newscasts past regular broadcast hours and onto the Web.  On wsbtv.com, there was a link to a separate, live video feed from Matt Towery's Southern Political Report web site.  As near as I could tell, this video feed was actually coming from something called the Internet News Agency.  Alas, in order to get the video to play, I had to upgrade my Flash video player to version 9, which by the time I did that, streaming window had a sign up that said essentially "We'll be back at 7:45."  I had to move on. 

11Alive.com (Channel 11):  Channel 11 continued broadcasting online even as "The Evening News with Brenda Wood" was pre-empted  by NBC's election coverage.  A very prominent viewing box was set up front and center on 11alive.com and the live video began playing just moments after the page loaded.  Kudos to the engineers over at 11 Alive for making this run smoothly.  As a footnote, 11Alive.com uses a Windows Media Player streaming format.

MyFoxAtlanta.com (Fox 5-WAGA-TV):  Earlier in the day, I'd heard that Fox 5 would not be airing continuing coverage on TV due to the fact that they carry American Idol (ratings galore!), but that they would be continuing their 6 p.m. coverage into the night via their Web site, myfoxatlanta.com.  Much like 11 Alive, WAGA was very user friendly.  A very large, obvious link on their home page led you to a Flash Player viewing window with live coverage of Russ Spencer doing his election thang.  The player window also included user-generated postings alongside the video.  As usual, this user-generated content boiled down to the same handful of people taking jabs at whatever floated their boat.  All told, I was pretty impressed with the functionality.  I tell people all the time that in terms of online video in the ATL, my opinion is that Fox 5 does the best job because they don't try to get too cute with customized players, playlists or super duper high quality video.  What this means is that when you click the "play" button, the video actually plays with little to no buffering and good functionality...hooray!

WGCL-TV (CBS 46):  CBS 46 did not have any live, local video.  Truthfully I'm not sure they have that type of functionality in their Web department yet.  I was surprised not to find a link to CBSnews.com, not that it would have mattered (read below).

CBSnews.com:  The network of Murrow and Cronkite did not have any streaming video of their election coverage - or at least I couldn't easily find it.  I figured they  would use live streams of Katie Couric anchoring her first big presidential Super Tuesday.  I guess I thought wrong.

NBCnews.com:  This link, which will redirect you to MSNBC.com did not have any obvious, NBC-generated newscasts, even though Brian Williams was still on TV live (and in HD!).  I was a bit surprised that they wouldn't simulcast their coverage on the net.   I did find something else.  I had to look pretty closely, but there was a link to Newsweek's newsweek.com which did have some live video of their own featuring writers and pundits from The Washington Post and Newsweek, but not NBC.  I thought that was a bit weird.

ABCnews.com:  There wasn't anything obvious on the homepage to point out that there was a live video feed to watch.  Finally, on the right side of the page, I noticed some small text that said to click to watch "live" coverage.  Since ABC news was no longer on TV in the ATL at that point (Entertainment Tonight was on in its usual slot), I decided to check it out.  What I found was live video of some sort.  It featured Sam Donaldson in what appeared to be a panel discussion of the returns as they were coming in.  It didn't look like a first-class, ABC production however, so I'm wondering if maybe it was just an experiment.

Foxnews.com:  I was shocked to find no live streaming video on Foxnews.com.  The cable news outlets tend to be the pioneers in Web delivery of news, but when I went to the Fox News home page, I couldn't find any live video.  Fox News did have a live stream of Fox News Radio as well as links to local affiliates coverage, including live local video.  I thought they would be all over this given how deep as News Corporation's pockets are.

CNN.com:  This was actually the first site that I visited.  On the masthead of the cnn.com home page, there was a pretty big link that said "Watch Live for Free" or something like that.  After watching a 15-second commercial, cnn.com's live broadcast loaded and began playing. What was interesting  is that it appeared that this online broadcast was completely separate from what was on TV.  I know this because I flipped over to the TV to see if it synced up.  It appears that CNN had created a whole separate production just for it's online viewing audience. There was a lady standing at a podium with a laptop.  She was kind of the "anchor" of the coverage, but basically she was just tossing the show back and forth to different live feeds and interviews that CNN had flowing through its feed room.  This was kind of cool, but it seems like CNN would want to put their A-Team production on the Web.  It would see to be a lot less labor intensive than creating this whole separate production for the Web.  As a side note, cnn.com uses Flash Video as its delivery method.

So, there you have it.  This is by no means an exhaustive breakdown of the coverage.  Like I said, this is from about an hour of viewing from 7 p.m. - 8 p.m. on Super Tuesday.  I hope you found this informative.

Later,

Scott H.