Comments on: I just want my TAL

By: Jerry

Jerry — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:19:51 +0000

I’m not a regular listener of TAL (maybe that would change if I could get it as a podcast – sitting in front of the computer or by the radio at a prescribed day and time just doesn’t fit into my life). That said, I’m simply wondering why TAL would change to a format (MP3) that they know users will get ahold of and move around as they see fit if they didn’t want them to do that? What did they think would happen, that no one would notice?

There are all kinds of economic issues here as well – but I’m not sure I can get my head around them all. After all, if TAL goes towards podcasting, they leave out the local distributor, the local PBS station. Now we are jeopardizing the local PBS stations revenue stream – what about TALs revenue stream of selling that program to local broadcasters?

But let’s go further. If users prefer to get their programming via podcast, why not have the local stations provide podcast feeds to their paid members? I would gladly give WETA $35 dollars a year for access to the podcast feeds. (Actually, they could get more than $35 from me for that!) This way TAL could sell the program to WETA, WETA could offer the podcast feeds to paid members and make some payment back to TAL for downloads.

Once again is seems to come back to money – costs to produce the show, costs associated with licensing content, costs for distribution. It all needs to be looked at in a new way. The technologies are already out there to allow this to happen.

By: Gardner

Gardner — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 12:55:06 +0000

Fascinating post.

I’ve had the TAL feed in Bloglines ever since Jon did his blog. It never occurred to me that TAL wouldn’t want me to.

FWIW, I think you’re exactly right, Martha, and I think Cathy has absolutely nailed the reasons why artists are so skittish in this regard. It really is the broken distribution mechanism that’s to blame. CDs are expensive not because of royalties but because of marketers, rack jobbers, industry execs., etc. etc. The artist gets a very, very small cut–and there are times when they don’t get anything at all because of sharecropper tactics on the part of the honchos and honchas.

Places like Magnatunes really get how the ‘net could turn all of this on its head. And I just read in the NYorker that Radiohead is letting their EMI contract lapse. Looks like direct marketing on the horizon for them. Works for me, and I hope it’s another crack in the dam.

By: Cathy Derecki

Cathy Derecki — Fri, 23 Jun 2006 00:31:52 +0000

As an artist, I do understand being emotionally tied to one’s work. My own vanity would indeed make me thrilled about having someone podcast a song or two without my knowledge. However, professional artists are really put through the ringer by contracts and broadcasters owning big chunks of the proceeds of their work, and, over the years, have grown wary of being exploited, with good reason.

The tide will finally turn when the middle men of media are bypassed entirely in favor of these more direct relationships which is where the arts began: a gift shared within a society which in return sustained the giver, not as a commodity designed to sustain the middlemen and a very small elite set of artists. Until then, I think the world for artists is a bit topsy turvy: The more they sell of themselves to the middlemen, the less they are comfortable sharing of themselves directly with the wide world. Let’s wait for the middlemen to worry themselves out of business by suing the kids on YouTube, and I think you’ll see less fear about this stuff.

At least, I hope so.