Jim Connelly

That’s What I Like: Veronica Mars

April 14, 2006 by Jim Connelly

To inaugurate our new weekly column — all about things that we really really like, OK love — I thought that I would choose something obvious, something that I’ve been raving about for well over a year: the best show on (broadcast) TV, Veronica Mars.

Best show? Yes. And, despite that, it’s probably going away. Even though it’s pretty much garnered nothing but critical raves from the moment it debuted, the ratings have been abysmal. For example, for the week of April 3-9, it was ranked 122nd, which means that only 2.85 million viewers watched Logan accidentally execute Weevil’s revenge against Thumper. Ka-boom!

And if you don’t know what the hell that meant, I’ve got some reasons why you really should.

Where Have All The Howard’s (Fans) Gone?

April 12, 2006 by Jim Connelly

A recent article in the LA Times asked the question: where have all of Howard Stern’s listeners gone? As Howard himself complained to Entertainment Weekly, not enough have followed him to Sirius, and as the early ratings have shown, many didn’t stick around to listen to Adam Carolla or David Lee Roth.

I can’t speak for the 9,999,999 listeners who didn’t go to Sirius, but as a Stern detractor who became a listener who became a fan over the past decade, I can tell you why I didn’t go to Sirius and why I’m probably not helping Adam Carolla’s ratings.

Number 3 With A Pound Key

April 11, 2006 by Jim Connelly

In what is nearly the polar opposite of U.S. record labels trying to goose album sales by not releasing singles for downloads, the U.K. music industry is releasing a cell-phone only single.

That’s right: a cell-phone only single. “Stop Me,” by Planet Funk. Can anybody say “Publicity Stunt”??

Don’t Look Back: Start Over Might Be Gaining On You

April 10, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Time-Warner Cable, who seem to be at forefront of trying new things with cable programming, are expanding their “Start Over” service beyond their original test market in South Carolina.

In and of itself, “Start Over” is a pretty good idea: if you’re flipping around, and you find a show that you’ve missed the first few minutes of, you can use this service to watch that show from the beginning.

There is a catch, however: you cannot fast-forward through commercials.

Here is my reasoned analysis of that limitation:

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Weekly ‘Loper – April 9, 2006

April 9, 2006 by Jim Connelly

While you were busy rationalizing leaking classified information in order to embarass your critics, here are some of the things that we’ve been covering on Medialoper in the past week or so:

The Prism DuroSport 6000 – Worst Digital Audio Player Ever! – The controversial review that put the heretofore little-known DuroSport Electronics company on the map. Considering their response to our reviews of their player and accessories, I have a feeling that we haven’t heard the last of them.
Why People Download Shared Music – The thought process, broken into four easy steps! Also: The Replacements!!
Piracy, Perks, and DRM – How buying used CDs hurts artists. The solution: no more physical promo copies, and DRM for downloadable promotional music. Whaaaa?
Why People Steal Movies – At least partially because the much-touted movie downloads are more hat than cattle at this point.
Why Google Music Won’t Matter – iTunes has the lead, and the only way to really break that lead is to offer something different to the consumer by doing things that the Music Industry doesn’t like. Different things, BTW, than the things that iTunes is already doing to piss the Music Industry off.
Podcasting Versus Fundraising: The Public Radio Challenge – How podcasts can help public radio stations build audiences who will give during fundraising.

Life in the Medium Lane

April 8, 2006 by Jim Connelly

One of Stephen Colbert’s recent running jokes has been that he’s all bought into the current Sopranos hype, but that he’s only watching it on DVD. So he’s always talking about how Big Pussy is his favorite character.

So when a recent Slate article discussed the travails of someone who purposely didn’t subscribe to HBO, but waited for the DVDs, it made me think about how difficult it is for us to even wait a full day to watch our tivoed episodes of Lost and Veronica Mars, much less weeks, months or even years.

Et Tu, Indie?

April 6, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Indie 103.1, broadcasting somewhere on the Southern California coastline, is a radio station that is an absolute blast of fresh airwaves. It is one of the few radio stations out there that seems to take it as a mission to surprise its listeners.

Which is exactly what happened this morning, when I heard something which has bugged me for the rest of the day.

[Read more…] about Et Tu, Indie?

Some Questions for AT&T

April 6, 2006 by Jim Connelly

AT&T — formerly SBC; formerly Pacific Bell; formerly AT&T — wants to provide many many services for me, including:

Local Phone
Long Distance Phone
Cellular Phone
High-Speed Internet
Digital Satellite TV

Currently, through sheer inertia on my part I have my local phone service from AT&T; who swallowed up SBC; who swallowed up Pacific Bell; who were broke off from AT&T twenty years ago. And other nice large conglomerates provide those other services. However to save me money, AT&T are willing to bundle them into a single package of services that will make my life simpler.

Golly! I’d like to have my life be simpler. I barely have enough time anymore to worry about how little time I have anymore to worry about the little time I seem to have to do anything.

Red Hot Concert Tickets

April 5, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Apple Computer — last seen in an UK court of law trying to prove that it really isn’t in the music business, and therefore violating a 1991 agreement with Apple Records — is now getting deeper into the music business.

It works like this: if you pre-order a download of the new Red Hot Chili Peppers double album, Stadium Arcadium, from iTunes, you get a code that will allow you to purchase tix from Ticketmaster four days before they go on sale to the general public. This type of concert ticket pre-order isn’t so different from what a lot of artists do on their fan sites, sometimes not so smoothly..

A couple of things strike me about this:

NBC Moves Into The On Demand World

April 4, 2006 by Jim Connelly

Following CBS’ lead, NBC is working out a deal with Comcast to make nearly a dozen of their of their shows available on demand.

NBC’s deal is more comprehensive than the CBS one because it features a wider variety of shows, and includes non-primetime shows like Passions and Late Night, as well as shows from NBCU’s cable properties, most notably Battlestar Galactica. Interestingly enough, customers would be charged US$0.99 for the prime-time shows, but the non-prime and cable shows would be free.

The perception, of course, is that the prime-time shows are worth more than the non prime-time shows, which is weird: it would seem that culty shows like Monk and Passions are worth way more to their cults, no matter where they are originally broadcast.