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Jim Dedelow (JED) - Hammond, IN
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Larry Clisby on the call

3/26/2019

Comments

 
​What the hell is Apple doing?

As you know, we’re just as much video streamers as radio broadcasters anymore. I was just helping Robert Aguirre with his first sports package. It’s coverage of Lake Central’s 13-3 win over Bishop Noll. It’s a 60-second roundup of the game, with highlights.
This is, by the way, not an audio package. Around here, we call audio - “actualities” and video -  “packages.” We almost never do actualities anymore. Everything is  packages.

The reason that this is top of mind is this headline in headline in the WSJ:

Apple Bets Its Future on TV and News

Apple’s growth in its legacy business - iphones – is slowing down. So they’re looking for the next big thing. That’s streaming video.

WJOB’s growth in its legacy business – radio – slowed down a long time ago. So we concentrate on the next big thing. That’s streaming video.

Apple’s trying to become “an alternative to cable… in their latest attempt to reinvent television, something it has tried for about a decade with limited success.”

WJOB is trying to become the LOCAL alternative to cable. We’ve been trying, with varying degrees of success, for nine years.

Half of a hot
pizza's better
than no pizza at all. 
Sometimes you rise, sometimes
you fall, y'all.


Apple’s announcement is good news. I have been having a crisis of confidence lately about our foray into streaming video. It’s not being accepted as quickly as I would like. It’s good to hear that Apple’s been doing it for the better part of a decade and is having similar challenges... and they're reinvesting in it.

A main difference between Apple and WJOB, despite the size of the checkbook, is scale. Apple is in streaming video at the global level. We are in at the local level.
Streaming video is exploding exponentially at the international level. 2018 marked the first time that more money was spent watching streaming video than at movie theaters. That’s something.

But it’s on the big level, where Apple lives, not the small  level, where WJOB lives. Streaming video, no matter what we broadcast, is just not gaining the same kind of traction at the local level that is happening at the national and international level.
 
This strains my ability to see the good in all that we do here at WJOB. Right now, in the studios next to where I’m sitting.

  1. Ben Wood, a recent IU grad, is preparing for his 5pm show, The Sports Report. 5:15 - Griffith baseball coach Brian Jennings, who just won his 400th baseball game as a coach. 5:30 - Legendary sportswriter Al Hamnik.





Also sitting in there is Sonny Santana, a PNW student. He produces The Sports Report in video on Facebook Live, Roku, Amazon and Apple TV. The show also runs on AM 1230 and 104.7 FM. It streams in audio on the TuneIn app.  It’s takes concentration to produce a show that goes to seven places.

Robert Aguirre is editing his video package.

Ryan Walsh, morning show producer and sports director, is showing Chu Cho Rodriguez how to operate the new radio studio. Chu Cho has been on radio for 60 years. He plays Mexican music on Sunday mornings on WJOB AM and FM. Chu Cho came in here to talk for a while about the new studio. For a Viejo, he’s adapting quickly.

“I have three studios in my house. I learn,” Chu Cho said.

In the Region
on a sunny
day. Wish it could stay this
way. Stopping for train ain't
even a pain.


In a few minutes I'll ride my bike to the main PNW campus for a tutoring session with my professor, Matt Hanson. Although we know each other outside of class, he treats me like any other student, perhaps even harsher. I am in the middle of developing a mock digital marketing campaign for cameras sold by a distributor on the East coast… which is where some of you live 50 years from now. I want you to know that WJOB and Apple are on the same page. One day maybe we’ll flip roles.

While I was writing this, Ben Wood walked into my office, which is little more than a desk on a sunny day.

“We’ve got a problem. We’re off the air and can’t figure out why.”

“Radio or video?
”
“Video’s fine. Radio's down.”

Ben, Sonny Santana and Ryan Walsh and I just scrambled around for 10 minutes trying to find the problem, which was that the Tieline machine that hooks us up to the transmitter and the tower had frozen. Sometimes you just have to unplug things and  plug them back in. Crisis averted.

Your possessions
coat you with a
film that you couldn't shake
even if you wanted.
Go ahead. Try.


Tomorrow, I head to Louisville, which is five hours away, for the Sweet 16 NCAA matchup between Purdue and Tennessee. We’ll air the game at 6:29pm on AM 1230 and 104.7 FM, with Larry Clisby on the call. Talk to you later.
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    Wampum
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    I run radio stations and a streaming video network in Hammond, Ind., and write this blog.

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