The Flip camera is a video camera with a “flip-out” USB port that allows you to plug it directly into your computer without a cable. It is available inexpensively, at a price point of around $200 as opposed to the expected $1200 for a digital video camera in the past.

This brings the realm of the video blog into everyone’s reach. Mr. Thompkins runs through the technology and software needed to work with a Mac; it is easily adaptable to a PC simply by just changing the software package to something like Podesk which is tailor-made to produce video blogs and video podcasts.

CBC shows have been taking advantage of this video format and have been posting their own short web videos; check out the following links to get the feel.

Spark – How To Make A Radio Show
The host of “Spark” and co-staff produced this how-to video.
http://www.danmisener.com/archives/334

R3TV (Radio 3 TV)
http://blip.tv/file/258335/
This contains some fun stuff, a music video, and interesting commentary in the manner of an internet video rather than a sleekly produced TV Show.

ZeD:
http://zed.cbc.ca/go?c=ZedCandidHomepage
While cancelled, the videos on this page try to keep the feel of an amateur internet video and give you the general idea of what is possible.

The increase is necessary to pay for increasing costs in streaming CBC Radio online and producing and distributing podcasts, CBC Radio head Jennifer McGuire told staff yesterday.

“We cannot grow in these spaces at the expense of our existing programs and schedules,” she said in a staff memo. “To date, we have managed to keep in step with technology and listener/user demands by stretching existing resources to cover other platforms. As a startup strategy this has served us well, but it is not sustainable and is certainly not a formula for growth. The hard reality is that we need additional revenue to do this important work.”

To gain that revenue, McGuire says CBC will be extending the banner ads you currently see on CBC.ca pages, such as the News and Entertainment pages.

Traditionally, CBC Radio has kept itself free of any commercials or sponsorships. Last year, CBC Radio began adding short sponsorship messages at the beginning of some podcasts, also to help pay for them.

CBC Radio currently has 54 podcasts, making it the largest single podcasting organization in Canada. The CBC Radio 2 portal page, with Concerts on Demand and live streaming, attracts more than a million page views per month.

What do you think? Given that CBC Radio just can’t produce and distribute podcasts at no cost, was this the right way to increase revenue? If not, what revenue source would you have found if you were in charge?

Do we really need to have sponsorship messages in CBC podcasts? Isn’t CBC Radio supposed to be non-commercial?

CBC Radio is only funded for terrestrial (AM & FM) broadcasting. All the money to make our podcasting a reality is cobbled together at the expense of our ‘traditional’ radio programming.

There is a significant amount of effort going into the creation of the podcasts.  CBC Radio produces over 40 separate podcasts a week, almost all of which need to be edited to fit a podcast format, or to remove material that we do not have the right to put in a podcast.  We also produce several original ‘podcast-only’ programs that are not broadcast on terrestrial radio.

In all cases, this production takes time and money that we don’t have and can’t sustain. (As you know if you check out iTunes, our podcasts are extremely popular, and every download consumes bandwidth, too.)

So CBC Radio has made the choice that several other public broadcasters have made – to include sponsorship messages to help pay for these increasing costs.

So why have podcasts at all?

We feel it’s vitally important for the future of CBC Radio that we provide our programming as podcasts.  More and more audiences are choosing to consume content on platforms other than a traditional broadcast, and as a public broadcaster, we need to do what we can to make our content available on these platforms or risk losing  relevance and value to our audiences.

But I thought the CBC gets new money from Parliament every year?

CBC has not had a substantive funding increase in some time, and if we waited to be given money to do new things, we’d very quickly fall behind the needs of our audiences.  We would not be in a position to consider alternative sources of funding should our funding increase to reflect the new realities of podcasting and other multiple platforms. I sincerely hope that in the future our funding will reflect these new realities.

In the meantime, though, I think it’s far more important that we find ways to distribute our content where it matters to our audience instead of staying out of the game entirely because we can’t afford it.

We conducted a survey a couple years ago in order to gauge interest in podcasts and it provided some strong guidance as to how we should proceed with respect to sponsorship. An overwhelming percent said they wanted CBC podcasts and that they wanted them to be a free service from their public broadcaster. They told us very clearly that they did not want to pay for podcasting themselves. We have to respect that.

Do the sponsors have any control over the content?

The sponsors have no say, and will never have any say, in the content we produce.  That has not happened at the CBC in television, it does not happen on the website, and it will not happen in radio.

As always, please weigh in with what you think. Faced with limited options (no podcasts, charging listeners for podcasts, or permitting sponsorships), did we make the right call?

They developed the Radio Automated Podcast Publisher, or RAPP, a web-based tool that automatically manages CBC Radio’s podcasts. (Believe me, we tried to come up with a better name!)

CBC show producers log on to the RAPP website from any workstation within CBC to upload audio files to be podcast, select the publish date and how long the podcast is to remain available. RAPP automatically converts the files to the proper formats, manages the transfer of files and schedules the podcast. RAPP is now the standard CBC Radio podcast publishing utility.

Nicole and Rahim were among the folks recognized at the CBC/Radio-Canada TechKnowledgy Exchange Forum earlier this week. You can see their presentation at http://intranet/cte/2007/(internal link only).

P.S. Be sure to watch to the end (or skip to it if you must) to see what CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence discovers while poking around his old office’s remnants.

And whether you’re a podcast listener or actually make your own podcasts, you really should attend the Podcasters Across Borders event in Kingston ON from June 22 to 24. It’s a not-for-profit international event that includes eighteen sessions over three days, music, socializing, networking opportunities and more passion than a year’s worth of Cross Country Checkup callers.

Registration (if you take advantage of the early-registration) is $75/person. Join CBC podcasting staff and members of the podcast community from across Canada, the United States, Britain and Argentina.

And, Canadian podcast band sweetheart Uncle Seth says they’ll let me play the cowbell during their concert there. Sweet.

Next week, CBC Radio will add new podcasts and increase the frequency of shows available to listeners. Starting Monday, April 2, CBC Radio will add 12 new podcasts. In addition, the flagship network programs The Current, Sounds Like Canada and As It Happens will move from weekly to daily highlight podcasts.

We first introduced podcasts in 2005, and the demand has been growing ever since, with downloads now averaging more than one million per month. CBC Radio 3, Qurisk and Quarks and Ideas are consistently among the top podcasts in Canada, and have a significant following around the world.

New podcasts available to download starting April 2 include:

· CBC RADIO NEWS – hourly newscasts
· THE WORLD AT SIX – the day’s evening newscast
· BEST OF SUNDAY EDITION – weekly highlights from the show
· TAPESTRY – Mary Hynes’ weekly examination of spirituality
· THE HOUSE – Kathleen Petty’s weekly political round-up
· WRITERS & COMPANY – Eleanor Wachtel’s weekly look at writers and writing
· COMEDY FACTORY – a variety of hilarious comedy features
· AND THE WINNER IS – a different prize-winning documentary each week
· C’EST LA VIE – a weekly look at French-speaking life in Canada
· LISTENER’S CHOICE – a weekly podcast selection as requested by listeners
· SPECIAL DELIVERY – a weekly podcast of highlights from CBC Radio specials
· REWIND – a historical gem, pulled from the CBC Radio Archives

So, whadya think?

By now you already know that the New Music Canada Track of the Day comes out — you guessed it — every day. The only difference now is that you can download it and take it with you wherever you go. And the new R3-30 podcast, featuring the gloriously effervescent Craig Norris, will be waiting for you every Monday morning when you wake up.

If you want to subscribe in iTunes, click this link. (I’m not sure what the raw XML feed URL is.)

Incidentally, I’ll have some news about a possible expansion of CBC Radio podcasts in the coming weeks…

• CNN Reliable Sources: This excellent weekly hour-long program “turns a critical lens on the media.” Since we no longer have Inside Media on Newsworld, this suffices. It’s a video podcast, so you watch it free on your computer or on a video iPod. iTunes | RSS

• Grammar Girl’s Quick & Dirty Tips to Better Writing: Okay, this isn’t particularly about the media, but it’s great fodder for people in the media. And just this morning, CNN.com gave this podcast a lengthy review. If you’re a grammar geek, you’ll definitely want to pick this up. (Er, upwardly pick?) It goes into all sorts of delightfully nitpicky details. iTunes | RSS

• NPR’s On The Media: WYNC in New York does a great job with this podcast, which analyzes the media’s role in shaping public opinion. While I find it covers the minutia of American politics a bit more than American media, it still does break through with a couple of excellent segments in each episode. RSS

What are your favourite media-related podcasts?

Something cool happening in your unit that you want to share with the rest of us? Just email TOD MAFFIN in Groupwise.

Part 1: INTRODUCTION: A marketplace whose “laws” determine social possibilities is the dominant economic idea of our time. David Cayley explores the thought of Karl Polanyi, one of this idea’s greatest critics.
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Part 2: THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION: The West, according to Karl Polanyi, was the first civilization to “disembed” the economy from society and let a self-regulating market dictate its social relations.
Download MP3 (2)

Part 3: SOCIALISM AND FREEDOM: Karl Polanyi was a life-long socialist, but he opposed the tyranny and bureaucracy of Communism just as strongly as the rule of the market.
Download MP3 (3)

Part 4: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL TURN: Karl Polanyi highlighted the novelty of the modern West by exploring how earlier societies had contained and subordinated markets.
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Part 5: THE LEGACY: In the last twenty-five years, what Karl Polanyi called, “the stark utopia” of a global, self-regulating market has replaced and overwhelmed independent, national economies.
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