Mike Janssen

Mike Janssen Served as Scanning The Dial's original co-authors from Mar, 2008 to Jan, 2010 and is a freelance writer, editor and media educator based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He has written extensively about radio, mostly for Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, where his articles have appeared since 1999. He has also worked in public radio as a reporter at WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he began his career in journalism and filed pieces for NPR. Mike's work in radio expanded to include outreach and advocacy in 2007, when he worked with the Future of Music Coalition to recruit applicants for noncommercial radio stations. He has since embarked on writing a series of articles about radio hopefuls for FMC's blog. Mike also writes regularly for Retail Traffic magazine and teaches workshops about writing, podcasting and radio journalism. In his spare time he enjoys vegetarian food, the outdoors, reading, movies and traveling. You can learn more about Mike and find links to more of his writing and reporting at mikejanssen.net.

Tapping into the growing podcast audience

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Authormike72x72_3 Does the classical radio station you work at or listen to offer podcasts? I ask after reading a short item in the Radio and Internet Newsletter that highlighted a recent Edison Media Research study on podcasting. Edison found that the number of Americans listening to podcasts has increased from 13 percent to 18 percent over the past year. This might not sound huge, but it is a bigger jump than from 2006 to 2007, when that figure rose only 2 percent.

Based on this, an Edison veep said “radio stations would be smart to create as much podcast-able content as they can.” The newsletter continues: “Webster and other media insiders feel that the reported growing interest, combined with coming developments that will bring podcasts to mobile devices, will make the programming ‘extremely attractive’ to advertisers.”

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What radio might gain from living a Second Life

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As I posted about a while back, Boston’s WGBH-FM will stage a live performance by pianist Jeremy Denk today in the virtual world of Second Life (11 a.m. Eastern time, 8 a.m. “Second Life time,” as it’s called). As Denk performs in WGBH’s real-life performance studio in Boston, an avatar of Denk will play in a studio on WGBH’s Second Life island, Brightonia. After his performance, Denk will answer questions from the Second Life audience.

It’s the first time a radio station has ever orchestrated a Second Life simulcast of this kind — at least as far as Gary Mott knows. Mott, a radio producer at WGBH, has been overseeing the station’s Second Life buildout in recent months, creating the Brightonia space and its performance studio, which is based on WGBH’s actual Fraser Performance Studio.

When I spoke with Mott last week, I asked him why WGBH wanted to be in Second Life. His answer surprised me. “I’m not sure we should be, to be honest with you,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

WGBH applied for and received a $12,000 Public Media Innovation Grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for the project. A colleague of Mott’s wrote the proposal, then left the station, and Mott took over. He says that Second Life has “lots of potential” but that it’s a very different world from the radio sphere he and his colleagues at WGBH are accustomed to. WGBH broadcasts to hundreds of thousands of listeners each week, while in Second Life the potential audience for Denk’s performance is much smaller, with only 50,000 or so avatars online at any given moment, and probably just a small fraction of those likely to attend today.

“We’re not talking about thousands of people here,” Mott said. “We’re talking about entering a wholly new space, with wholly new rules that apply.”

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News roundup: More on the CBC, and Los Angeles’ KCSN

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Authormike72x72_3 A Canadian federal committee has voted to hold hearings on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s decisions to change its programming and to shut down its radio orchestra, reports the Vancouver Free Press. “I want Canadians who are concerned about classical music, who are concerned about the CBC Radio Orchestra being disbanded, and who are concerned about the direction of Radio 2 to have an opportunity to express those concerns to … the parliamentarians on the standing committee on Canadian heritage,” said the member of Parliament who initially moved to hold the hearings. “I also want the CBC to pay attention to what these folks are saying to the committee.” Not being familiar with Canadian politics, I must admit that I have little inkling of what sort of effect these hearings may have. But it seems like a first step.

Meanwhile, Chris Boyce, director of programming at CBC Radio, has penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun defending the network’s decision to cut back on classical in favor of other musical genres. He writes:

And what we heard was loud and clear. People love classical music. But they also love other kinds of music, too, as long as it’s of high quality and intelligently presented.

Consider the following. Of the approximately 30,000 pieces of music released each year in Canada, 240 receive regular airplay on Canadian radio stations. We intend to take advantage of this vast body of Canadian music that is otherwise ignored and make the best of it available to our listeners in an intelligent, creative and engaging way. We see this as the embodiment of our mandate.

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WGBH stages virtual concert in Second Life

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Here’s a great example of a classical broadcaster trying something different in the new-media space. On Tuesday, May 27, acclaimed pianist Jeremy Denk will visit Boston’s WGBH to perform live in their studios and on the air. Nothing new there. What’s different, though, is that at the same time a digital version of Denk will perform in WGBH’s virtual performance studio in its world in Second Life. After his performance, Denk will answer questions from his Second Life audience.

WGBH's Second Life environment
WGBH's Second Life environment

In case you’re not familiar with Second Life, it’s a vast online cosmos where visitors create computerized alter egos, known as avatars, to interact with each other and explore the user-created world. According to Wikipedia, about 38,000 users are logged on to Second Life at any given moment. (The image to the left depicts an avatar playing the grand piano in WGBH’s realm.)

“WGBH Radio broadcasts well over 100 live performances every year, on 89.7 and on the web, and now it’s time to tap a new audience in an environment that’s beyond those platforms,” says WGBH’s Gary Mott, who is managing the Second Life project. “It’s thrilling to be a part of something we’ve not done before, in virtual space. The media landscape is constantly evolving, and it’s exciting to be changing with it.”

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