Radio, Television, and YouTube

I have informally extended a project about Croatian internet radio in which I was invited to participate by Nenad Bach and which we talked about on the last post. There is a lot of information floating around which suggests that many people are moving away from traditional radio / television to the internet. Google's whole business model is based on the notion that this move has already been underway and is substantial.

 

Over the years, I've had a few modest experiences with broadcasting on radio/television in Southern Illinois, Central Tennessee and in South Texas.  In each case the population within the reception area amounted to about three million and the stations presumed from their studies that the audience might be around 300,000.  The fact is that for any particular broadcast we didn't know how many listened.  We knew that some people tuned in because they wrote letters.

It is difficult to compare "traditional" transmissions to internet transmissions where we can have hard data. On YouTube for example - we know how many times a video was clicked and we know in the aggregate how many minutes people stayed on that video.  The algorithm which YouTube currently uses to "rank" a particular video takes into account "engagement" which includes "comments","like / dislike", and now its important to somehow keep the viewer on the video all the way through.

 

On YouTube we do not actually know where someone is located.  We know only where they say they are located so I did not take location into account.  My specifications were simple:  channels which broadcast a fair amount of music by Croatian performers were included.  In this group were channels operated by what appear to be Croatians in the same five continents where we found internet radio, as well as Slovenia and Serbia.  A few I know to be operating from France, Germany, and Sweden.

 

A few channels have dropped out in the last few years.  A few more have been hit with DCMA complaints and have been dropped from YouTube.  If memory serves, those may have amounted to as many as forty million views between them.  I did not take into consideration channels with under a hundred thousand views. 

 

Among the remaining top seventy Croatian/Croatian friendly channels the views amount to about 300,000,000 since 2006.  I've informally kept up with the top 20 or so channels for several years and I'm aware that the vast majority of those views have come in the last twenty-four to thirty months. 

 

This sounds impressive until you realize one Korean fellow made one video with one song which has gone over a billion views.  If you discount that one as a fluke it still sounds impressive until you look around just a little.  As a "group" we've accomplished a lot but we have a long long way to go.

 

There was a time when all one needed was a killer song to get a lot of views.  That's still important, but now it works best with a video which keeps the viewer "engaged" throughout the song.  It is no longer sufficient just to have a lot of music on a channel and it is no longer sufficient to have a wonderful piece of music and a killer video although all that is important. Now it requires that the broadcaster continually "engage" the audience and it requires that we find ways to find and engage our potential audience.  It also requires that we engage the performers and that we engage the companies which distribute the music.

 

Can I tell you how to do any of this?  No I can't.  I am still learning, but there is plenty of help.  Lisa Irby  has information on YouTube for us.   You will have to follow your nose among her extensive information and you will have to adapt it to suit your style but her information is solid and a good place to start. Lisa  also has a blog with a world of information on it for us.  This isn't about promoting Lisa, this is about learning how to promote us and our performers.  YouTube  provides us some help also. 

 

We have to out perform radio.  We have to out perform Television.  We may have to use FaceBook, Twitter, blogging of some sort, or whatever is available to us.  Oh yes, we might even have to somehow use some radio and television along the way. We have to use every legitimate means at our disposal to accomplish this task. 

 

We are broadcasters. We are DJ's at the party. We have a product to sell.  That product is the music of our beloved Homeland and her singers where ever they are in the world.  Its our job to sell this product and not the job of the performers and it is not the job of the Record Houses.  The performers task is to compose and perform.  The record companies job is to make the records and count the sales. We are the sales people.

 

We are closer to the people, we are closer to the market than anyone else could ever hope to be at this time.  If we want to keep our jobs and continue to have access to the product, then we must succeed at our task.  We must  engage as many Croatians in Croatia and in the diaspora as we can.  We must engage other people as well. The Japanese already know "U boj, U boj," so we have a good start on this project. 

 

Along the way we must discover and help our performers know how to make a little money on the work we do to promote their efforts.  The record houses must see an upswing in sales.  We must put the music out there so people of  all kinds want to hear it and want to buy it.  That's the task.

 

Yes, we are competitors but we also have a common goal - our Homeland, our culture.   We can either play around with this or we can get after it and have a great time doing it. Are you ready?

 

Za Dom, Spremni!!

 

 

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac

14 svibanj 2013

The Patio

In the front of Starbucks on 802 in Brownsville is the "Patio."  Inside Starbucks is smoke free so the smokers all go out front, so do all the people who want to feel the warmth of the sun.  Starbucks recently put out new tables and chairs to replace the wobbly ones that were there.  They put new umbrellas out there too, although, from what I see, people rarely use those.  The "outside" crowd mostly crave the free fellowship, the sunshine, tabacco smoke, and the fresh fumes from the vehicles on the roadway.

Outside people somehow feel free to greet one another and there are ad hoc groups which meet irregularly during the week.  Lots of politics and deep philosophy gets discussed on the Patio.  Lots of business is transacted out there too.  The rich kids from Matamoros  congregate out there too where their guardians  can keep an eye on them.

During the "Huadajahant?" episode of recent note, I noticed the Patio was empty.  When that horrid moment passed, people began once again to haunt their favorite tables.  Yesterday, as I drove around the building to get to the drive through where the squawk box is, there was one fairly young female sitting at a table all by herself. 

I must explain that there are some advantages in being an old man, especially there are advantages in being an old man who has his very own lady.  Such an old man can observe what is displayed before him, take note of it, ponder its meaning and quite go on his own way. I am an old fellow and I have CJ and that is especially nice.

Ok now, here is what I observed. Just the facts.  The young lady was sitting there in a short skirt.  So short in fact that you could see, ummm, everything, as you passed by a few feet away in the driveway.

I suppose of course that we should merely assume that she was simply basking in the 27C morning sunlight.  We could assume that, and if she were at home in her own backyard I wouldn't be seeing it and that would be that.  Fine.  But she wasn't home in her own backyard, she was in a heavily trafficked public place and there was no way to avoid seeing what she was displaying.

Actually I believe that either consciously or subconsciously she was hoping to attract the attention of some young fellow.  That makes me sad for the fellow she finally does attract. That makes me sad for her, and as a matter of fact, I am insulted.

I filmed the flowers on some cacti eary this morning. Their petals and other parts were turned up to the sky and the bees were buzzing and carrying on around them.  That's what plants are supposed to do.

They bloom, they display their blooms, the bees come and the job is done and that's that.  Plants really don't have much else to do.  You've never heard of a plant writting an opera or building a building or doing anything else much other than just being a plant and attracting the bees.  Other than making honey, bees have very little use other than carrying out their role in the cycle of the plant's life.  As far as I can tell, plants and  bees have very little spiritual or intellectual life.

The message the young lady was sending out yesterday morning was that a male's value is similar to that of a bee.  She attracts him, he does his part after which he really should just fly away and die perhaps. 

Now do you see why I am insulted?  I am not a plant.  I am not a bug.  I am more.  I want consort with a female who is more than just a flower to be pollenated.  Not that that part of life is not to be enjoyed as well, no, its God given and its there, but for human beings that's simply not the main course.

There's more.  Implied in the young lady's message is that the pollinator must be young.  Therefore an old pollinator is of no value.  He should just die.  Also implied in her message is that older women past the age of pollination are of no value and they should also just go away and die.  In another generation those of age and maturity were valued for the experience and the wisdom they had accumulated but seemingly no more. 

That's quite a message in that young young lady's attire.  As you can see I resent her message.

This brings us to the topic I want us to consider this morning.  Grab another cup of coffee, come back and sit down and hear me out.

Nearly every day I see our Slavic women sitting on the Patio in skirts so short that I see, ummm, everything, or nearly everything and they are sitting in highly trafficked places where I cannot help but see their nakedness.  I see them and I am not impressed.  I am not titillated.  I am not attracted.  To the contrary, I am insulted.  I am angry.  I am hurt. 

Where do I see you naked?  In your videos on YouTube where you cut romance to shreds, where you vanquish romance to the trash can and where you replace love with the base activity of polination.  I do not wish to polinate you.  I do not wish to see you polinating even vicariously through the illustrations you find somewhere on Google. The kind of relationships you are holding out as "ideal" to our youth are shallow.  What you are showing in your video has no more depth than a bee fluttering around a flower.  Thirty seconds of watching a bee and a flower together is boring, so is what you are showing me when all you can show me is skin skin skin.

Please in the YouTube videos you place on public display let me see beauty and joy.  Let me see the full range of emotions we Slavs so love to share.  You are stuck on a one note song when there is whole melody to listen to.  We Slavs have the best music in the world.  Let's let the world hear the depth and reach of our music and our souls.  We are not just breeding stock.  Let's take pride in ourselves and show the world what we really are! 

But first, put your pants on and button up your blouse.  For the love of God don't insult me any more.  I am a Slav. I am more than a flower or a bee.  A lot more, thank you.

Don't mistake me, you can show me flowers and bees, but just keep your skin covered please.

do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,

Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
23 studenog 2011