Having a monthly open thread was not effective at generating activity, so this is just a place to share things I see and want to pass along. Comment sort order will be the most recent first.
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Recent comments
- Fred Stiening said Then you get into the nuances of putting a percentage on overlap – is it population or square miles or ad revenue? Government handouts always have strings. Contrary to the Chamber of Commerc...
- TheChairman said Apparently, the FCC refers to it as their 'Duplicative Programming' rule: no more than 25% duplicate content for stations with more than 50% contour overlap. To me, this is different (more...
- Fred Stiening said The FCC is considering changes to an existing ru!e (or more likely ending it) that limits the number of hours per day of a simulcast broadcast by two or more stations in the same market owned by the s...
- Fred Stiening said Post bankruptcy iHeartMedia is headed to Nashville, at least part of it https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2019/12/02/iheartmedia-chooses-nashville-second-headquarters/2586162001/
- TheChairman said Yes, from Tulsa to west of OKC we noticed 4 or 5 stations were simultaneously broadcasting the same content.
- Fred Stiening said Thank you for the report. Out in Oklahoma, some entity went around taking over several dozen unviable small town stations and organized them under the banner of the Gospel Station Network, simulcastin...
- Fred Stiening said Here is the Libertarian free market 5ake from Reason https://reason.com/2019/11/30/the-nations-biggest-dairy-is-failing-despite-relentless-government-intervention/ FYI, Dean's is not in the cheese...
- TheChairman said Along those lines, here is my informal AM radio survey along some of the Interstates & US highways, during our seasonal migration from MI to AZ: Michigan: AM is nearly extinct, perhaps a faith or...
- CC1s121LrBGT said It's always surprising to me when Republicans unite to take money from the people and give it to the entertainment industry that gives almost exclusively to their opposition and comes out public...
- Fred Stiening said This might be the final nail in Music Radio https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/congress-am-fm-act-copyright-law-terrestrial-radio-1203412412/#article-comments It used to be that radio labels would prov...
- CC1s121LrBGT said > " If the democrat socialists gain total control, your 'social-credit' may affect your food options, increase your pricing, or delivery might be halted altogether. " These demo...
- Fred Stiening said The first line of protection is the bagging area is a scale – so each item scanned has a known weight that should match what is being scanned. Some clever people figured out Amazon does not imme...
- CC1s121LrBGT said I've read that there is already a discount for self-checkout. The old "five finger discount" where items are bagged without being scanned or a code for a lower priced produce item is ma...
- TheChairman said Yes, that's true for a few, but most of us still shop in a local store. On that note, I think customers should get a discount for self-checkout & bagging (no cashier). Neither myself nor my...
- Fred Stiening said With grocery pickup and delivery, the arrangement of the store no longer matters. In fact, 5 years from now, there may no longer be a need for a building. Wide aisles, lighted vertical display case...
- TheChairman said Perhaps the low price is a Walmart 'loss leader' to get people in the store. As with most (US) grocery chains, it is purposely located at the rear of the store. My wife drinks a lot of milk...
- Fred Stiening said How can my Walmart afford to sell regular milk at $0.58 a half gallon? Even at Aldi's, the price is $1.69 This week, Dean Foods declared bankruptcy. https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Expert-we...
- Fred Stiening said Jack Ryan Season Two is out for Amazon Prime customers I doubt Tom Clancy would be happy, but he is dead, so that is that. I remember reading that the filming was going to occur in Venezuela on locati...
- Fred Stiening said Second post
- Fred Stiening said First post!
- CC1s121LrBGT said Halloween over, Thanksgiving coming very soon. Don't say "Happy Turkey Day" to these folks, it may "trigger" them. They are already looking for a "safe space". 😉 ht...
- CC1s121LrBGT said What you say is true. I would argue that there is little demand for it in crowded markets as well- the world is moving to internet streaming. From a technical perspective, however, Digital Audio Broa...
- CC1s121LrBGT said What is the revenue and is it enough to pay for leasing transmitter, paying for the associated property taxes and electricity?
- Fred Stiening said DAB is an FM only technology. Much of medium wave AM has been turned off around the world. AM stations have already been offered FM translator licenses for free. This proposal is only of value in...
- Fred Stiening said Since there is no original programming on the non-profit owned stations and no studio to maintain and no office staff to pay, how is it possible to lose money?
- CC1s121LrBGT said Decades overdue… but still behind Europe where broadcasters broadcast a group of digital signals as a package – like cable TV or Sirius XM radio does. Much more efficient that way. This i...
- Fred Stiening said The FCC is seriously looking at allowing AM stations to go "all digital" which would allow FM quality sound on AM. Most new cars are compatible already with all digital AM, but that transist...
- CC1s121LrBGT said Clear ISIL! Trump must have heard the nonstop ads for it on Music Radio 77, WABC back in the 1960s!
- CC1s121LrBGT said Detroit? "Go to California, where the World is Your Toilet"
- CC1s121LrBGT said Impossible! That bacon is Impossible! Just a guess, but anything's possible. https://impossiblefoods.com/company/
- Fred Stiening said Hollywood producer Robert Evans has died. I can't think of another person less worthy of my attention. The moderated comments on Variety are just sickeningly sappy. https://variety.com/2019/fi...
- Fred Stiening said Nancy Pelosi apparently thinks she is the assistant Commander in Chief, and that President Trump must clear his decisions with her first. Wisely, Donald Trump did not tell Ms Pelosi that we were about...
- Fred Stiening said John Conyers has died. He was the congressman for the city of Detroit, and very much responsible for turning Detroit into the cesspool it became.
- Fred Stiening said How is it possible that a 4 pound boneless pork loin roast costs less than 1 pound of bacon?
- CC1s121LrBGT said I enjoy the chat here. Sometimes serious, sometimes kidding around. Fred has attracted an interesting group to his web site and I really enjoy it.
- briand75 said Fred – we moved to TN in Sept. Time for some needed peace and quiet. Have been working from home so I do have some time to chat 🙂
- briand75 said No problem CC – the folks here are all great and I would sacrifice for you, Fred and the rest!
- Fred Stiening said Is Tesla the mysterious potential buyer of GM's shuttered Lordstown Ohio assembly facility?
- Fred Stiening said It is easy to forget that our president once appeared on professional wrestling. He is a big fan of boxing, which is why he was friends with Don King. Trump is no Patsy, and certainly not a Richar...
- CC1s121LrBGT said All that and more. The worst is that she is undermining the Department of Justice and obstructing justice. Obstruction of Justice is a crime that DOJ prosecutes the non-political class.
- Fred Stiening said Well, well. Nancy Pelosi is in Jordon now undermining the State Department and the Commander in Chief. I sure hope she doesn't talk to any Russians or people who know a person who has once talk...
- CC1s121LrBGT said Nice pivot!
- Fred Stiening said If true, then he needs to testify in front of the relevant House Committee. If he ignores their subpoena, they can hold him in contempt posthumously.
- Fred Stiening said But many robots have six degrees of freedom
- CC1s121LrBGT said That would be you, briand75, I need you to start paying your fair share so that I get my free healthcare and free green power. 😉
- CC1s121LrBGT said And a robot prison for robots that don't pay their taxes. At least they will not have to pay back taxes since they have no backs…. to whom will the talk radio station adds sell their advic...
- TheChairman said Hmm, I seem to recall McCain being on that junket as well, but perhaps I'm confusing it with some other foreign 'meeting' into which he stuck his nose.
- Fred Stiening said Glad to see that you were still around. Maybe we should talk 😉 You know what they say about democracy as it pertains to wolves and sheep. With Medicare for all requiring huge taxes on employment, this...
- Fred Stiening said It seems like I'm the only person who remembers Nancy Pelosi going to Syria in 2007 and meeting with Bashir Assad, without coordinating with the Bush administration. I think we need a transcript o...
- briand75 said People seem to act a lot like sheep. Some catch phrase like "pay their fair share" and they all mob together and want to elect an evil person who will destroy this nation. Sad.
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Prior Blogs
Post bankruptcy iHeartMedia is headed to Nashville, at least part of it
https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2019/12/02/iheartmedia-chooses-nashville-second-headquarters/2586162001/
This might be the final nail in Music Radio
https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/congress-am-fm-act-copyright-law-terrestrial-radio-1203412412/#article-comments
It used to be that radio labels would provide prostitutes and drugs to program directors and DJs to get their music played on the radio, but that era is long over (except apparently on black music stations)
Both houses of Congress that introduced a law requiring radio stations to get consent from the performers before they broadcast copyrighted music. Currently a small amount is paid to the composers, but nothing to the actual artists.
The original business model was the radio played the record because the record company paid them, then music labels sold the records and paid the artists. since you are very unlikely to become a star unless you had a contract with a music label, musicians basically had to accept contracts giving them little or nothing. Talent in music is highly overrated.
Free streaming on the internet has forced radio stations and others that stream music (SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify) to have to pay the artists billions of dollars. My sense is this law is going to pass. The NAB framed opposition of prior bills on the basis that the music was controlled by foreigners (Sony, Vivendi…) But this bill is based on the Soundexchange model of paying the artists directly, bypassing the recording companies.
Slightly related, how is that narrative of "Taylor Swift is the smartest woman in the history of music" working out?
It's always surprising to me when Republicans unite to take money from the people and give it to the entertainment industry that gives almost exclusively to their opposition and comes out publicly endorsing their opposition. They do that by extending the time periods of copyrights beyond any reasonable amount of time.
It seems that lobbyists and short campaign contributions trump long term reasoning… and in this case, the sponsoring Republican Senator represents Nashville.
Along those lines, here is my informal AM radio survey along some of the Interstates & US highways, during our seasonal migration from MI to AZ:
Michigan: AM is nearly extinct, perhaps a faith or 'soul' station or two.
Indiana: several stations on air; blend of sports, agriculture, and talk
Illinois: see Michigan
Missouri: better than Illinois, but not much. Switched to FM for talk, etc.
Oklahoma: numerous stations; you -will- get a good dose of religion. Sports is also a religion here.
Texas (panhandle): Country is a religion, but station reception is only a prayer
New Mexico: Nope. Even UFOs get lost here…
Arizona: similar to Indiana; good mix of station formats, glad to be back.
Thank you for the report.
Out in Oklahoma, some entity went around taking over several dozen unviable small town stations and organized them under the banner of the Gospel Station Network, simulcasting (I think) their programming. The list of stations has always been confusing.
https://www.thegospelstation.com/dyn/index.php
Yes, from Tulsa to west of OKC we noticed 4 or 5 stations were simultaneously broadcasting the same content.
The FCC is considering changes to an existing ru!e (or more likely ending it) that limits the number of hours per day of a simulcast broadcast by two or more stations in the same market owned by the same owner
Apparently, the FCC refers to it as their 'Duplicative Programming' rule: no more than 25% duplicate content for stations with more than 50% contour overlap. To me, this is different (more restrictive) than simulcasting, as it means identical content cannot be broadcast at a different time… so an owner might as well do a simulcast.
Then you get into the nuances of putting a percentage on overlap – is it population or square miles or ad revenue?
Government handouts always have strings. Contrary to the Chamber of Commerce narratives, big businesses like government regulation. The Food Safety Modernization Act is a nice example. ConAgra, Cargill, Kraft Heinz and Tyson foods can afford to jump through the hoops. Your local farmer raising 50 cattle a year or 200 bushels of apples cannot. Are massive feed lots more healthy?
Here is the Libertarian free market 5ake from Reason
https://reason.com/2019/11/30/the-nations-biggest-dairy-is-failing-despite-relentless-government-intervention/
FYI, Dean's is not in the cheese business. It has a confusing relationship with Land O Lakes – they bought the Minnesota milk cooperative's milk collection business about 20 years ago and handles distribution in the butter products in the Midwest, but do not make the butter or own the brand. Take this food lawyer and scholar's opinions with a grain of salt
How can my Walmart afford to sell regular milk at $0.58 a half gallon? Even at Aldi's, the price is $1.69
This week, Dean Foods declared bankruptcy.
https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/Expert-weighs-in-on-milks-competitors-other-potential-reasons-for-Dean-Foods-bankruptcy-564835441.html
In Indiana, Walmart built its own milk processing facility to cover most of the Midwest. They ended their contract with Dean foods, who then had to end its contracts to buy milk. The presumed buyer will be the Kansas City based farm co-op that provides most of the milk for Dean Foods, which also had been the Great Value private label brand.
There was nothing wrong with the cheap milk – it was not watered down and did not spoil prematurely.
The closest Dean come to blaming Walmart is saying that the industry was already overbuilt when Walmart added its new milk processing plant. They point instead to millennials not drinking milk and the collapse of the export market. Unsaid is that the demographics of America are shifting from Europeans to people who can't digest milk.
You probably will recognize many of their brands
http://www.deanfoods.com/brands/
Perhaps the low price is a Walmart 'loss leader' to get people in the store. As with most (US) grocery chains, it is purposely located at the rear of the store.
My wife drinks a lot of milk, while I use very little (none) except on cereal. Both of us consume our fair share of other dairy products: cheese, butter, etc. We particularly like Dean's Ice Cream, carried by our local MI grocery chain.
I recall the "Got Milk?" ad campaign from years ago, but more recently there seems to be negative health articles regarding milk and dairy (i.e. hormones) products, similar to the "anti-wheat" and "gluten free" frenzy of recent years.
With grocery pickup and delivery, the arrangement of the store no longer matters. In fact, 5 years from now, there may no longer be a need for a building. Wide aisles, lighted vertical display cases, parking lots, checkout lanes are energy inefficient and labor intensive, and subject to shoplifting and slip and fall lawsuits.
Kroger is busy building robotic warehouses to do picking of grocery orders. I have found most of my grocery deliveries to be adequate. Maybe I don't care about thumping melons and clipping coupons because of my gender.
Yes, that's true for a few, but most of us still shop in a local store. On that note, I think customers should get a discount for self-checkout & bagging (no cashier). Neither myself nor my wife would want someone else or a robot choosing our produce, meats, etc… at least not while we are able to do it ourselves.
I have several concerns regarding the future of grocery delivery or widespread dependency on it: e.g. receiving marginal produce, food near/at expiry, or worse. If the democrat socialists gain total control, your 'social-credit' may affect your food options, increase your pricing, or delivery might be halted altogether. "Food for thought."
I've read that there is already a discount for self-checkout. The old "five finger discount" where items are bagged without being scanned or a code for a lower priced produce item is manually entered rather than the correct one. Some have actually installed cameras to record your face and record a video of your scanning.
The first line of protection is the bagging area is a scale – so each item scanned has a known weight that should match what is being scanned.
Some clever people figured out Amazon does not immediately check returns, so if you filled the Amazon return box with something that matched the weight of the product (sand?) It will not be caught right away.
Another big trick is people stealing merchandise from stores, then listing it on eBay or Amazon. I am liking my fellow humans less and less.
> " If the democrat socialists gain total control, your 'social-credit' may affect your food options, increase your pricing, or delivery might be halted altogether. "
These democrat socialists are not what they seem. In NoVa (Northern Virginia) they have taken a lane of existing Interstate freeway already paid for by the common man, and converted it into an expensive toll lane so that millionaires and billionaires can zoom past the deplorables still in the freeway lanes. More pollution by making the deplorables idle longer in stopped traffic and more stress for the deplorables? No worries, the Green New Deal and the Free Healtcare for All have both bases covered on the Mainstream Media.
Jack Ryan Season Two is out for Amazon Prime customers
I doubt Tom Clancy would be happy, but he is dead, so that is that.
I remember reading that the filming was going to occur in Venezuela on location, with the plot involving the fictional political corruption in the country. The story of how that happened is probably more interesting than the plot.
After the final plot twist is revealed, I went back to the beginning and it makes almost to sense. It gets in a few shots at American interference in South America, but it is fairly soft peddled. I would not be shocked if there is a different version for anti-American audiences, like the original King Kong vs Godzilla. It is hard to imagine Venezuelans rooting for Jack Ryan
Second post
First post!