Martin Williams on Thirdcoast!

The Thirdcoast Festival have Martin Williams on their frontpage – hurray! Martin trained me up in my first week in the BBC. He does creative features for Resonance FM – and tries to infiltrate the BBC with creativity too ;-)

Here's hoping being featured by Thirdcoast gives him the recognition he deserves (like an award or two!).

London Chinese Radio Media Literacy Project

London Chinese Radio is doing a project on Media Literacy. I've been roped in to making some content for it too, and I'll not be in London for much longer so I'd better get the finger out!

Media Literacy can be difficult to define. The whole concept is based round community strengthening. But the name is quite daunting, as much for people who take part in community Radio as anyone.

At the first meeting on the project, no one really had an idea. For some, literacy meant to do with books and literature. After a while, the idea of ability was generally accepted.

Then there came the problem of media. If you weren't a media student or practitioner, then media was too distant a term.

Yet everyone thought "Online Literacy/ability" was important to them.
This does point to the age range of our users, plus the fact that immigrants tend to use the internet a lot (speaking from personal experience here!).

It's a good project – but without even a studio, it's a real pressure to reach the proposal's full potential.

I feel without a building, it's difficult for the broadest community value to be maintained at a clear level. When we all go home and use our own facilities to make our own content, we use our own values and goals. That's what podcasting and blogging is about. Podcasting is like YouTube – you can chose to only use established broadcast content if you like. Blogging is personal, though builds up a sense of community in who comments on, links to, and quotes your blog.
But community radio is about good old fashioned community centres, in a geographical location. The common language of community media should be the place and the way of life.

But all that's separate from the problems of East-West – we white Europeans might not give a toss what the people in the Chinese Embassy think. But for people from the PRC, the embassy staff are to be respected (I'm more "laugh/cry" about them, but anyway). Likewise the difference in production values.

And of course, all us media types have huge egos, and every one of of thinks "I'm right"!

New Racial Harmony website

My colleague Britt Yip has launched a new website on positive news in race relations. www.RacialHarmony.net I've written an article for it -- truth be told I wrote it quite a while ago and can't really remember what it says.

Still, the website is on a very worthy cause, and if you have a positive story, or opinion, about Racial Relations, send it in!

Natural History Unit God

I briefly met a senior producer from the Natural History Unit today -- Sarah Blunt. She produced the Sounds of Life, that I blogged giddily about below. Quite inspiring -- she uses layers so very well! And she is clearly very passionate about what she does.

She recommended the DolphinEar Hydrophone as a good way to get into that area. I wished I had one on Sunday, when I found frog spawn in Richmond Park.

Most impressive, not only did I not fall at her knees in admiration, I was reasonably coherent. Yay!

Cool sounding job

Advertised elsewhere on the web:

Wanted: Production Assistant, Monocle Web & Broadcast

Production Assistant, Monocle Web & Broadcast

Monocle.com is the broadcast arm of Monocle, producing high-quality audio and video related to subjects covered in the magazine. The website, and corresponding mobile channels, aim to 'raise the bar' for internet-based video, both in terms of editorial and production values.

Monocle is looking for a highly motivated, skilled all-rounder to join our core team in London, helping with the creation of both the website and the new broadcast-led formats it carries.

Looks like RTÉ are about to do DRM :-)

RTÉ have a notice up on Aertel (this one) saying that 252 kHz will be off air from 09.00 on 26/03/07 until 18.00 on 30/03/07.
"Network requires this outage for the transmitter replacement project. At the end of this outage the new transmitter will be operational".

Yay!

The Now Show returns to Radio 4

I've just heard the first episode of the new series of the Now Show on Radio 4. I have two tickets for next week's recording, but after hearing tonight's show, I'll not be using them!

New website: Media Helping Media

I just noticed a link to the Media Helping Media website, on Richard Sambrook's blog.

It describes iself thus:
Media Helping Media is for all involved in promoting freedom of expression in countries where the media is under threat.

Given the tightening up planned for the BBC Chinese Service, I hope Media Helping Media becomes widely used.

Degen DE 1105 review update – it's broken!

My Degen 1105 is more or less out of service. Why? Because the aerial fell out! The telescopic antenna is fitted into the body of the radio, so there’s no joint for it to turn around outside the set.
Two segments of the aerial have fallen out. So it’s fairly useless – you can put the segments back in, but they just fall out again, and the connection is unreliable, needless to say.

This reminded me to root out the DE 1102. All AM is dodgy on that, MF and HF. I think the ferrite rod came lose first, and then I poked around at it zapping the shortwave coverage.
I'm a bit disappointed at the build quality of the Degens now -- they feel very solid, but mine have both failed inside, mechanically.

MSF time signal changes

the UK's reference source longwave signal is changing, as reported on Media Network. They are moving transmitter site. So the fixed phrase will have to change! "MSF Rugby" is becoming MSF Anthorn.

During yesterday's test, I noticed the singal meter on my radio-controlled watch was blank – and that never happens when I'm in the UK or Ireland! It was 11:56, and the test was due to finish at 12:00, so I put the watch on the window sill and told it to "GET" – it hadn't updated in the early hours. The watch has a little signal meter, of three bars – that mean time data and date data are both being received. For a few minutes it could only get one bar. After that it reached two – which I think means time data is being received. Then by 11:58, it started to get full strength, but it kept fluctuating between level 2 and 3. After 12, I asked it to calibrate again, and it did no problem.

It's possible my wall clock missed an overnight calibration too, as I was half-woken by an odd whirring in the middle of the night. Once I figured out what it might be, I noticed that I could still hear the second hand ticking merrily along, so I imagine it might have been the minute or hour hands doing their thing.

I never opened my eyes though so who knows!


ooooh. But now I've jsut noticed: the wall clock is a minute slow! Golly.

BTW, the watch is this Casio, and it's fab!

Beyerdynamic DT-770 Pro headphones

I was given a pair of these in late January. By all accounts they are very good. I’m not in any position to judge to be honest, as I haven’t much to compare them to.

I’ve been using them at home in the place of the DT-100s. So far I have this to say:
They’re very comfy. They block out a ton of outside sounds, I reckon more than the DT-100s.

So far the sound quality has only struck me in one example. I am now much more aware of the hiss in recordings made on the Edirol R-09 with its built-in mics.

I haven’t compared them directly, but for isolation alone, the DT 770’s absolutely wipe the floor with the Sennheiser HD-480 (modified by Canford) that we use as standard issue in the BBC. I’ve seen training videos of BBC Radio 1 newsbeat presenters using the DT 770s. Good!

Being very childish…

China National Radio have moved their web addresses to one: cnr.cn.

All very good, I'm sure. So I have to look for vulgar juvenile fun. Click the link for 中广演播厅。

And look at the web address that appears.

Sorry, but it must be done :-)

More in the Guardian

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,2021124,00.html

It opens thus:

Access denied


Frustrated by government jamming and dwindling audience figures, staff at the BBC's China service are worried about an increasingly uncertain future. John Plunkett reports on the dilemmas facing the corporation

Monday February 26, 2007………



There'll probably be an update tomorrow – after a big announcement today.

Article in the Guardian

So now I know why the press office sounded pressured today…
http://media.guardian.co.uk/radio/story/0,,2013029,00.html

Upcoming posts

I've been shamefully absent! But I promise to update the blog in the next week. I'll be adding to my reviews, of the AKG K27i headphones, the Pure PocketDAB 2000, and the Degen DE 1105.

I'll also add a review of sorts, of the Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro cans.

In the meantime though: I'll be at the BBC Chinese stand in Chinatown on Sunday -- Chinese New Year -- so if you're around, come and say hello! We might even give you some freebies, if you're nice to us.
And speak Chinese.
And fill in a questionaire.

Maybe.

See you there!

Updating Blog – losing Chinese

I've jsut updated my blog, from the old Blogger to the Google Account thingamy. Fairly painless. All I had to do was re-order the sidebar, and retype the one bit of Chinese here, the link to Heather's blog. The Chinese doesn't look as clear as before, at least on Mac OS X.
Otherwise, all good.

Little Star -- good documentary on RTE R1

I've a backlog of Documentary on One podcasts -- that's from RTE Radio 1. It's a weekly 45 minute slot.

At the top of the list was one from December. With a name like "Little Star", I assumed it was something Christmassy, and put off listening "for the time being".

I had a listen at the weekend, and it's really good! Bear in mind the podcast removes the cue, so I heard it without any info at the beginning. I hope the cue was short! Cos this documentary has lovely surprises in it.

It's a very good documentary. No flash effects, but an interesting enough story presented very well.

Reuters AlertNet MediaBridge

A pleasant surprise today in the inbox from Reuters AlertNet. Their MediaBridge.
They describe it as:

"tools and services developed to help journalists cover humanitarian crises through a handy one-stop shop on our website, "AlertNet for journalists":

http://www.alertnet.org/mediabridge/index.htm

New features include hotspot mapping, which allows you to search, scan and zoom in on the world's crises through an advanced Microsoft mapping system, and e-learning for journalists, where we'll be constantly adding new humanitarian training modules on topics ranging from how aid works to understanding famine.

This is in addition to our other tools developed as part of MediaBridge. All our free services can be accessed from the microsite link above, including up-to-date crisis briefings, aidworld contacts and the AlertNet World Press Tracker."

I've kicked the tyres, and I like it! I think it applies as much to someone bound to an office in London as elsewhere. I have an idea of the strength of radio, and wish I could use it for humanitarian good. After all, my first radio job was Reports From Developing Countries, and I still regret not having done a better job of it. But that's another story! Right now, I'm happy the Reuters Foundation has given us this. I've put a link in the side column, and I intend to be a regular visitor.

Music royalties might get paid by Chinese radio stations

Last month, that bastion of radio blogging, Radio Netherland's Media Network, carried this story.

Methods and standards of paying royalties should be promulgated this year. A law about paying royalties has been on the books for six years, it says, but since there wasn't a method in place...

In 2004, when I was a feature producer in China Radio International (CRI), I got a talking to for refusing to use James Bond theme music on an interview with Sir Roger Moore (Yes, it is far and away the biggest interview I've ever done!).

The interview was for Unicef, and made only one mention of Bond in the whole 23 minutes. But the main reason I didn't want to use the music was because it's very distinctive and I didn't want to be held responsible if an angry Hollywood studio came along demanding.. well, demanding anything at all. Working in CRI encourages cowardice (at least in people like me, and party members. But not everyone...!)

So. For the second time that year, the features editor Li Peichun sat me down and explained earnestly: look, we had a meeting once, and "we decided, copyright doesn't apply to us".

I got away without using the music, as we were close to TX.

It's going to be a huge shock to the system for Chinese radio stations to start reporting the use of music. However you can be sure the regulations won't be enacted, or maybe enforced, until the main broadcasters have the "methods and standards" all sorted out -- in other words automated into their audio databases and playout systems. I wish that were the case in the World Service! Still, it keeps me busy on admin shifts.

Some more stuff on royalties and copyright in China. In 2006, I believe CRI received a letter from AP's legal representatives, demanding they stop cutting and pasting AP stories onto their website. This would have suited some of the editors there: stories referring "the wrong way" to Chinese history, politics etc have appeared on the CRI website. (example) You can hardly blame the short-contracted and under-paid web staff, way down at the bottom of the pile there, for copy-pasting longer stories.
Of course if the editors don't check it properly, that's another matter.

The Sound of Life

I'm listening online to a series from July - September. It was on Radio 4, and is called The Sound of Life. It's about sound in the natural world, and in natural ecosystems (not Sound Ecology, something I've only just discovered. I'm looking forward to learning more about that, though it's a bit daunting for now).

The Sound of Life is a good programme. Traditional Radio 4, sure, but there is a lot of nature sounds, more so than in the usual nature and science programmes there. So far, I'm loving it.

So far means I'm on programme three of eight. Here is the webpage, with all eight episodes there to listen again.