For example, Air America Radio now plays here in Dallas. Problem is, they broadcast on AM, and I've got a steel-frame house. Steel frame houses and AM radio aren't a good mix. I can pick up the station just fine in my car, but I'd need to run an antenna out my window to listen in the house.
Now then, I can listen to the show in the house, but I've gotta listen to it streaming. They've got a nice WMP/Real feed that you can get on their site. Thing is, that feed is coming from the New York City station, so I don't hear any of the local commercials that the Dallas station wants me to hear. I hear New York City commercials.
On top of that, they've also got podcasts of all the shows available. This is handy because my two favorite shows on the network ("Rachel Maddow Show" and "Morning Sedition") play in the morning in New York, which means that they play from 4-7 in the morning here. The podcasts generally appear about an hour after the show goes off the air, which means I can listen to 'em at a reasonable time here in Texas. And the podcasts take out the commercials entirely!
Now then, the lifeblood of radio stations are commercials. The AM station wants me to listen to their show so I can hear their commercials for local stuff. If I stream it, though, I hear commercials for New York. If I listen to the podcast, I don't hear any commercials at all.
Just trying to figure out the business model for a radio station that makes it so convenient for me to hear the wrong commercials or no commercials at all.
On that note, if you've got a chance to check out the documentary "Left of the Dial", do so. To say that Air America had a shaky start is an understatement. Basically their founding president told everyone that they had $60 million in the bank when they actually had almost nothing.
On an unrelated note, I just heard that the administration is entertaining raising the military recruiting maximum age from 35 to 42.
Shelly and I had a good laugh a couple of months ago at a local carnival when a military recruiter started pestering me to join the army. Looks like he won't be the last, as I'm about to be eligible for military service again :)
