This NYT article about Curry’s Sirius deal (behind a bullshit registration wall, cyberpunk/cyberpunk works fine) includes a bit of distressing stats about KYOU:
More than 200 people have already submitted podcasts to the station, whose programming will be simultaneously streamed over a Web site for listeners outside the San Francisco area.
I’m disappointed in the community, in the mad rush to be someone else’s bitch for free. I have no problem with whoring yourself out but for god’s sake get them to leave an envelope on the nightstand that pays you off for the value of your lost self-respect. Otherwise you are just a slut, giving it away for free without even getting cab fare home.
Update: Why am I being so negative? On second thought, if there are ~5000 podcasters, this suggests that 96% of podcasters didn’t give it away. That makes me feel much better.
Too many people let themselves get played for suckers. They somehow think that Infinity broadcasting is going to make them a star. No, they’re just going to take your ideas and use them to make money.
I’m encouraging all the podcasters I know to ignore the whole KYOU/Sirius thing.
Maybe 200 podcasters can’t get iPodderX, or anyone else, to look at them sideways and this is how they see themselves getting a name. Once they have a little recognition couldn’t they make some hay from that then? Maybe it’s a little cart before the horse, but in this case, it’s a way in. I would love to have KYOURadio play my podcast, but they are not allowing out of country podcasts. And we thought the internet had no borders.
I will be highly surprised if anyone that is doing good work gets more bounce from KYOU than they would have without it. In my listening list, probably 10 or 20% are things that are less than a month old. I have a lot of turnover, and I’m always removing things that aren’t doing it for me anymore and adding in new shows I’ve found. It’s all about doing good work and having confidence in it. Email me your URL and I’ll give your show a listen.
It’s a basic rule of economics – people don’t value much the things you give them for free. From KYOU’s perspective, what reason do they have to value any individual podcaster? No one can ever negotiate anything like a wage because the queue is full of people waiting to work for nothing. If they succeed in this experiment, individual podcaster might find it harder to get sponsors because instead of ad buyers dealing with these unknown entities, they’ll just put that money into KYOU of which zero will get back to you. All this talk of new media and new power structures will revert to the money going to the hands of the same bad stewards that ran radio into the ground already. Stand up for yourselves, for christ’s sake, and refuse to allow these people to sell you for nothing. You are being fucked for the promise of something you will never get, and you are selling out the future of your medium in the process. Not good.
Dave,
I never thought of the K-Your thing that way… I have a couple of friends who’re doing a talk radio show on a college station and have me edit a podcast for them (I have to remove the music since the majority isn’t podsafe). They were excited to hear about this because they think it’ll get more exposure for them. I’m not so sure about it (I believe that word of mouth on the existing podcast, http://www.gnomesinchaps.tk is the URL btw (it’s a typical college type show, but hey, they’ve gotten a hell of a lot better than when they started… shows are on hold until next month, though), is better than anything like that.
Fido.. The reason they’re not taking foreign podcasts I believe has to do w/ FCC rules. I believe that for a radio station to broadcast a show that comes from outside the US they have to get FCC approval or something like that.
-A
that’s funny Dave, cuz I always figured you would be part of the Sirius deal, which I think is as sad as the KYOU deal.
Cam, you figured I would be a part of the sad deal? The Sirius thing as best I can tell is somewhat seperate from the Boku/Podshow thing, and I’m not a part of either.