Sari, Felda and I featured alternative radio shows in Singapore, discussing their significance, listenership and licensing issues.

The introductory video is shown above. The rest of the article can be found here.

In the article, we would like to explore the issues they face, with regards to its popularity and relevance in Singapore society today. With the onslaught of websites such as Jango.com where users can create their own radio station by selecting their favourite artists and genres, how has their strategies to attain a Web presence changed? If they are not interested in getting a large audience, what are their motivations for staying on?

People to talk to: Radio deejays from independent or student-run radio stations, their listeners, local musicians whose music get played on these stations, and man on the street to get their views on the radio scene in Singapore.

2. Start EARLY. Transcribing interviews takes up more time than you think.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask your contacts for more contacts. They know all the hidden experts on the topic.

4. Tell all your friends about your project – so at least 1 in 10 will pass you a relevant contact.

5. Don’t work with a friend unless it’s been tried and tested. For the sake of your friendship.

6. Find partners that don’t live half the island away from you. You don’t want to end up having all your meetings in Boon Lay because it’s the most convenient.

7. Don’t be shy about letting others read your work. The more eyeballs are on your work, the more contacts they pass to you, and the more constructive feedback you’ll get.

8. Engage a sub-editor. It’ll save you all the last minute grammar trauma.

Watching March Madness at Work. (Photo: FLC)

“And if you’re going to miss all the LIVE action, you can tune here at SportsCenter tomorrow for all the highlights. We’ll see you then.” That’s the closing line I see on SportsCenter sometimes, and with more and more games going straight into LIVE webcast, video-on-demand, with highlights – especially in the US – it got me thinking about the future of sports highlights broadcast on the traditional media. This especially with the typical straight chronological (or non-angled) stuff we watch on sports news segments.

Well let’s take March Madness for instance, it has been reported that over 20 distributors have put the broadcast on video-on-demand.

It’s on the iPhone and the iPod touch, and you can watch it anywhere with WiFi access. According to a macworld article, “in addition to live streams, the app also features scores, recaps, highlights, and bracket information so you can see at a glance how horribly you’re doing in your office pool.” With the highlights, and bracket information – plus it’s FREE on the NCAA website – are new media capabilities squeezing traditional media out the door? Again, what then can traditional media do to keep themselves in the competition, since they’re already two down on the time and place factors?

On another note, it’s good to know that the new media is really making money in some areas. When this new media capability came up, many were – and still are – sceptical about what progress and money it can make. And March Madness is showing them just how. NewTeeVee has reported that the online ad revenue for this event is nearing US$30million on CBSSport.com alone. And this really is amazing. However, I think this works mostly because viewers are at work or school, so they cannot view the games at home. So great job in exploiting the new media platform when the broadcasters know that traditional media just wouldn’t cut it.

ESPN has announced its intention to launch ESPN Chicago – the first city-specific website for the company. MillerCoors has been identified as the website’s main advertiser, and should the venture prove to be popular amongst sports fans, more of such sites could be rolled out.

Some fans have responded on the Chicago Tribune blog to say that they are happy about the move – they claim that ESPN’s main website seems to have a New York slant.

The site also hopes to link up with outside blogs and news sources, in what is called “link journalism”, according to Eric Benderoff of the Chicago Tribune.

Now “link journalism” is something that I’m not quite sure works for a news site like ESPN. The company has a specific branding, with SportsCenter building itself up to be a world leader in sports news. So switching up the branding could, in my opinion, be to their disadvantage. No doubt that that gives them a wealth of information and material at a much lower cost, plus intensive gatekeeping could keep things accurate and entertaining, but the fact that anyone can be part of the ESPN SportsCenter-type journalistic crew, just removes them from the ranks of being above the rest, down to the everyday person.

Sari and I went around Holland Village to document the rich-poor divide there.

(Photo: Paul Nicholson)

Viewers who subscribe to the web version of Major League Baseball can now pay a little more for add-ons, including the National Hockey League and ESPN’s Insider (both text and video content). The NHL will cost an extra US$30, while ESPN’s Insider will cost them US$20. ESPN Insider will feature programmes like Pardon the Interruption and Around the Horn. Details of this partnership can be found here.

So it seems that web content can work the other way around too. Instead of selling web rights, MLB now sets up its own web tv network, and supplemented its content with ESPN’s pundits, by giving the sports network television giant a cut in this. This in contrast with the usual scenario where ESPN purchases the rights, and then supplements the match content with their pundits. I suppose it is weighing between shouldering the risk of airing a product – because it probably means they need more staff to support the system – or choosing to sit back and let the networks do the work. This has great potential though, if it really takes off, all the other franchises could be riding off this movement.

(Photo: jbphototon)

Major League Baseball will bring an interactive web show to the table for their regular season games, called MLB.tv, the first of all the other sports. According to this article by the New York Times, users can receive up to high-definition video, where they will determine your Internet connection speed, and customise the video quality to that. Users can also lay the voice of their favorite radio broadcaster – if they are commentating on the airwaves then – underneath the pictures, and run it like TiVo, where they can rewind and fast-forward. The broadcast isn’t free, they will have to pay US$80-110, depending on the package selected.

This isn’t news, but I think there is so much a sports news organisation’s new media team can pick up from this. Firstly, the tweaking of the video with the viewer’s Internet connection speed. What we had years ago and still have now is the high-resolution and low-resolution options. What about the in-between? With the advancement of technology, I’m looking for the software platform which news organisations use to publish their stuff on, to have greater flexibility in their quality calibration.

Also, I think it is fantastic that MLB.tv has steered clear of areas they feel they shouldn’t overstep in terms of the traditional media. For instance, Chicago residents will not be able to view games featuring the White Sox and Cubs, but can view everything else. It may not be the perfect line to draw, but at least they thought of the two platforms of businesses that they can command, and know that they should not just be a substitute, but as a complementing feature as well.

On a side note, the idea that you can pick and choose a voice to commentate on your pictures is a scary idea for sports networks. It almost eliminates the safety net one feels in earning broadcast rights – they need the viewers to love the commentator to fully retain them.

(Photo: Matt Hampel)

Tiger Woods announced his return to the PGA Tour just a week ago, and made his comeback at the WGC Accenture Match Play Championships in Arizona. The decision to re-enter professional golf after being out for nine months due to a knee surgery was first published on his website. So I surfed around his official site, checked out the videos section, and found that Tiger has all the highlights of himself in the tournaments he participated in on the PGA Tour.

I couldn’t find out if he bought the rights or that they were given to him though, but this is the first I’ve seen of anyone who has highlights of just one player. It got me thinking about how rights could be fragmented that way, be it for golfers, tennis players, or even any one particular team in football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, etc. Should sports news organisations then promote players instead of promoting sports?

It’s one of those grey areas for me, I mean it’s true that many viewers just want to watch Tiger Woods on the PGA Tour, and the same goes for Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Manchester United, etc. However, more than just showering a good player with all the attention, it’s also about watching those veteran players who have gone past their prime (Roger Federer seems to be on the fast track to entering this category), but still have a few tricks to teach the young ones, as well as to watch the young and upcoming. More than anything else, I think it’s about promoting the sport, and good sportsmanship.