The Conservatives are Podcasting!

Those with Apple's iTunes  loaded on their machines can now subscribe to 'podcasts' of Conservative Leader Stephen Harper's speeches. This is something new that the Tories were not doing when I went on holiday two weeks ago. So far as I know, the federal Tories are the first major Canadian political party to dabble in podcasts. Neither the federal Liberals nor NDP appear to be offering podcasts at their sites.

Podcasts, as some of you may know, are a relatively new form of distributing audio content on the Web. Producers make an audio recording — the most popular podcasts are like radio shows — and then publish a podcast feed. Listeners subscribe to the feed and then, whenever there is a new 'show' or podcast, it is automatically downloaded and available for listening through iTunes or other podcast software.

ABC, for example, puts a podcast of Nightline on the Web. Those who subscribe to it automatically have Ted Koppel on their hard drives whenever he does a new show.

Those who own Apple iPods get these podcasts dumped right on to those devices, hence the name podcasts, and can take their Ted Koppel podcast/broadcast or Stephen Harper speech wherever they go.

Podcasting is absolutely exploding in popularity, the same way blogs took off a couple of years ago.

So far, the Conservative podcast feed has published just one Stephen Harper speech. (It's the one he gave on the rooftop at the Westin in early July to kick off his BBQ tour). I'm sure if we all cross our fingers there will be more Stephen Harper to listen to before the summer is over 🙂 .

You can subscribe, if you're so inclined, to Conservative party speech podcasts at:

http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1868/

There, the Tories have also helpfully provided more info about podcasting.

So far as I know, the only major media organizations in Canada to employ podcasting are the CBC (they have a pilot project with three radio shows available as podcasts) and The Toronto Star. The Star's music reviewer does a podcast in which he reads bits of his column and then plays some of the songs. The Star also does audio versions, via podcast, of some of its other content.

In the U.S. several major media organizations are trying to reach new audiences with podcasts including the Wall Street Journal, CBS Marketwatch, Slate and National Public Radio.

Apple tracks the top podcasts in the U.S. and, today, CNN's news update podcast was number seven on Apple's chart; Ted Koppel's Nightline was at 17 on Apple's chart.

On a related new media note, the Conservatives are also publishing several RSS feeds (all part of a redesigned Web site) for those who like getting their press releases that way.

PJ Radio

Billy Bryans turned me on to this and now I just can't turn it off. It's called PJ Radio – an Internet-based radio station programmed by, presumably, a guy named PJ out of Toronto. PJ Radio is streamed through Apple's iTunes, the first time I've come across such a feed that wasn't part of the pre-programmed package from Apple.
The sound quality is terrific and PJ's musical moods so far this afternoon are right in step with mine.

Saul Bellow

What a responsibility we bear, in this fat country of ours! Think what America could mean to the world. Then see what it is. What a breed it might have produced. But look at us — at you, at me. Read the paper, if you can bear to.
Herzog London: Penguin Books, 1964, p. 34

Jane Austen

“Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.”

Jane Austen in a letter quoted in Diane Johnson’s review of several books about Austen in the New York Review of Books, June 23, 2005 (p. 22)

 

Conservative caucus in Borden's day …

“…the Conservative caucus, in Borden’s day, was an especially fractious body representing Protestant Orangemen, a small group of French Canadians with growing nationaliste sympathies, veteran Tory members wedded to the ideas and practices of the Conservatism of Macdonald, and young bloods demanding new approaches to both party policy and organization.”

– Granatstein, Abella, et al, Twentieth Century Canada, Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1983, p. 70

MP blogosphere growing – welcome Andrew Scheer

Andrew ScheerAndrew Scheer, (left) a Conservative MP from Saskatchewan, launched his blog at the end of last month.

“My intent for this space is to have an area where I can post topics of interest, and you can respond,” Scheer writes in his blog’s inaugural post. “The topics will largely be centered on federal politics, however other issues may be covered as well.”

He is using the Blogger platform — it’s dead smple folks if you want to try this blogging thing — and his blog, like is caucus colleague Steven Fletcher, lets readers comment on his posts.

 

AmNet execs think anchors ought to blog

Reuters is reporting that top executives at the American networks — the AmNets, in our shorthand — ought be blogging.

NBC could create Internet blogs for its top news anchors and celebrity interviewers as it seeks to maintain the appeal of U.S. network news, its top executive said on Tuesday.
NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker said entering the generally opinionated world of blogs might be one way television networks could keep their grip on viewers who increasingly use the Internet for news.
“Over the next two years, network news is going to go through a lot more changes,” Zucker said at a Yahoo (Nasdaq:YHOO – news) conference on high-speed Internet use. “This is one of the biggest issues facing traditional network news divisions.”
“I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now,” Zucker said of the anchor of NBC's top-rated evening news program who took the helm after veteran journalist Tom Brokaw stepped down in December. “We should be looking for a more interactive component … and be experimenting more … [Read the full story]