Public Address - Hard News (Home)

The New Boss | Jan 11, 2007 10:51

Michael Carney notes the significance of TVNZ's content deal with the BBC - which includes the adult Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood.

This after former programmer Annemarie Duff didn't even bid for the revived Doctor Who, because, she once told me, it was "not our audience". Prime's fangirl programmer Karen Bieleski will now presumably be quite put out.

I think Michael's correct in speculating that there has been a change of heart on BBC programming under Rick Ellis. When I had a briefing with a couple of TVNZ digital people last year, it almost seemed to me there was a chip on the shoulder about the Beeb.

No more, it seems, although they'll presumably be regretting letting the Documentary Channel swoop in and grab quite a lot of relatively inexpensive, quality factual programming from the BBC. (By the way, I gather that the handful of people who can receive it are seeing some quite good docos on the widescreen test channel coming off TVNZ's satellite. AFAIK, it's available to anyone with a standard DVB-S decoder and a dish.)

Although a lot of it won't be visible to the public, you can expect some significant changes of fortune within TVNZ this year, as people and projects that languished under Fraser get dusted off or re-prioritised. I won't pre-empt next week's Listener column, but I think the state broadcaster's 'Inspiring on Every Screen' strategy actually has some substance. Although I still think TVNZ OnDemand is going to struggle, for reasons outlined here.

And, quite frankly, there are still a few tricks that need learnin' up there on Hobson Street. The Listener column I wrote on the Karaoke High launch was in the Jan 6 issue that wasn't uploaded to the Listener website, but this is the relevant part:

TVNZ's bid to create a buzz around its Shortland Street holiday fill-in Karaoke High by making the first episode available on the internet a week before it screened was a commendable show of initiative. Broadcasters need to find ways to bridge old and new media environments, and putting the programme online was an innovative - and inexpensive - piece of marketing.

But, without wishing to seem churlish, the execution was lacking. TVNZ is entitled to love its website, and the public is used by now to being told to go to the site and enter a "keyword" to find a programme being promoted (the actual address of the show's home page at TVNZ is 62 characters long and essentially impossible to remember, let alone recite) - but why on earth didn't somebody register "karaokehigh.com"? Actually, somebody has - somebody called Dean, who lives in Devonport, bought it on November 16.

The broadcaster should have registered the .com domain name (and karaokehigh.co.nz) itself, and had it point to the show's page on its website. It should have slapped "karaokehigh.com" on everything to do with the show. Now, if it wants to try and sell the show overseas, it will be without a very basic marketing asset. Tellingly, the top Google search result for "karaoke high" is karaokehigh.com, and not the official page.

Also missing: the MySpace page. The target audience for the show might be induced to follow the instructions and find the right page on TVNZ's website, but it is already hanging around making new friends on social networking sites. Broadcasters - all media, for that matter - need to get used to the idea that their content will be unbundled and consumed, usually piecemeal, in places they do not comprehensively control.

By the same reasoning, there should also have been clips from the show posted on YouTube, which makes it trivially easy for kids to embed its videos in their blogs and MySpace pages and thus to feel some sense of ownership of what they're presenting. (The producers of Eating Media Lunch, which is available in full on TVNZ's website after screening, have twigged this and are posting short clips to YouTube themselves.)

Worse yet, the "keyword" instruction seemed to stop working during the lead-up to the programme screening. One day, it led directly to the home page for the show, where the advance episode was available - and the next to a list of site search results topped by the grim news headline "Man killed outside karaoke bar". That was hardly giving a good impression.

And TVNZ should stop saying the episodes can be "downloaded" from its website, because (unless you know a trick or two) they can't. It's in a streaming video format that means it can't be downloaded and saved to disc. Viewers without broadband will find the postage stamp-sized dial-up version a little unsatisfying.

Still, there's a happy note. The show itself (produced at Avalon in which looks like a dry run for next year's early-evening soap The Point) isn't bad at all. TVNZ just needs to get as savvy at marketing youth television as it is at making it.

Since I wrote it, a member of the public has also picked up karaokehigh.co.nz. Duh.

I've been using Zudeo, the new P2P portal app which is basically the Azureus BitTorrent client with some fancy graphic stuff to hide the scary bits (fortunately, the familiar old interface is still there behind an "Advanced" tab). It's not bad in concept, but it needs content - and it's getting it, via a deal with BBC Worldwide, which will see it used to distribute the likes of Doctor Who and Red Dwarf in the US. Interesting.

Rod Drury reckons Apple's iPhone is a winner. Some useful discussion there too. Interestingly, Sam Morgan chips in with the observation that Safari accounted for only 1.6% of browser visits on Trade Me in December. On Public Address, the figure is consistently ~8%, with another 4% of Firefox users on Macs.

Juha has three superb Internet meme clips involving abuse of a Furby and Tickle Me Elmo dolls. The last one is really creepy …

And, finally you could always nominate one or more of the Public Address blogs in various categories for the Bloggies. Closes today, so don't muck about.

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The Suicide Note | Jan 10, 2007 10:41

My thought as I started reading the essay by Auckland University cryptographer Peter Gutman on the "suicide note" implicit in the content protection layer of Windows Vista was that the utility of computers was being sacrificed on the altar of content protection.

And, indeed, that's basically what Gutman is saying. Here's his executive summary:

Windows Vista includes an extensive reworking of core OS elements in order to provide content protection for so-called "premium content", typically HD data from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sources. Providing this protection incurs considerable costs in terms of system performance, system stability, technical support overhead, and hardware and software cost. These issues affect not only users of Vista but the entire PC industry, since the effects of the protection measures extend to cover all hardware and software that will ever come into contact with Vista, even if it's not used directly with Vista (for example hardware in a Macintosh computer or on a Linux server). This document analyses the cost involved in Vista's content protection, and the collateral damage that this incurs throughout the computer industry.

He's also saying that the overwhelming focus on locking down "premium" content has significant implications for security, especially if any PC component is deemed to have a content leak:

Content-protection "features" like tilt bits also have worrying denial-of-service (DoS) implications. It's probably a good thing that modern malware is created by programmers with the commercial interests of the phishing and spam industries in mind rather than just creating as much havoc as possible. With the number of easily-accessible grenade pins that Vista's content protection provides, any piece of malware that decides to pull a few of them will cause considerable damage. The homeland security implications of this seem quite serious, since a tiny, easily-hidden piece of malware would be enough to render a machine unusable, while the very nature of Vista's content protection would make it almost impossible to determine why the denial-of-service is occurring. Furthermore, the malware authors, who are taking advantage of "content-protection" features, would be protected by the DMCA against any attempts to reverse-engineer or disable the content-protection "features" that they're abusing.

Even without deliberate abuse by malware, the homeland security implications of an external agent being empowered to turn off your IT infrastructure in response to a content leak discovered in some chipset that you coincidentally happen to be using is a serious concern for potential Vista users. Non-US governments are already nervous enough about using a US-supplied operating system without having this remote DoS capability built into the operating system.

The extent of supplication to content owners is indicated here:

As security researcher Ed Felten quoted from Microsoft documents on his freedom-to-tinker web site about a year ago (http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=882):

"The evidence [of security] must be presented to Hollywood and other content owners, and they must agree that it provides the required level of security. Written proof from at least three of the major Hollywood studios is required".

So if you design a new security system, you can't get it supported in Windows Vista until well-known computer security experts like Disney, MGM, and 20th Century Fox give you the go-ahead. It's absolutely astonishing to find paragraphs like that in what are supposed to be Windows technical documents, since it gives Hollywood studios veto rights over Windows security mechanisms.

There's a lot more in the full essay. It's not essential that you understand all the technical details to get the gist of it, but I'd welcome geekier readers coming in here with some explanatory comments for non-geeks. I confess, I find it hard to believe it could be this bad, but Peter Gutman is a lot smarter than I am.

Meanwhile, Apple Computer, which in some ways has created the lock-in model Gutman believes Microsoft is pursuing with its new OS, staged its Macworld Expo toyfest in the last few hours.

Yes, there's an iPhone, and Apple has cut a deal with Cisco to use the latter's iPhone trademarks. The iPhone is very thin, has a full length touchscreen instead of a keypad, and runs MacOS X. And it's GSM.

It plays music too, of course, and Steve Jobs just happened to have the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band displaying and playing when he demonstrated that.

Apple's TV box, now called Apple TV, also featured. It will take streams from up to five computers (Mac or PC) within WiFi range, and auto-sync to a built-in 40GB hard drive. Catch: as demoed, it will only work with iTunes, and I can't get iTunes to play .avi/DivX files (even though it's easy to have them play in QuickTime). I can re-save them as QuickTime files and that works, but that's tedious and it degrades the image quality. Therefore, I can't see Apple TV being useful to me until there's a DivX hack, but if that happened, I'd seriously consider obtaining one this year. (Apple TV will not, of course, even go near the DRM-to-the-eyeballs Windows Media files TVNZ will soon be selling as downloads.)

And, on a completely different tip, I don't know what to think of this. Aussie paceman Brett Lee has a pop hit - in India. His duet with the legendary Asha (as in 'Brimful of Asha') reach No.4 in the Indian singles chart. The video is on YouTube. Don't say I didn't warn you …

PS: Unless your name is Glen Barnes, you didn't win the double pass to the Heineken Open tennis tonight. The draw for Friday's day pass will be conducted - from an actual hat, by an incorruptible autistic child - later today, so you can still get in for that.

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More party pill palaver | Jan 09, 2007 10:52

I'm with the Drug Foundation on the idea of people injecting BZP from party pills: if it's happening at all, it's happening on a very small scale and, by definition, amongst existing IV drug users who are doing it for the hell of it. It's just not relevant in the context of mainstream regulation.

It's also worth noting that injecting BZP is an even worse idea than injecting other drugs: it's caustic, and likely to damage veins. And it doesn't even sound that good.

I'm also wondering why the media are reporting New Zealand's first party pill death, on the basis that 25 year-old Daniel Knights might have taken some party pills along with what appears to have been an array of other recreational drugs, including booze, over a short, hard time. It might just as well have been described as New Zealand's umpteenth alcohol-related death.

It would be wrong to characterise as hysterical the overall media response to the party pills issue, however. While the Marlborough Express is saying it's time to ban the party pills, there seem to be more editors advising Jim Anderton to stay his hand. I still think it's a shame that the one that got legal happens to be the piperazines, because they're not really all that nice.

Meanwhile, the ODT gets onto a hot story, Cannabis growers head indoors, only about 20 years late.

And, finally, a couple of Iraq strategies for your perusal. One, in the Independent, by former Iraqi defence minister Ali Allawi, is lucid and thoughtful but asks a degree of goodwill from the various players that may be hard to find. The other calls on President Bush to "go wide" - that is, widen the regional conflict by simultaneously attacking both Iran and Syria - and is absolutely barking mad.

PS: Note the tasty tennis giveaway in the Heineken ad on these pages. I'll draw the Wednesday double pass today, and the Friday one later. BTW, I got one of those kegs. They're quite nifty.

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Getting the pip | Jan 08, 2007 08:54

The Weekend Herald's lead story was daft even for the silly season. Its dread revelation: Don Brash, like every other MP, and much of the citizenry, has been on holiday. He happens to have been in New York for some of that time. Was he supposed to consign himself to house arrest?

The difference with Brash, of course, is that he resigned as an MP last month, and will pack up his things for good early next month. I do not for a moment think that he timed his resignation with the idea of diddling the taxpayer over summer.

I wonder if the Herald is making some hammy attempt at balance here. The paper's editorial voice lost any sense of measure over Labour's electoral spending debacle, but can find nothing of any consequence in Nicky Hager's The Hollow Men as to National's conduct. The paper's 2005 editorial wrap-up dismissed Hager as a "muckraker".

This seems pretty churlish given that the paper was happy to accept documents from Hager - the same documents he cites in his book - to help its reporters rebut a flat-out lie from National about its contacts with the Australian political consultants Crosby Textor.

The editorial was presumably the work of John Roughan, given that he advanced an identical interpretation of Brash's departure in his column on Saturday:

I have been reading the book that history will credit, simplistically, with the downfall of Don Brash. Poor artless Don was the architect of his own demise. His attitude to Maori and the Treaty made him unsuited to be Prime Minister in my view, but obviously he resigned to protect personal material in emails that he could not keep private without also suppressing an unbalanced book that otherwise wouldn't have destroyed him.

Obviously? By what hand? Who exactly would have run that personal story? And haven't we established that the public had already given Brash a pass on the affair? Is it not surely more the case that Brash resigned because, having noisily trumpeted his opponents' deceit, he'd have had his obfuscations over the Brethren hurled back at him for the next two years? And, just as important, because his own caucus had tired of him and the project that put him there?

Roughan's qualms about the change in rhetoric towards Maori under Brash are sincere, and he has elucidated them well in the past. But why pretend that rhetoric was exclusively personal when its political anatomy is now available for viewing? Is it purely because that would mean acknowledging some substance to the book? It's hard to think of another reason.

It's quite reasonable to take issue with Hager's analysis of the events he records but the fact is that there are a dozen political stories in The Hollow Men that the Herald would have gleefully owned if its own staff had broken them. But it couldn't. And the impression persists that the Herald has got the pip.

No one wants the Herald to return to the days when it was a stranger to campaigning journalism. But the perils of its latterday tone were demonstrated in the waterfront stadium story, when its editors essentially harpooned a project they belatedly realised they supported. The country's best newspaper needs to calm down a bit.

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On another tip entirely - because it is still summer - the Big Day Out schedule has now been published. As expected, Tool will bellow dolefully for the last 90 minutes of the mainstage. And the puzzle of exactly who is headlining the Boiler Room has been answered: it's Shapeshifter. Unless I'm mistaken, they're the first local act to take that slot, and they richly deserve it. I'm not so sure about the rest of the Boiler Room lineup though. It's nice to see hip-hop get a look in with a prime slot for Sir Vere, but I wonder if the Streets might tank in the tent (perhaps to the benefit of Open Souls, who are playing the Boost Mobile stage next door at the same time), and I thought Lilly Allen was an act for a sunny outdoor stage.

Still, I'm up for it. Let's just hope the weather is kind.

And staying with music, I've been enjoying bFM over the holidays. In particular, every time I turn on the radio, Hannah from the Midweek Swoon has been on duty. And every time she's managed to find good music to play. Well done that girl.

PS: My column in the new Listener, looking forward to 2007 on its turf, contains a paragraph that's almost identical to the 2006 retrospective before Christmas. Lest anyone think I'm plagiarising myself, there was a mix-up over copy that I didn't pick up until it was too late.

PPS: Just thought to look at Public Address's stats for the 2006 year. Golly. We served 5.8 million pages in the course of nearly two million visits.

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