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Stephanie Miller Charges for Archive

D

dampier

In what may be a trend, the Stephanie Miller Show now requires listeners to join their "premium club" in order to access commercial-free show archives (at least until someone steals it and puts it on the newsgroups for everyone).

Rates are $7.99 a month or $60 a year.

The show was available free prior to this. People who subscribed to their free podcast service saw shows stop coming Thursday. The joy returns with your Visa or Mastercard.
 
> In what may be a trend, the Stephanie Miller Show now
> requires listeners to join their "premium club" in order to
> access commercial-free show archives (at least until someone
> steals it and puts it on the newsgroups for everyone).
>
> Rates are $7.99 a month or $60 a year.
>
> The show was available free prior to this. People who
> subscribed to their free podcast service saw shows stop
> coming Thursday. The joy returns with your Visa or
> Mastercard.
>

Supposedly, she didn't want to do this, but the bandwidth costs were getting pretty pricey.

I would think that, at 30 megs a show, multiplied by however many listeners, that's gotta be pretty steep.<P ID="signature">______________
The Liberal Talk Radio Update</P>
 
> > Rates are $7.99 a month or $60 a year.
>
> Supposedly, she didn't want to do this, but the bandwidth
> costs were getting pretty pricey.
>
> I would think that, at 30 megs a show, multiplied by however
> many listeners, that's gotta be pretty steep.

Probably, but it's certainly not costing her $8/mo. per visitor. And she can get her shows hosted for free on services like OurMedia.org. Heck, AirAmericaPlace.com is free and it isn't even operated by the company. It runs on visitor donations.
 
> The joy returns with your Visa or Mastercard.

Or by capturing a stream (I grab WXXM-FM's) and quickly cutting out the commercials before playback.

I haven't done the math on whether the time spent editing or the $60 per year is more costly.<P ID="signature">______________
also known as tombetz.</P>
 
> > > Rates are $7.99 a month or $60 a year.
> >
> > Supposedly, she didn't want to do this, but the bandwidth
> > costs were getting pretty pricey.
> >
> > I would think that, at 30 megs a show, multiplied by
> however
> > many listeners, that's gotta be pretty steep.
>
> Probably, but it's certainly not costing her $8/mo. per
> visitor. And she can get her shows hosted for free on
> services like OurMedia.org. Heck, AirAmericaPlace.com is
> free and it isn't even operated by the company. It runs on
> visitor donations.
>

I was thinking www.whiterosesociety.org. I assume it has something to do with control over the show archives and some complicated contracts (specifically with her syndicator). I know Ben Burch over at WRS has been rebuffed a few times when offering to carry show archives of various talk hosts. <P ID="signature">______________
The Liberal Talk Radio Update</P>
 
> I was thinking www.whiterosesociety.org. I assume it has
> something to do with control over the show archives and some
> complicated contracts (specifically with her syndicator). I
> know Ben Burch over at WRS has been rebuffed a few times
> when offering to carry show archives of various talk hosts.

White Rose usually leaves the commercials in which is maddening with shows like Randi Rhodes which lasts around 2.5 hours when you take out the 1.5 hours of ads per day.

I think $8 a month is steep for Stephanie, but the $60 a year deal is somewhat better. I went for the annual plan because I greatly enjoy her show, but I wouldn't pay that for Franken or any other AAR show with the possible exception of Rhodes.

The bandwidth costs issue is probably not as great as they might make it out to be. Bandwidth costs are far lower than they were just a few years ago. The bittorrent distribution model is used effectively by a number of content distributors and keeps costs down as long as there is regular seeding. I suspect it was a revenue issue. I also think Miller needs to have something more for "premium members" other than just archive access. At least a hat or t-shirt or something. O'Reilly has Factor slacks. :)
 
Avoid the charges

I use Replay Radio. It records Internet audio like a TiVo and then I can listen later on my computer, or transfer the file to an mp3 player. I listen to various talk shows for someone like me, subscription fees could start to add up if everybody starts doing it (and I'm afraid most everybody will).

Find out about Replay Radio at http://www.applian.com/.
There are similar products and you can get information about them at http://www.download.com.
 
Re: Avoid the charges

> I use Replay Radio. It records Internet audio like a TiVo
> and then I can listen later on my computer, or transfer the
> file to an mp3 player. I listen to various talk shows for
> someone like me, subscription fees could start to add up if
> everybody starts doing it (and I'm afraid most everybody
> will).

I forget what minor fees are associated with ReplayRadio, but for the ultimate cheap radio listener, you can program Windows to open and close various stream files at the times you want to record, and use High Criteria's Total Recorder to record when scheduled. If you have the show clock, you can even schedule to have the hard stopsets omitted.
 
Re: Avoid the charges

> I forget what minor fees are associated with ReplayRadio,
> but for the ultimate cheap radio listener, you can program
> Windows to open and close various stream files at the times
> you want to record, and use High Criteria's Total Recorder
> to record when scheduled. If you have the show clock, you
> can even schedule to have the hard stopsets omitted.

I have used Total Recorder for years to make audio files of BBC World Service's Newshour, which is by far the best global news program on the air on any radio station today. I've listened to the likes of Judy Swallow and Robin Lustig and Julian Marshall for more than a decade. Since BBCWS still doesn't podcast it, I use TR to launch and encode the program for me every day.

I don't want commercials, so I don't use any recording software for shows that have ads. If a lot of these shows start charging, you'll find people pirating the commercial free editions in the newsgroups soon enough, especially if they price them too high.
 
Re: Avoid the charges

> I don't want commercials, so I don't use any recording
> software for shows that have ads. If a lot of these shows
> start charging, you'll find people pirating the commercial
> free editions in the newsgroups soon enough, especially if
> they price them too high.

Perhaps, but for those who don't spend their weekends dissecting every radio move on Radio-Info, I'm not sure the average listener is savvy enough to go trolling for that.
 
Re: Avoid the charges

>
> I don't want commercials, so I don't use any recording
> software for shows that have ads.

Like mwebster, I use Replay Radio to record Stephanie Miller, and I find editing out the commercials before playback (especially once I have become familiar with the program's clock) not that big a deal.

I use and recommend the freeware MP3DirectCut for editing MP3 files.<P ID="signature">______________
also known as tombetz.</P>
 
> I think $8 a month is steep for Stephanie, but the $60 a
> year deal is somewhat better. I went for the annual plan
> because I greatly enjoy her show, but I wouldn't pay that
> for Franken or any other AAR show with the possible
> exception of Rhodes.

You would be foolish to pay for any AAR show since you can get them for free without commercials on http://airamericaplace.com/

<P ID="signature">______________
http://talkingradio.blogspot.com/</P>
 
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