Blog 9: Narrowcasts, Facebook, and Zuckerberg's Wallet

Problogue: I've been so blessed to have broadcast sports beginning in the late 70s on AM radio, through the current broadcast boom on the internet.  The internet, I think, has extended my time on the air by 20+ years.

Plus...a thanks to Albany TV, and Mark Zuckerberg holds his breath for six and a half hours...

**********

I've started a number of broadcast networks for online sports.

It may have been a bit audacious to call them "networks", since they normally had just one way to share the programming.  But, in typical marketing fashion, it sounded good.

My networks have always been connected to one school or one team, becoming the "voice of" that school or team.

(Quick aside: why aren't video broadcasts known as the "eyes of" the team?)

As an announcer, being associated with one school or one team is really a lot of fun.  It is your team, you live or die with them, you can be partial on the air (to a degree) and you normally get to know the people around the team pretty well.

And you get to know the parents, friends and family for which the broadcasts are intended.

That's why I try to sometimes use the term "narrowcast" instead of  "broadcast".  Our team broadcasts are intended for the parents, friends and family.  And those that are stakeholders in that team, like alumni. And, of course, the same kind of audience from the opponent on any given day.

But we certainly never, ever expect to see viewers in the thousands or millions.  We don't deal with advertising folks who insist on doing business in Cost Per Thousand.

Over the years I've become very comfortable with narrowcasting.

I'm not sure that I treasure anything more than just doing the job, except for maybe getting a sincere compliment from one of the stakeholders of the broadcast.

Here's the one of the best compliments I ever received:

After a basketball game on the William Jewell College Sports Network, the opposing coach came across the floor immediately after the game and shook my hand.  Before he talked to his team.

"My wife was watching the entire game and said it was wonderful, " he said.  "She wanted me to come right over and thank you, and now I can't wait to watch the replay."

That's what it's about.  You can't replace that feeling I had with money or followers or retweets. (Punchline: his team lost the game that night.)

May you have the same experience someday in your broadcasting life...

************

On Monday, NCMC broadcast student Jaden Varner and I were in Albany, Missouri visiting Albany TV and visiting with their producer Jered Rolves before a local softball game.  Albany TV streams their sports broadcasts on Facebook, and by now you know what happened to Facebook Monday...

Albany TV of Albany, MO

If you don't know what happened to Facebook Monday, they were shut down from approximately 10:40 a.m. CDT until around 5:00; Jered was facing the rare dark side of online broadcasting, a situation in which he might not have had a home platform for his broadcast.  And he was going to let viewers down because of it.

He was a lot more composed than I would have been, honestly, and FB came back just in time for the first pitch...although Albany TV had the option of recording the game and showing it later, in athletics live is everything, which is the subject of a coming blog.

**********

Did you hear this, although I don't know how it could be official: given the information (all bad, it seems) about Facebook recently, and given the outage on FB Monday...Mark Zuckerburg's net wealth dropped six BILLION dollars while FB was down.

The Zuck

**********

Speaking of Monday...I sure missed the Mannings on Monday Night Football....you?