Where Is Radio TiVo?
Written Oct. 18, 2007 by Larry Rosin in Technology with 4 Comments
I have been a TiVo user, and TiVo lover for over four years now. Like most TiVo users, watching television without TiVo has become a frustration -- often I am in a hotel room searching for the non-existent pause or rewind button while watching a ballgame or other show.
And, I just as often find myself searching for the same phantom buttons when listening to the radio. My mind wanders as the announcer reads the traffic report . . . and I want to back it up. I receive a call on my cell phone right in the middle of a funny morning-show bit and I just wish I could hit the pause button. I hear a fascinating story on Public Radio and I just so wish I could record it for later playback in my car.
Once you have consumed media in the TiVo way, it is just so hard to go back to traditional media usage.
Since over-the-air radio isn't going to get these functionalities anytime soon it is essential that we fill in the blanks as best as we can.
At minimum over-the-air radio broadcasters need to make podcasting much more robust; Public Radio has amazing offerings of their programming on their Web sites that really do allow me to listen later -- albeit not (yet) easily in my car. But as of today only a tiny fraction of commercial radio stations make their morning show or other non-music content easily available from their web sites.
Millions of television viewers are now trained to DVR functionality. Radio needs to program with this new kind of media consumer in mind.
Reader Comments
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About the closest thing is a sort-of "VCR for radio," like the Radio YourWay. But you're right, it doesn't allow rewinding while recording, like the TiVo or a DVR does.
Buzz @ KIIM
Try RadioTime and their RedButton desktop software, it has pause live radio, go back while recording, recording more than one program at a time, season pass equivalent, iTunes integration. Or try the Radioshift product from a partner is similar for the Mac. It needs to be integrated into consumer devices but that's planned (I work there).
I've been saying for quite a while that radio needs to dive into Podcasting full force. Imagine that you get your content on folks' iPods - your radio station name/logo (if it is a color screen/video iPod) is in their portable music player. How about doing some videos from backstage at concerts too? Radio has yet to embrace the fact that if they want to succeed in this fragmented media world - they need to embrace new media with gusto. Videoblogging, highlights from the morning show, blogs from the DJS (real stuff, not station fluff), and using existing platforms like Facebook should be the norm.
A lot of stations start podcasts, then never update them. WPLJ's podcast page seemed to get a good start, and then they just stopped updating.
--*Rob
Sirius Stiletto. It's an expensive brick, but it tapes all the shows I want so I can listen to them at my convenience.