I’m excited by the concept of The Real News, a nonprofit news network that will be totally funded by viewers who’ll pay $10 per month. Rather than hear me pontificate on this, check out the video on You Tube.
What do you think?
I actually watched a sitcom on CBC-TV last night, and liked it. After all the buzz in the media, I just had to check out “Little Mosque on the Prairie,” a show about Muslims living in a small town in Saskatchewan.
It’s probably as much of a groundbreaker as The Cosby Show was in the 1980s. "Mosque" shows Muslims as normal people with normal problems. The lighthearted humour pokes fun at misconceptions about both Muslims and rural Canadians. Of course no Canadian comedy set in the Prairies would be complete without jabs at big, bad Toronto, where you can actually find a decaf cappuccino. (The young imam, a lawyer transplanted from Toronto, is shocked to find that his favourite drink is not available in his new town.)
Watching the show, I couldn’t help but wonder if U.S. audiences would like it. Let’s hope it gets picked up outside Canada.
In my latest podcast I share tips for creating newsletters that people love to read, with the help of three guests: writer Sue Horner, photographer Adiseshan Shankar and designer Joanna Turlej. This podcast was recorded before a meeting of the Halton-Peel Communications Association, of which we're all members.
You can download the show and see the shownotes on the Trafcom News Podcast blog.
When I first read that Mark Burnett of reality-TV fame was a featured speaker at the IABC International Conference, I scratched my head. Huh? What would HE have to say to communicators?
As it turns out, a lot. First of all, as you can imagine, Burnett is a master storyteller who pulled the audience into the palm of his hand pretty darn quickly. He regaled us with hysterically funny (although politically incorrect) tales of his first days in America – as a nanny, of all things – after leaving the British Army.
Toward the end of his speech, Burnett made one comment that struck me – and some others I spoke with later – as a brilliant insight. You see, the show he is developing now (in partnership with AOL.com) is something called Gold Rush, which will allow Americans to go online to find clues leading to buried treasure (real treasure). Here’s the comment: Burnett believes that 9 to 5 will become the new prime time for TV. Think about how that will change communications and the world we live and work in. Nine to 5 as the new prime time. You heard it here first! ;-)
In a recent Corante “Between Lawyers” post, Dennis Kennedy says potential clients may start asking trial lawyers to play recordings of their oratory skills before deciding whether to hire them:
“If you are hiring a lawyer for his or her advocacy skills, wouldn't you ideally like to hear (or see) some examples of the lawyer in action? Event planners routinely asks for samples from prospective speakers.”
On TV, courtroom dramatics take precedence over the boring filing of papers. In real life, most lawyers spend more time reading, writing and filing than they do dazzling spectators. Still, I’m intrigued by the whole idea of lawyerly podcasts! Doing a quick search, I found The Legal Talk Network, which offers podcasts, but I don’t see samples of lawyers’ arguments there. They do have a nice collection of information, with content provided by leading legal resources in the U.S.
The Toronto papers picked up a story from the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye. Apparently, an Arab satellite TV network, MBC, has introduced The Simpsons (dubbed "Al Shamshoon") to the Middle East. I checked the date. No, it’s not April 1. How on earth can you translate a TV show that thrives on poking fun at American culture and makes countless references to American people, institutions and history?
Seems they had to make some changes. "Omar Shamshoon," as he is called on the show, looks like the same Homer, but he has sworn off beer and bacon, which are both against Islam. Instead, he consumes soda pop and barbecued Egyptian beef sausages. In place of the ubiquitous doughnuts, Homer stuffs himself with traditional Arab cookies. The family still lives in Springfield, and Bart is called Badr.
According to the WSJ, MBC hopes "Al Shamshoon" will be the first of many adaptations for the growing Arab TV audience, but success is far from guaranteed. Longtime Simpsons fans in the Arab world are incensed over the new version. One Egyptian blogger wondered why producers couldn’t just make a good original show about family in Egypt.
With satellite TV booming, I guess we’ll see more "translated" programming of this type. D’oh.
I grew up watching Peter Jennings on the nightly news on ABC. His passing reminds us that the "old guard" of broadcast journalism is departing, just while we are becoming accustomed to receiving our news in different ways. A friend and I were talking tonight about how everyone used to tune into the TV news at 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. (Personally, I haven't watched TV news since September 12, 2001.)
Today, of course, we're bombarded by current events via 24-hour news channels, Internet news sites and Web feeds. I wonder if the next generation of "news consumers" will ever know an anchor like Peter Jennings, who was both urbane and street-smart, having served as a correspondent in every hot spot of the world from Beirut to Berlin.
