Comments on: Odyssey cancellation

By: stevee

stevee — Mon, 18 Jul 2005 20:25:05 +0000

Odyssey is a really great program and its cancellation is truly sad. In 2002, as Program Director of WOBC 91.5 fm in Oberlin, OH, I arranged for our station to syndicate Odyssey, and Tory Malatia was extremely friendly and helpful, and of course the show was well received.

I dropped him an email today to let him know how disappointed I was to hear this news. He thanked me for my early support of the show, but the general tone of his email made it sound like the situation may be beyond salvation.

I’ve contacted another friend who works at WBEZ to see if anything else can be done. I will mention the podcasting angle to Mr. Malatia in my reply [no, Odyssey would really not have music rights issues as the only music used in the program was its (originally composed?) instrumental theme song].

By: ken

ken — Sun, 17 Jul 2005 01:15:17 +0000

Tricky thing about podcasting is if there are any music rights involved. I don’t know how heavily Odyssey used music. But if it does at all then podcasting requires additional licensing of the music, apparently. We want to podcast our show Philosophy Talk. But it looks as if we’ll have to totally eliminate the music to do so. Indeed, it looks as though we’ll even have to strip the music from our audio stream. Ugh!

It might be easier for Odyssey if WBEZ is the owner of the show, as it probably is, then it is covered by the CPB’s blanket purchase of broadcast rights for all music for all NPR members. But nobody is certain, though, whether those rights extend to podcasting. And nobody is taking any risks.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 20:20:00 +0000

The only bright side is that now we have podcasting with Apple is in the forefront of distribution.
Shows of intelligence can be circulated—perhaps wider than before, in fact—via podcasting. That assumes the host can find a venue for th erecording and I have no idea what that involves for broadcast quality but it couldn’t bee too much thee days.

By: Michael Kremer

Michael Kremer — Sat, 16 Jul 2005 01:40:27 +0000

I’m a member of WBEZ. I’m seriously considering writing to Torey Malatia and threatening to not renew my membership. Maybe that will get their attention.

By: Sean

Sean — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:56:02 +0000

I think the chances are small, but it might be worth a try. I’d be happy to join along in asking people to write. Probably the best person to write to is General Manager Torey Malatia.

Torey Malatia
General Manager, WBEZ
848 E. Grand
Chicago IL 60611
312-832-3312
tmalatia@wbez.org

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 12:24:27 +0000

If there’s any chance that the WBEZ board might respond to feedback, I’d be happy to write a new post encouraging people to write polite letters requesting its reinstatement (and see if Eugene V. would do the same).

By: nick

nick — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 10:49:28 +0000

This is a shitty, shitty decision. Odyssey only gets broadcast once-weekly on my local NPR affiliate, but it stands out in the line-up. It’s one of the few American public radio offerings that wouldn’t be out of place on Radio 4.

I hope that Josh and the Odyssey team consider alternative funding and transmission methods—or that the WBEZ board responds to feedback. It’s easy to poke fun at the ‘bi-weekly beg-a-thon’ methods by which public broadcasting is funded in the US, but I’d pay specifically to keep this programme running.

By: pedro

pedro — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 02:23:18 +0000

Odyssey was infinitely superior to any other radio show I’ve ever heard. Schade!

By: Jon H

Jon H — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:18:46 +0000

It would be nice if there were an effort to grab the old shows and archive them as MP3.

(And in the process, adequately index the topics and guests.)

By: Jon H

Jon H — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 01:17:02 +0000

Suck.

They should cut down on the tour shows of Wait Wait. And maybe trade in PJ O’Rourke for someone cheaper.

And maybe they could save money by taking listener questions by email or IM, rather than by toll-free phone lines.

There’s got to be some way they could scare up money for the show. I wonder how much they could make by putting shows on iTunes for purchase.

Or at the very least, cut it back to Chicago-only, and lose the expenses of trying to syndicate it.

By: Joshua W. Burton

Joshua W. Burton — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 00:14:49 +0000

Terry Gross for people; Tom & Ray for cars; Gretchen for ideas. Nothing else (in North America) even comes close.