Amazon workers are listening to what you tell Alexa, a Bloomberg investigation revealed. Amazon reportedly employs thousands of people worldwide -- from Boston to Romania -- who listen to voice recordings captured by the company's digital assistant.
So is there a legitimate business reason behind the practice?
"They're trying to make it better," CBS News contributor and Wired editor-in-chief Nick Thompson said Friday on "CBS This Morning." "When you say you want wrapping paper added to your list and it hears raccoon paper, or whatever it hears, it likes to go back to human and see why it made a mistake or why it gave you the wrong answer. It is trying to improve the service."
While their intentions may be to make the Alexa digital assistant better, Thompson said "you should feel weird about it."
"It is really, really weird," he said. "And they say there is no identifiable information, right? They don't tie it to your name. But what if we're talking, and I say, 'Hey, Alexa, give this to [CBS News'] Major Garrett. Major Garrett's being difficult on set.' That's pretty identifiable and the person's going to listen to it and know what's going on."
Amazon released a statement that said, in part: "We only annotate an extremely small number of interactions from a random set of customers in order to improve the customer experience. … We have strict technical and operational safeguards, and have a zero tolerance policy for the abuse of our system. Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow."
Bob Pittman, the chairman/CEO of iHeartMedia, likes to compare his broadcast-radio empire -- which reaches 275 million listeners each month and is saddled with nearly $6 billion in debt -- to a house. "It's still worth a million dollars, even if you mortgage 99.9% of it," he recently stated according to Billboard.
In a bid to reduce that debt, iHM, which owns 848 radio stations, filed paperwork earlier in April for a potential initial public offering. The company cut its debt -- which, at one point, was nearly $21 billion -- by more than one-third last year after a court agreed to its bankruptcy plan; a successful IPO could raise money to pay off the remaining debt, allowing the once-mighty company -- formerly known as Clear Channel Communications -- to make acquisitions and develop technology.
Bob Pittman
"It's a cash raise, of course," Skip Bishop, a longtime Sony radio-promotions executive and a Nashville consultant for developing artists, says of the IPO. "I would bet on the company. They haven't put all their eggs just in old-fashioned transmitters and antennas -- they've been aggressive in every other arena of the entertainment business and been successful at it."
But, reports Billboard, for all the numbers that Pittman reels off in interviews to demonstrate the broadcast industry's continuing strength, other studies suggest radio may decline in the not-so-distant future. Advertising hasn't grown for several years, thanks to competition from YouTube, Spotify, Pandora and others, and a 2017 study from New York University's Steinhardt Music Business program suggests listeners in their teens and 20s have largely switched to on-demand streaming -- AM/FM listening among this group has declined by nearly 50% from 2005 to 2016. (Broadcasting officials have denounced this study and refuted its findings.)
Jerry Del Colliano
Jerry Del Colliano, a Steinhardt professor, disputes Pittman's view that iHeartMedia's debt issues are separate from its operational strength. "It's more fairy dust -- there's not enough revenue in the radio business to support a business like theirs with debt that high," says Del Colliano, who is critical of iHM and the broadcast industry in his blog Inside Music Media. "If you can get away from all the public relations releases, radio's probably the coldest industry you could ever want to be in right now.
Although iHM reportedly laid off several employees in recent weeks, iHM's day-to-day business actually hasn't changed much. Many analysts view the potential IPO -- to which iHeart has not yet attached an opening stock price or given any specific details like banks or numbers of shares -- as a way to allow the company to make more strategic purchases, like its acquisition last year of podcaster Stuff Media.
iHeartMedia is about to file an IPO that's meant to pay down its massive debt but could show what the future of music radio in the United States is going to be. The company, which is the largest station group in the country with 848 stations, filed paperwork earlier in the month for the potential offering.
iHeartMedia has been in bankruptcy for the last year and has managed to cut its massive debt of $21 billion down by about a third. The proceeds from an IPO would go a long way to trimming that down even further and allow the company to exit bankruptcy later in the year.
There's more to this than just the financials, however, according to Forbes contributing writer Bobby Owsinski. He writes radio, especially music radio, is changing fast and what happens here might give us a sense of what the future might bring to both.
According to Owsinski, if you look at the numbers in various reports and surveys, radio listenership is stronger than ever. Despite giant inroads made by streaming, radio is still the most consumed audio source in the car and there are a host of other metrics that seem to indicate that radio is still popular and growing. There's a chink in the data armor though. The number of listeners below the age of 25 is decreasing rapidly, as radio becomes unimportant for music consumption to them.
Radio used to be the primary driver of new music. Listeners discovered new artists from the radio, and program directors, even in small markets, had the ability to "break" a song that was relatively unknown by the rest of the country.
Those days are now long gone, as music radio has become a reactive medium, with program directors now relying more on streaming charts from Spotify or Apple Music than their own tastes. As a result, the hits that are added to radio playlists are often past their freshness date. Gen-Z listeners have already moved on to something newer and radio has lost any chance of getting them as a result.
Record labels still view radio as important though - not so much for breaking an artist but for taking what already has traction to the next level. Radio may not deliver the prime music lovers, but it does deliver casual music consumers, which is a bigger market but tougher to crack, according to Owsinski.
Amazon has entered into discussions to launch a free, ad-supported music service, sources familiar with the plan tell Billboard -- intensifying its competitive threat to global streaming leader Spotify.
The world’s biggest e-retailer would market the free music service through its voice-activated Echo speakers, sources say, and would offer a limited catalog. It could become available as early as next week.
To obtain licenses for the free music, Amazon has offered to initially pay some record labels per stream, regardless of how much advertising Amazon sells.
The move underscores Amazon’s growing power in the music market, as a distributor that can afford to discount music as a loss-leader to support its core retail business. That’s a luxury Spotify doesn’t have, as its shareholders pressure the music-focused public company to turn a profit.
Until now, Amazon has offered its limited Prime Music service as a way to drive Prime subscriptions, which cost $119 a year for perks like free delivery. It also sells Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions separately for $9.99 a month, reducing the fee to $7.99 for Prime members and $3.99 a month for people who only listen on an Echo device.
Currently, Spotify is the only major subscription-dependent music streaming service with a free tier -- a generous offering that’s been key to it hooking and funneling in new paying subscribers. The free service offered by Spotify, which currently counts 96 million paying subscribers and 116 million free users, is attractive because it lets listeners hear particular albums or artists on demand, though free users can’t control the order of the songs.
Earlier this month, iHeartMedia CO Bob Pittman was interviewed by NBC News' Claire Atkinson. Pittman extolled the virtues of radio, of course, but also addressed the broader audio platform, including smart speakers, his company's purchase of Stuff Works, as well as streaming audio.His money quote?
“Audio is hot for the first time in decades.”
Fred Jacobs
And, Jacobs Media Strategies President Fred Jacobs, blogs that he's right. But Jacobs writes it's notable he's talking about audio. Radio, to be sure, is under that umbrella. But in this case, it's part of the larger tech family that includes all the other components of audio.
What's hot? It's Podcasting, writes Jacobs.
Study after study show that more people are discovering podcasts. And podcast listeners are spending more and more time with audio on-demand.
But as James Cridland accurately pointed out in “Fast Tracking Radio's Future," session last week at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, podcasting in the U.S. is very much “a public radio thing.” He would know – you'd be hard-pressed to think of anyone in the industry with a better global perspective than futurist Cridland.
Public radio has been at the ground level of podcasts, and its various networks, its sensational talent, and its great storytelling abilities explain why this iis so. We see it in our Techsurveys – public radio fans in our PRTS study (35%) are much more likely to be weekly podcast listeners, compared to those who favor commercial radio (21%).
From the commercial radio side of the street, audience demography (specifically, education) account for some of commercial radio's ability to cash in on podcasting by creating appealing content at the station/cluster level. But you might also make a case that after a decade of PPM rules being seared into the brains of programmers and talent – “Keep it short,” “Be brief,” “Focus, focus, focus” – making the leap to longform audio is a tough putt.
Another speed bump revolves around monetization. As radio broadcasters are learning, podcasting isn't like radio back in the 70s, when a strong AQH and market share was a guarantee of revenue. Nor is it as simply as launching a new format in a marketplace where there are a couple dozen competitors.
There are now north of 700,000 podcasts in this expanding media flea market, making it increasingly more difficult to be discovered. In much the same way broadcasters had to learn patience and discipline when launching a Classic Rock or Country format, so do they need to tap the brakes when their podcast ventures don't reap a quick windfall.
Scott Kaplan has been a high-profile sports talk show host on The Mighty 1090, San Diego’s leading sports station since it debuted on XEPRS in 2003. But Andreas Bicharra, the Mexican owner of 1090’s transmitter and tower some five miles south of Tijuana, notified San Diego-based Broadcast Company of the Americas that the Mighty 1090’s sports programming would no longer have access to his 50,000-watt “border blaster” transmitter starting at noon on April 10.
Scott Kaplan
According to the San Diego Reader, Kaplan found out he would not be on the air when he showed up to the Sorrento Valley studios.
Turns out the Broadcast Company of the Americas has not been able to keep up with monthly lease commitments to two separate owners of the Mexican towers and transmitters that carried their stations Max 105.7 FM and Mighty 1090. Company chief Mike Glickenhaus said in December that his company would work out issues between his classic hits station Max 105.7 FM and Jaime Bonilla who owned its Tecate-area broadcast towers. After two months of streaming online, Max FM completely disappeared in February.
A story in the San Diego Reader in December 2018 said the monthly leasing cost for Max FM 105.7 was $125,000 based on one source. The monthly expense to lease the Mighty 1090 is considered to be between $75,000 and $100,000. Neither 105.7's Bonilla or 1090's Bicharra would comment.
Now most of the sports talk shows on the Mighty 1090 are continuing to air online and Glickenhaus says he is optimistic that his sports station will return to the airwaves. The morning show with Ben Higgins and Steve Woods, the mid-day show hosted by Darrin Smith and the afternoon Scott and BR show anchored by Kaplan were all available via internet and are originating from the company’s Sorrento Valley studios the day after the Mighty 1090 went off the air.
Meanwhile the 1090 airwaves are simulcasting “Ultra 104.9,” a Spanglish dance/Top 40 music station from the Rio Grande Valley near McAllen, Texas. It is owned by the family of Andreas Bicharra.
New York Mets voice Ron Darling announced Saturday night he will take a medical leave from calling games on SNY to have surgery to remove a mass in his chest, reports The NY Post.
In recent weeks, Darling has been in the embroiled in controversy after the publication of his new book, “108 Stitches,” in which he accused then-Mets teammate Lenny Dykstra of directing racist comments toward the Red Sox’s Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd during Game 3 of the 1986 World Series.
Dykstra is suing Darling, along with the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press and MacMillian Publishing Group, over the allegation.
Darling, 57, is hopeful that the surgery reveals no serious issues and that he can return to work next month. People with direct knowledge of the situation said the timing of the procedure has nothing to do with the flare up with Dykstra. Darling addressed his upcoming absence on the air Saturday night.
Darling and fellow 1986 teammate and play-by-player Gary Cohen, along with Keith Hernandez, have been acclaimed as perhaps baseball’s best NY broadcast team.
“My health is the top priority right now for my family and I,” said Darling. “I’m looking forward to being back in the booth with our crew and my friends Gary and Keith as soon as I can.”
Todd Zeile, SNY’s new main studio analyst, will step into Darling’s place on games. Nelson Figueroa and Jim Duquette will be in studio.
“Doctors have been monitoring Darling over the past few months and tests revealed a mass on his chest,” SNY said. “Darling is now scheduled for a medical procedure next week. The doctors have told him that if there are no complications he should be back in the booth alongside Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez next month.”
SiriusXM and Netflix today are launching Netflix Is A Joke Radio, a full-time comedy channel to air exclusively on SiriusXM ch. 93.
This is the first time the streaming company has worked in unison with another major subscription media company to create a new outlet for their content. The channel, which will feature highlights from top Netflix talent including Adam Sandler, Aziz Ansari, Bill Burr, Chris Rock, Dave Chappelle, Ellen DeGeneres, Gabriel Iglesias, Jerry Seinfeld, John Mulaney, Ken Jeong, Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman, Sebastian Maniscalco, Trevor Noah, Wanda Sykes, and more, launches on April 15, 2019 on SiriusXM.
"Netflix Is A Joke Radio on SiriusXM will be an audio extension of our award winning stand-up comedy on Netflix," said Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos. "We are thrilled to feature some of the greatest and funniest performers in the world with highlights from Netflix shows as well as original programming that further celebrates the art of comedy, and we are excited to do this in partnership with SiriusXM."
"SiriusXM is delighted to become the audio home for Netflix's blockbuster comedy programming," said Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer, SiriusXM. "Netflix has established itself as the unrivaled video source for stand-up, attracting the biggest names in the industry as well as break-out newcomers, and we're eager to deliver SiriusXM subscribers access to their star-studded library, new specials, and original live shows."
"I've seen the power of Netflix on their service for my own special, Stay Hungry, and now with their own SiriusXM channel, this opens up a whole new audience and it's a great way to digest comedy on the run," said comedian Sebastian Maniscalco.
In addition to featuring top comedy from Netflix's massive collection of established and up and coming artists, segments from future stand-up specials will debut on Netflix Is A Joke Radio, granting SiriusXM subscribers the chance to hear new material from A-list comics before anyone else. The channel will also broadcast clips of Netflix's comedy talk shows, and other comedic content from the service.
The exclusive channel plans to introduce an original daily show, featuring celebrity guests and comedians discussing pop culture and hot topics of the day. The program will be recorded from SiriusXM's new studios in Los Angeles.
Comedy fans can catch a preview of what's to come on Netflix Is A Joke Radio by watching the official trailer here.
The new channel with Netflix launches as SiriusXM continues to grow its comedy programming, which already includes Kevin Hart's Laugh Out Loud Radio Channel, for which Hart hosts a regular show, as well as a regular series with Ricky Gervais. In addition to original programs hosted by Larry the Cable Guy, Jeff Foxworthy, Jim Norton & Sam Roberts, Sebastian Maniscalco, and Nikki Glaser, to name a few, SiriusXM also produces audio documentaries on groundbreaking comedians such as Robin Williams, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, and Garry Shandling.
SiriusXM subscribers with streaming access can listen to SiriusXM's 200+ channels – including Netflix Is A Joke Radio – at home on a wide variety of connected devices including smart TVs, Amazon Alexa devices, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation, Roku, Sonos speakers and more. Go to www.SiriusXM.com/AtHome to learn more.
Cincinnati radio talk show legend Bill Cunningham returned to the airwaves Friday just eight days after receiving a heart valve replacement that saved his life.
"Alright, Billy Cunningham back on the air after eight days on the disabled list," Cunningham said to open his show.
According to WKRC-TV12, his first guest: Dr. Dean Kereiakes, the Christ Hospital cardiologist who performed the aortic valve replacement. Dr. Kereiakes performed the procedure last Thursday. Cunningham's already back to work because of a minimally invasive procedure" transcatheter aortic valve replacement, also called TAVR.
"They punched a hole the size of a No. 2 pencil in my groin. And this 18-inch probe is about as thick as a cigar up into my heart. And within 24 hours of that, I'm having chicken noodle soup at my kitchen table at home, walking around," Cunningham said.
Twenty years ago, the procedure would have required far more downtime.
"They would have sawed you open, carved your valve out and put a new one in," Dr. Kereiakes said during the interview.
Dr. Kereiakes has been Cunningham's cardiologist for eight years. Cunningham knew he had a bicuspid aortic valve after receiving a scan of his heart years ago. In the last year, he was feeling short of breath and dizzy at times. His wife, Penny, urged him to go to the doctor in January where an echocardiogram was performed.
"So he shows me the echo, and my valve's opening one-eighth-of-an-inch when it should be open one inch," Cunningham recalls. "I said, 'Shouldn't I feel worse?' He said 'You will feel worse. You'll decline precipitously in the spring and the summer and you'll be dead.' I said, 'Doc, I got March Madness. I got Reds Opening Day. I got stuff going on, man.' He said, 'You're going to die'. I said, 'Die? What do you mean die?' He said, 'You're going to be dead.'"
The fact that Cunningham was having symptoms was concerning.
"The prognosis was guarded and he needed to do something," Dr. Kereiakes said.
Dr. Kereiakes inserted a valve from a cow using a stent and a catheter that was captured on video. The video shows the catheter expanding and working almost immediately.
"He had a spectacular result. An excellent result," said Dr. Kereiakes.
Radio and music industry veteran Bobby Gale died Friday night following a car accident in Kingston, Ontario on his way home from a concert in Montreal, reports Broadcast Dialogue.
Gale, who had called Prince Edward County, ON home for the last 15 years, had been the host of Sunday Glide on community radio station County FM (CJPE-FM) since 2015.
Growing up in Windsor, Gale’s first foray into radio was at CJOM 88 Windsor in 1975. Gale quickly moved on to take on swing at 106 FM (WWWW-FM) in Detroit, where he worked alongside the legendary Howard Stern, Dan Carlisle and Jerry Lubin. Stints at CHIQ-FM Winnipeg, CHOM-FM Montreal and Q107 (CILQ-FM) Toronto followed.
In 1980, Gale started a decade-long career as the PolyGram promotions and publicity rep for Ontario and Manitoba. He went on to start his own independent radio promotions company plug (MUSIC) Inc. in 1992, and later Global Live Artist Direction (GLAD), providing artist management, media relations and bookings.
J.J. Johnston, County FM’s original interim general manager, who enlisted Gale to return to his radio roots, posted on Facebook that the industry “lost a good one last night.”
“Bobby Gale, the legend, a friend of thousands and a personal friend for 45 years was killed last night on the highway back from a concert in Montreal. He was devoted to music right to the end,” wrote Johnston.
(Editor's note: Not to be confused with Bob Gale, longtime NEPA Radio Personality, now at WHLM in Bloomsburg, PA)
➦In 1898...Marian Irene Driscoll Jordan was born (Died from cancer at age 62 – April 7, 1961). She was an actress and radio personality. She was most remembered for portraying the role of Molly McGee, the patient, common sense, honey-natured wife of Fibber McGee on the NBC radio series Fibber McGee and Molly from 1935–1959. She starred on this series opposite her real-life husband Jim Jordan.
Jim and Marian Jordan
Jordan was first heard on radio with her husband Jim in 1924 after a bet that Jim made with his brother. The couple's performance was a success. They began performing at WIBO, a radio station in Chicago where they earned $10 a week.
Newspaper ad -circa he '30s
In 1927, Marian and Jim began their second radio show, The Smith Family which aired on WENR radio in Chicago. The show was a great boost to their career, ending in 1930.On April 16, 1935, Marian Jordan, her husband Jim, and writer Don Quinn, began broadcasting Fibber McGee and Molly, on the NBC Blue Network Chicago radio affiliate WMAQ.
The series was a big hit. Marian played the role of Molly McGee, the patient and intelligent wife who supports husband Fibber McGee through various get rich quick schemes and misadventures.In 1938, the show and Jordan would both suffer major changes. During this time, Marian was drinking excessively. She entered a rehabilitation center in suburban Chicago and tried to get sober. "Molly" was written out of the radio show, and the program was renamed Fibber McGee and Company.
Those who knew Marian doubted that she would ever return to radio, especially after the show moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1939. However, Marian astonished everyone by travelling alone from Joliet, Illinois to Pasadena, California in March 1939. She was able to return to the character of "Molly," and some listeners considered her better than before. The show received high ratings, from season three in 1938 until the end of its run.
It also gave birth to a spin-off. In 1941, a recurring character, Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, (played by Harold Peary), began a new show called The Great Gildersleeve. The radio and television series Beulah was also a spin-off of Fibber McGee and Molly.
Marian Jordan's health began to deteriorate in the 1950s. This was the beginning of the end both for the show and for Jordan. The program officially ended in 1956 but the Jordans continued their roles as Fibber McGee and Molly in short skits on the NBC radio program Monitor until October 2, 1959, when her poor health made her unable to continue.
➦In 1912…After midnight, two wireless radio operators at Cape Race, Newfoundland heard the last of the RMS Titanic's distress calls.
At 2:27 a.m., the "unsinkable" ocean liner sank in the North Atlantic after hitting an iceberg the evening before.
There were 711 survivors. A total of 1,517 people died, of which 328 bodies were recovered. Those too badly damaged or deteriorated were buried at sea, and the remaining 209 were taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they were claimed from the morgues or buried over an 11-day period starting May 3.
➦In 1970...Record Company Owenr George Goldner died at age 52 (Born February 9, 1918). He played an important role in establishing the popularity of rock and roll in the 1950s, by recording and promoting many groups and records that appealed to young people across racial boundaries. Among the acts he discovered were the Crows, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and Little Anthony and the Imperials.
He established (or helped establish) a number of record labels, including Tico, Rama, Gee, Roulette, End, Gone, and Red Bird. It was said of him that he "discovered more talent, both in front of the microphone and behind the scenes, than most producers get to record in a lifetime.. Moreover, in the decades since, much of the music that Goldner recorded and released has retained an astonishing appeal to generations of listeners". ➦In 1994...In Cleveland, WMMS-FM's Jeff & Flash and the on-air staff, were fired.
The station's veteran programmer John Gorman had changed the WMMS format to alternative rock in 1994. To emphasize this change, WMMS was re-branded and aggressively promoted as "Buzzard Radio: The Next Generation", a reference to the success of Star Trek: The Next Generation and its continuation of the Star Trek franchise. Gorman brought back the original Buzzard design. He also lured popular morning personalities Brian Fowler and Joe Cronauer away from rival WENZ – then an alternative rock station known as 107.9 The END – as the successors to Jeff and Flash (Jeff Kinzbach, Ed Ferenc) on The Buzzard Morning Zoo.
