Wednesday, February 2, 2011

impasse

(Well, Blogtalk Radio, it's been fun.)

Yesterday I logged in and tried to schedule a BB&Guns so I could see what sort of dumbassery changes BTR has decided to inflict on its non-premium (read as: non-paying) hosts.

The situation is as follows: non-premium hosts are limited to one half hour show per weekday at non-primetime hours, which means unless I want to do a show in the morning, afternoon or o-dark-thirty the available evening timeslots are 6PM, 6:30PM, 11PM, or 11:30PM. Eastern.

I enjoyed doing the show and was delighted to be able to provide an evening of gunnie camaraderie and conversation but I'm a little unsure of where to go from here. There are still topics to explore - I wanted to do a Big Gay Pink Pistols Show and a Gimps with Guns Show, for instance. But becoming a premium host is out of the question. Even if some wealthy BB&G fan decided to sponsor the show out of the kindness of their heart, I would refuse. The quality of service Blogtalk Radio provides is just not worth what they're asking. $40 per year, I could see. Maybe. But $400? No way in hell.

21 comments:

Jay G said...

Oh phooey.

There's got to be another option than BTR.

Can't stop the signal!

JP 5.56 said...

You might have a look at ustream. I think it is meant for video streams, but I am sure you could do an audio only show.

http://www.ustream.tv/get-started

Robert Langham said...

I don't think they know what the market is so they are starting out by guessing high. 400.00 sounds WAY over to me. 40 bucks more like it.

Mitch Gurowitz said...

If you look at Videogame outsiders or This week in tech, they do the show as a normal podcast with high end audio and talk through skype, why not try these options?

Anonymous said...

Gimps with Guns! Awesome!

TinCan Assassin said...

If you find another option, let us know, please.

RobertSlaughter said...

I agree 100% with Mr. Langham's opinion -- I think when their business goes to zip, they'll reconsider their outlandish pricing scheme.

Not sure if the Appleseed show is paying the fee or dropping from BTR as well.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

Well, foo

ViolentIndifference said...

I just played with Ustream. You could use that and just aim your camera at the cat.

Mike W. said...

Damn, I was so looking forward to calling into the Gimps with Guns episode too.

I don't know much about Ustream but it seems like it could be a viable option. Live chat during the show was one of the best parts though. This blows harder than Monica Lewinsky on coke.

Anonymous said...

Skype?

Jim

ViolentIndifference said...

Ustream has live chat, does it not?

Willing to help test, if need be.

Guffaw in AZ said...

Sorry to hear! We'll keep looking for alternatives. Gimps w/Guns?
I could probably qualify through disabilities. Keep fighting the good fight. Thanks for your blog, regardless!

wv: crist (exactly)

Lissa said...

*bravely stifling whimpers and sobs* Iz okay, Breda, we'll manage.

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WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

George said...

http://www.talkshoe.com might be another option.

Kristophr said...

Deal with it the same way VC does.

Skype or ventrillo, with a muted channel for live listeners.

Have an IRC channel for live text chat.

Upload the sessions to an apple podcast.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Don't sweat it. This is just a case of "Technical Difficulties, Please Stand By". Work arounds shall be found. Just some corporate moneygrubber trying to grab a buck before he sells out to Google. Of course, you could go Olde Skool, broadcast on Shortwave, and take the callers on SpeakerPhone. Works for those Evil Right Wing Militias....

Heath J said...

BTR needs to have a product that doesn't suck, before they charge actual money for it.

My vote is talk to Alan, and do it VC style. Just without the XXX rating :P

Anonymous said...

pppfffftttt
That sucks.

Gimps with guns....hmmmm...I'd fit right in...

Old NFO said...

Good riddance Breda, since a lot of us could never log into BTR anyway... Agree with Heath, do it as a VC style and stream it via UStream.

Stuart the Viking said...

Breda,

I do a weekly show with a few of my friends and we have had to move quite a few times over the years. We are currently on Stickam. Our producer, who does all the tech stuff, seems to like it. Stickam doesn't have call-in capabilities, but we have that taken care of by using Skype on a seperate box and patching it into our sound system. We were on Talkshoe for a while, it was ok, I don't recall why we left.

If you need some help with the technical stuff, or want the low-down on quite a few of the free servers that are out there (we've been on many of them), please feel free to email me at Stuart_the_Viking at yahoo dot com and I'll get you in contact with our producer. He's a big fat ball of grump (hehe) but he's a FullSail graduate and really knows his stuff. I'm sure he would be happy to help.

s