Bloglander

Jerad Finck was the tenth most-played Adult Contemporary artist in the country last week (according to FMQB — a radio-industry chart). That means he beat out artists like Sheryl Crow and Mike Posner in terms of radio plays. This news comes on the heels of Finck’s music being played during ESPN’s coverage of the US Open.

And get this: He’s from Spokane!

Over the years, Finck has slowly built a fan base through his DIY style of promotion and touring. His songs “Goodbye” and “I Won’t Be Long” have been played on countless radio stations — from Bakersfield, Calif., to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Check out a video of his song “Goodbye” below.

Finck and his band will play Aclub on Fri, Dec. 10, before embarking on a West Coast tour.

QUESTION: While this is all fine and dandy, have you ever heard of this guy? Have you been to a show? Tell us what you think about Finck.

(Comic credit Penny Arcade)

Television is in trouble. Not the way newspapers are in trouble — not yet. Television still has some inertia, mostly in the form of elderly NCIS viewers. But the very medium — at least the delivery vehicle of the medium — is doomed. 

It’s a simple problem of the cheaper, more convenient, higher-quality kind. We consumers will eventually migrate to a good that is cheaper, more convenient, and of a higher quality than the one we use currently. Right now, the Internet gives us television that is cheaper, more convenient, and — if not of a higher image quality yet — faster, more accessible, and beautifully commercial-free.

At my house, my roommates have a massive big screen TV. We do not, however, have it hooked up to *television.* We do not have it hooked up to Comcast cable. That's pricey. And we don’t have it hooked up to rabbit ears. That’s just old-fashioned.

We watch our television shows on Hulu. We watch the television shows that aren’t currently on Hulu on shadier, commercial-free streaming alternatives. We watch our live sports on some odd foreign streaming channel that gives us advertisements for Lost DVDs in Swedish. And if we can’t find anything, we would hie to the Bittorrent and find them. Granted, that is not how most people watch television. Yet. ---

Television thinks its enemy is commercial-skipping TiVo. It’s not. My generation scoffs at the notion of TiVo and all its DVR ilk. They scoff at the notion of owning media, besides phone plans and Internet, that they have to pay for.

Nowadays the snobby comment “Oh, I don’t even own a television” doesn’t mean the speaker doesn’t watch television. In fact, some of the biggest television junkies consume their fill without ever touching the actual tube.

My concern, if the model doesn’t change quickly, is that my favorite types of shows will be the first to go. The young and the fans of intensive serialized television — my demographic! — seem the most likely to abandon conventional television-watching methods. Thus, the shows that appeal to my demographic, and the shows that appeal to intense fandom, are going to die first. 

Only the shows that appeal to the casual and easy viewer — game shows and reality shows and police procedurals and uncomplicated comedies — will remain.

I’m not an expert in the finances of the television industry. I’m limited in my knowledge about the model. But from my perspective, the perspective of a younger consumer, here are a couple ways that networks could help save TV:

1) Product placement is the one inescapable advertisement. No matter how you watched Arrested Development — DVD, torrent, or live — you saw the Burger King ads. No matter how you watch Chuck, you see the Subway ads.  The challenge, for writers, is to slip in product placement without the narrative becoming dominated with cheesy BUY NOW OPERATORS ARE STANDING BY come-ons.

2) Fight to cripple the illegal alternatives. Networks need to flood the torrents with fake decoy files. They need to search out linkers of free streaming content and send the DOJ after them, as they did earlier with outlets like NinjaVideo. They don’t need to completely eliminate all of them — that’s impossible — all they need to do is make it slightly more convenient for viewers to watch TV via an online commercial-laden alternative.

3) Radically change the broadcasting model. I don’t expect the model to change. Too much has been constructed on the current, creaky foundation. Cable providers and network affiliates all rely on the old ways. Television producers are still hung up on timezones and single events.

But the model really should change. We need a way for advertisers to advertise effectively for the new way we watch television. I foresee a large website — a bit like Hulu — that streams television in the same way Hulu does. But here are the differences:

A) Each show has just as many commercials as regular television. These commercials are not skippable. But that’s okay, because...

B) The show goes online — worldwide — as it first airs. It needs to air live online before it airs on TVs on the west coast. It needs to air before the torrents appear and before the streaming sites broadcast Glee hours ahead of Spokane's affiliates. Because if it doesn’t, people will beat the West Coast broadcast on illegal alternatives.

C) Advertisers would be able to choose two ways of advertising — time slot and "linked to show." Want to advertise your opening movie at Thursday at 8 pm? Buy that time slot, and any show that is watched during that time slot gets some of your money. Want to advertise your AutoTune software during Glee? Link your ad to that show, and no matter when someone watches Glee, your ad airs, and Glee gets paid. Local advertisements would play for IP addresses in their region.

D) A subscription — cheaper than a cable subscription since it doesn't have the middle man — gets you programs of higher-resolution quality, massive backlogs of old episodes, old TV shows, old movies, and all the DVD style options of a DVD (added when the DVD comes out of course) and shorter advertisements (or possibly advertisement free).

Want to know why Steam, the computer game downloading service, is so incredibly profitable? It’s convenient. It’s simple. And unlike iTunes, you can download your purchased games however many times you want, no matter if your computer dies.

Because that’s what the new media generation craves, really. Convenience. Simplicity. Cheapness. We want television to serve us, on our schedule, instead of having to bow to the whims of the TV guide. We want to watch Bones and Community and The Big Bang Theory all at the same time at 3 am on a Saturday in Mozambique — and all for free.

And if TV won’t let us do that, official viewership will continue to plummet.

Like ungainly, 200-ton salmon thrashing in from the sea, another barge-load of enormous mining gear belonging to an oil company has reached as far upstream as the Port of Lewiston on the Snake River.

This brings the total to 20, with as many more expected to reach the port in the next month.

There they await a decision by the Idaho Supreme Court to see if the almost ridiculously outsized cargo (up to 24 feet wide, 30 ft. tall and 210 ft. long) belonging to two oil giants —ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil — can be transferred to truck trailers for passage up and over the narrow, twisty Highway 12 and Lolo Pass.

The oil companies say the National Scenic Byway is the quickest route to the interior for cargo so large it won’t fit through tunnels, underpasses and bridges elsewhere.

Residents are angered the Idaho Transportation Department has been prepping for these loads for nearly two years and the public didn’t know until last spring.

They fear the road will become an industrial corridor as more companies learn of it. Indeed, a recent public records request shows a South Korean oil company was in talks with the ITD to run 40 to 60 megaloads over the highway.

For your pre-election edification.

Thanks Seattle Untimely.

So much for SARP Unsurprisingly, the Spokane Valley City Council voted 5-2 against a progressive planning agenda that aimed to turn the city into, well, a city. They sent the Sprague Appleway Revitalization Plan to the city’s planning commission, which will bring a recommendation back to the council. (KREM) 

Police shooting victim had been suicidal Quentin Dodd, the man killed by police during a domestic abuse call on Sunday, was mentally unstable, according to a report, and had laid down before an approaching train in July. (SR)

“You don’t take a Taser to a knife fight” Spokane County Sheriff's Office Sergeant Robb Sherar says only two in ten deputies carry a Taser on patrol, in part because it’s not enough to stop some threats. (KREM)

Second Avenue won’t be finished until spring Work on the downtown Spokane arterial has been delayed by the discovery of many underground utility lines and vaults. The city says it’ll pave the street to a drivable condition next month, then tear it up again in March or April. (KXLY)

A female guard at the Spokane County Jail was briefly knocked out and injured during an elevator accident in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Dep. Janice A. Bauer was taken to a hospital for observation and treatment of minor injuries and then released, jail administrators say, after a descending elevator on the secured side of the jail overshot its designated floor by about four feet and then stopped abruptly.

The deputy was knocked to the floor by the sudden stop and banged her wrist and elbow against a handrail, Lt. Aaron Anderton says. She was riding alone in the elevator car. Other staffers had to pry the elevator doors open to reach her.

“We have ongoing problems with the elevators where they break down and we continue to work to try and address that issue,” Anderton says. The county commissioners recently authorized the purchase of new, more powerful generators to run the elevators. The generators have been lifted to the jail roof by helicopter but have yet to be installed, Anderton says.

The jail was on overnight lockdown at the time of the accident and remained that way until the elevator was returned to service at about 1 pm Monday, Anderton says.

The jail has four elevators. Two are on the public side of the building to take people to visiting rooms. Two larger ones on the secured side are used for inmate and staff transport, and delivery of food and other jail supplies.

Thirty years ago, Jimmy Santiago Baca was getting out of prison after serving six years for drug possession.

Abandoned by his parents at the age of 2, Baca spent much of his youth on the streets. With no education and no family, choices were few — so he ended up behind bars.

Instead of wallowing further in crime and debauchery, he chose to use his jail time to get an education. 

Today the acclaimed poet uses verse to describe his experiences. Those verses won him several awards, including the American Book Award and the International Hispanic Heritage Award.

In town tonight, Baca will share his story and even break out a poem or two.

Jimmy Santiago Baca will appear at Gonzaga’s Cataldo Hall at 7:30 pm. Free

From the “Near Nature, Near Awkward-Encounters-with-Humanity” file comes this interaction on Spokane’s South Hill this morning.

The soccer moms were trying to get to Rockwood Bakery. The turkeys were presumably trying to get the hell back to the wild.

It was such an awkward moment, we totes had to shoot it with our cutting edge smartphone, because the Internet teaches us that chronicling humanity’s quirks is the only thing technology is good for. We love the parallel confusion in the video, the women thinking, “Should I run? Should  I at least get off my cell phone?” The turkey in front thinking, “Should I peck this Bridgestone tire? Is there grain in there?”

Thirty seconds of subdued hilarity follow.