Breakfast All Day Podcast 5/8/20

Re: Shopp’in and Jog’in

Christy,

I am deliberately putting a British slang on to that (i.e. Trainspotting, what are you talking about? Football. What are you talking about? Shopp’in). I don’t know zero, about malls. Except how to make them using concrete and steel (relatively well in a building career). In some real movie news from my side of the Atlantic. I am informed, that ‘Jason Bourne’ has been self-isolating in Ireland over the past several weeks (you would think it would be somewhere more exotic and daring). But no. Thankfully though, his ‘travel radius’ has been extended from a mere two kilometers, to five kilometers since last week. I don’t know how much of a big deal that would be. For the man from ‘Blackbriar’ or whatever it was called. I am told, there is a sea walk in the town of Bray. And he might be able to jog that far by now.

Something else, about the work of broadcasting, that I am curious about. Folk here in Ireland now, seem to talk about web casting fatigue. It is catching up with people, several weeks into it now. Not a problem, as a stop gap for a few weeks. But beyond that, it does seem to run into limitations. One of our own television show presenters on this side in Ireland, Claire Byrne actually recovered from the virus and is back again, presenting her show live on Mondays. A lot of people have come through it. Claire even worked from her isolated shed in her garden over the recovery period, presenting both on radio and on television, via her web camera connection. Which was an achievement. Her latest program was an interview for ten minutes with fellow media colleagues here in Ireland. Who have been working remotely to do various kinds of work this past while. I was wondering a bit. Has their findings of web conferencing, and being tired after doing it for a long time. I was wondering if that has borne out in the experience of your team, and Ben with his work on television. This past several weeks?

The girls speaking on Claire’s show last night. They explained that it is different to ‘passively’ watching an online video say. Where one is not directly engaged with every aspect of the video. With online conferencing (and increasing numbers of participants could have an effect too on this). With online conferencing they explained. It consumes more work and energy to detect facial expressions of people on the other end, from trying to judge from the moving picture on one’s screen. In a way, they do find tiring now after several weeks of doing it. Say, relative to being seated opposite each other, across a bench or table in reality. Face to face. Where it doesn’t take as much work, in order to try and interact with the other ‘guests’, in a non-verbal way. The point being, that a percent of communication is ‘verbal’. A percentage happens in additional ways that we took for granted, when working in analogue worlds. I.e. A broadcasting studio, be it ‘live’ radio with guests seated around a table and ‘broadcast’ as conversation or interviews. Or in ‘live’ television, where it is a conversation or interview. Broadcast as a television picture. At least the presenters and guests were ‘in the analogue’ space. And therefore did not need to work as hard to interpret each others’ communication, in ways other than a purely audio/verbal sense.

I have noticed too, that some of our popular television shows here are affected in different ways. By the virus restrictions. For example, ‘The Tonight Show’ in Ireland never had a ‘budget’ to start out with. To include a live audience as part of the show format. That is, ‘The Tonight Show’ had panels and lots of guests. However, there was never a camera pointing back towards an audience. In ten years of seeing that show, at a startup TV station in Ireland. I never saw a single audience shot. On the other hand, Claire’s show was established from the get-go, with that ‘audience’ being part of the show. She’d regularly walk around in the audience and then return to a podium, with chairs for guests. And for the initial stages, the ‘absence’ of the audience on her show. It did not seem apparent. You would think it would feel strange. But for a number of episodes, one did not notice it. Because Claire was able to keep it moving along, with lots of segments. However, six or seven weeks into the program with the ‘live’ audience participation. The penny suddenly starts to drop. You do realize it. You realize, it is one lonely presenter sitting in a studio alone. With a couple of people dropping by. And a lot of web talk and chats on a screen.

And that’s when it hits you. It’s not actually, the real Claire Byrne Live show any longer. But that wasn’t apparent for a while. It takes it a while as a viewer. I.e. Several weeks time in fact. For that realization to start to sink in. And I think, that it has something to do with the presenter themselves. Because in some strange way. The ‘presenter’ also relies on an audience being there, to sort of ‘dial into’ the right groove, or something themselves. And in the absence of that audience being live and present over a series of weeks, it catches up with the presenter. To the point, they start to ‘communicate’ in some unconscious way to the remote television viewing audience. That the presenter has now, several weeks into the virus restrictions. Started to believe they are hosting a show inside a rather empty television studio too. And some of the ‘snap’ that the show and it’s format used to benefit from initially. It evaporates. And as I explained. Other television shows, which set out to do a similar job. However, with a less extravagant expense. Without the audience participation. They seem to be relatively unaffected by this. Even with people spaced two meters distance apart on the studio furniture. It’s a little weird, but you forget that after a bit.

I just wonder, could that be an option for ‘Breakfast All Day’. That the two meter distance thing, might work? Maybe there is an outdoor band stand or something, with sufficient sunlight shading. That wouldn’t require one to host in one’s living room. But with bring back the ‘face to face’ physical aspect? I would be interested to know, what the team thinks on that aspect. Of whether or not, the web communication and video screens, demands more work and concentration. Versus getting together, in some way?

Brian says:

May 12, 2020 at 2:33 pm

Re: Shopp’in and Jog’in

Christy,

I am deliberately putting a British slang on to that (i.e. Trainspotting, what are you talking about? Football. What are you talking about? Shopp’in). I don’t know zero, about malls. Except how to make them using concrete and steel (relatively well in a building career). In some real movie news from my side of the Atlantic. I am informed, that ‘Jason Bourne’ has been self-isolating in Ireland over the past several weeks (you would think it would be somewhere more exotic and daring). But no. Thankfully though, his ‘travel radius’ has been extended from a mere two kilometers, to five kilometers since last week. I don’t know how much of a big deal that would be. For the man from ‘Blackbriar’ or whatever it was called. I am told, there is a sea walk in the town of Bray. And he might be able to jog that far by now.

Something else, about the work of broadcasting, that I am curious about. Folk here in Ireland now, seem to talk about web casting fatigue. It is catching up with people, several weeks into it now. Not a problem, as a stop gap for a few weeks. But beyond that, it does seem to run into limitations. One of our own television show presenters on this side in Ireland, Claire Byrne actually recovered from the virus and is back again, presenting her show live on Mondays. A lot of people have come through it. Claire even worked from her isolated shed in her garden over the recovery period, presenting both on radio and on television, via her web camera connection. Which was an achievement. Her latest program was an interview for ten minutes with fellow media colleagues here in Ireland. Who have been working remotely to do various kinds of work this past while. I was wondering a bit. Has their findings of web conferencing, and being tired after doing it for a long time. I was wondering if that has borne out in the experience of your team, and Ben with his work on television. This past several weeks?

The girls speaking on Claire’s show last night. They explained that it is different to ‘passively’ watching an online video say. Where one is not directly engaged with every aspect of the video. With online conferencing (and increasing numbers of participants could have an effect too on this). With online conferencing they explained. It consumes more work and energy to detect facial expressions of people on the other end, from trying to judge from the moving picture on one’s screen. In a way, they do find tiring now after several weeks of doing it. Say, relative to being seated opposite each other, across a bench or table in reality. Face to face. Where it doesn’t take as much work, in order to try and interact with the other ‘guests’, in a non-verbal way. The point being, that a percent of communication is ‘verbal’. A percentage happens in additional ways that we took for granted, when working in analogue worlds. I.e. A broadcasting studio, be it ‘live’ radio with guests seated around a table and ‘broadcast’ as conversation or interviews. Or in ‘live’ television, where it is a conversation or interview. Broadcast as a television picture. At least the presenters and guests were ‘in the analogue’ space. And therefore did not need to work as hard to interpret each others’ communication, in ways other than a purely audio/verbal sense.

I have noticed too, that some of our popular television shows here are affected in different ways. By the virus restrictions. For example, ‘The Tonight Show’ in Ireland never had a ‘budget’ to start out with. To include a live audience as part of the show format. That is, ‘The Tonight Show’ had panels and lots of guests. However, there was never a camera pointing back towards an audience. In ten years of seeing that show, at a startup TV station in Ireland. I never saw a single audience shot. On the other hand, Claire’s show was established from the get-go, with that ‘audience’ being part of the show. She’d regularly walk around in the audience and then return to a podium, with chairs for guests. And for the initial stages, the ‘absence’ of the audience on her show. It did not seem apparent. You would think it would feel strange. But for a number of episodes, one did not notice it. Because Claire was able to keep it moving along, with lots of segments. However, six or seven weeks into the program with the ‘live’ audience participation. The penny suddenly starts to drop. You do realize it. You realize, it is one lonely presenter sitting in a studio alone. With a couple of people dropping by. And a lot of web talk and chats on a screen.

And that’s when it hits you. It’s not actually, the real Claire Byrne Live show any longer. But that wasn’t apparent for a while. It takes it a while as a viewer. I.e. Several weeks time in fact. For that realization to start to sink in. And I think, that it has something to do with the presenter themselves. Because in some strange way. The ‘presenter’ also relies on an audience being there, to sort of ‘dial into’ the right groove, or something themselves. And in the absence of that audience being live and present over a series of weeks, it catches up with the presenter. To the point, they start to ‘communicate’ in some unconscious way to the remote television viewing audience. That the presenter has now, several weeks into the virus restrictions. Started to believe they are hosting a show inside a rather empty television studio too. And some of the ‘snap’ that the show and it’s format used to benefit from initially. It evaporates. And as I explained. Other television shows, which set out to do a similar job. However, with a less extravagant expense. Without the audience participation. They seem to be relatively unaffected by this. Even with people spaced two meters distance apart on the studio furniture. It’s a little weird, but you forget that after a bit.

I just wonder, could that be an option for ‘Breakfast All Day’. That the two meter distance thing, might work? Maybe there is an outdoor band stand or something, with sufficient sunlight shading. That wouldn’t require one to host in one’s living room. But with bring back the ‘face to face’ physical aspect? I would be interested to know, what the team thinks on that aspect. Of whether or not, the web communication and video screens, demands more work and concentration. Versus getting together, in some way?

Breakfast All Day Podcast 5/8/20

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