Female: Let’s get ourselves connected.
Female2: Got to get yourself connected.
Mike: We’re on the line with Matthew Ingram from the Globe and Mail from Toronto, thanks for joining us Matthew.
Matthew: Thanks for having me Mike.
Mike: Wanted to quickly talk about CBC radio, good old public radio and what they’re doing as far as interacting with their audience. I hear they’re adding a wicky.
Matthew: Yeah, actually one show called Spark, which is about technology and culture added a wicky, they’re experimenting with allowing readers to effectively suggest ideas for programs, suggests ideas for people to interview for example, to even submit questions for people who are gonna be on the program, pretty sure one of their upcoming show, if they haven’t done it already, the whole show is in fact going to be produced based on the what’s submitted to the wicky. So listeners, people who are interested on the show come and say I want to see this guy on there or I wanna hear you talk to so and so and here’s what I want you to talk to them about. They’re gonna do the whole show that way, so, it’s really, you know, it’s quite a two way sort of interactive thing. We’re not really use to it, unless you count phone in shows.
Mike: It should be interesting, I wonder if listeners always have the best ideas as far as guest and topics.
Matthew: Well, you know, they may not, and I think that it’s up to, obviously the producers of the show to decide if that’s a good idea or not. I think, what it does do though is, you’ve got some, you know, whether it’s radio or newspapers or any sort of media, there are a lot of passionate readers, or listeners or viewers who love your show, who tune in all the time, those are sort of your biggest fans and I think the more ways that you can give them of interacting with you, giving you ideas, giving you feedback and ideas, you know, you don’t always have to take it. But I think the more of that that you allow, you can actually build relationship with people that go beyond just, you know, tune in on such and such a time.
Mike: Well it’s interesting because obviously radio, like television is kind of the older broadcast medium as oppose to the lot of the online video, online radio and things like that nowadays, do you think it’s a unnecessary thing now for some of these older broadcast mediums to embrace this kind of interactivity to survive in today’s world.
Matthew: I do, I think it’s, you put awhile, I think it’s crucial and I mean obviously I work for a newspaper, I mean, it’s something that we’re dealing with as well, I think you have to, people particularly the younger you are the more you expect, I think, your media to be interactive. You expect to be able to click, you expect to be able to comment, you expect to be able to upload your own stuff, you expect to be able to, you know, I mean you can let those types of things go too far obviously, but I think there’s more and more, there’s that expectation on the part of your audience and particularly on the part of the people who are your sort of most committed viewers or readers or listeners, they want to interact with you in some way, even if it’s just to post a comment or to say what they think. And I think the more of that feedback you get going, I think it’s effectively a positive feedback. If you get them more involve because you’re actually listening to them and I think you can actually get good ideas.
Mike: Matthew, I wanna thank you for your time today.
Matthew: Okay, thanks Mike.
Mike: That was Matthew Ingram from the Globe and Mail, you can check out more of Matthew’s articles and blogging at globaltechnology.com.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services