Ned Your Always Wrong

Before you decide to do that good deed and forward that email to help find a missing child, or help a sick child, or notify everyone about the latest FBI warning about a virus, or that Bill Gates is giving away millions of dollars. Stop and think about it think about what a moron you’ll look like to everyone you send that message to.

First of all no one is giving away anything for nothing.

Considering the current count of ratings whores in the news media, if a child were actually missing, that they wouldn’t they be all over it with team coverage. take a minute search the name, odds are your going to find the number one hit linking to snopes or similar hoax web site.

So next time someone sends you that important email to forward to the globe, don’t, and if you do stop bitching about spam…

I bet that Ashley Flores, or what ever her real name is, is either laughing her ass off every time this resurfaces, or is mortified and has to hide for a couple of weeks. I’m sure sometime in the future she’ll be the recipient of the exact same email..

After reading and responding to Chris’s comment on Satellite radio,
I had a deja-vu moment…Hmmmm…. I have read those words or something
like it…

So I did a quick Yahoo search on “merger in my work with the NAB”. and what do you think I find…

A comment by Chris that states:

“I’ve been following the proposed merger in my work with the NAB
and can add to the articles numerous points that the merger won’t
benefit consumers and isn’t as advertised.

The biggest threat comes in the monopoly that would be created. A
combined XM/Sirius would have the ability to charge their customers
more and use those profits to undercut the advertising prices, thus
threatening terrestrial radio and our local broadcasters.”

Then I modified the search to: “my work with the NAB” and found this little gem, and not quite relative to the topic, but a similar sentiment.

“Aside from the monopoly concerns, a XM/Sirius would have the
leverage through cross-subsidization and utilizing anti-competitive
tactics to go after terrestrial radio, undercutting advertising
revenues at both the national and local levels.”

This comment is by Nolan, which jives with part of the email address required to post his comment here…

Well Chris (if that is your real name) I give you credit for at
least admitting that you work for the NAB, but what I find puzzling is
that the NAB is based in Washington DC, and your ip is coming from
Colorado…

I pay for Sirus and get XM with my DirectTV subscription. I used to
pay for XM, and probably still would if it wasn’t for their crappy
billing department, and over-billing me 3 times, but that’s another
story.

So on to the point.

I am beginning to get more and more annoyed with Sirius’ “DJ’s”
feeling the need to inject themselves after almost every freaking song.
I have the display built right into the radio it tells me everything I
need to know, I don’t need or want to hear the DJ’s take on the song,
or that brush with fame they had with the artist that, when they were
in the fast food joint a block away from where they were performing 20
years ago… XM blows Sirius away, with an automated bumper every 4 or
5 songs, not a problem. Then we have the issue of Sirius’s real
annoying DJ’s, including Sirius’ undisputed queen of annoyance Madison,
she is just completely grates on my nerves, I have been tempted to
smash my radio on several occasions listening to her… Then we have
Mr. Monotone, Darrin Smith, stick with programming top 40 in Topeka,
this guy annoys me on 2 levels, 1. the fact that he annoys me every
weekend morning (Sirius 22), and 2. that he is also responsible
somewhat in the programming of what I feel is turning into a loop of
music that only changes when a new tour is announced by a band from the
80’s. The other thing that is always annoying, is the announcement of
new subscribers, who gives a F*** that Bob in Milwaukee has just joined
the Sirius family, give me a break, that kind of crap should stay with
the FM teeny bopper top 40 station.

So I have written various emails to Sirius about this, and I always
get the same BS response, and I guess if it wasn’t for Howard Stern I
would have dumped Sirius and stayed with XM, in-spite of the billing
screw ups.

I guess my best hope is that the Sirius XM merger goes through, and
they use XM’s music programming, and eliminate the the interruptions.

Below is the extract of comments from the old wordpress blog

1. imnotned | imnotned@nedyouralwayswrong.com | IP: 162.83.126.18

   Oh yeah one very last thing, provide better programming, and you’ll
   put the new merged company out of business, that is the American way…

   Jun 9, 8:53 PM — [ ... ] — Satellite Radio Interruptions

2. imnotned | imnotned@nedyouralwayswrong.com | IP: 162.83.126.18

   Chris,

   First of all, you not ever having been a customer, I don’t feel you are
   qualified to comment, but this being a free country and all…

   I think you really missed my point here, in its current form they
   both blow away terrestrial radio, and I am all for the merger. AM and
   FM Radio has brought this upon themselves. I doubt I’ll ever go back to
   regular radio at any cost point, while the NAB is running around
   shouting MONOPOLY, to anyone who’ll listen, you miss the point of
   market economics. If the new merged company raises their rates, without
   expanding service, customers will go away, broadcast radio radio does
   just the opposite, they lose listeners, then add more commercials to
   make up for the lost revenue. My commute is on average 15 to 20 minutes
   each way, before I converted to satellite there were many times when
   all I heard were commercials, and a couple of minutes of last weeks
   news, or last years jokes for the entire 20 minutes.

   Webster’s defines a monopoly as “Exclusive ownership through legal
   privilege, command of supply, or concerted action”, and the proposed
   merger can only be defined as a monopoly in the fact that the merged
   company will have command of the supply at the time of the merger. Will
   the company continue to have that “command of supply” if another
   venture decides to launch a couple of satellites and broadcast radio,
   no. Can the merged company do anything to stop such a venture, no, that
   would be illegal “monopolistic practices”. The NAB never brings up
   terrestrial radio groups when they talk monopoly, but there are markets
   where these groups own the majority of the market, and are able to put
   the squeeze on the locally owned independent station, and “undercut the
   advertising prices at both the national and local levels” (your words),
   maybe congress should take a look at that.

   The thing that all the NAB members and shills miss is the variety
   available to the listener, there is a station for every taste, can
   regular radio say that, no. There again you wouldn’t understand,
   because you have never been a customer of either XM or SIRIUS. The only
   thing that you will hear on regular radio is only what is commercially
   acceptable. For example this post by a friend of mine God I Miss the Dregs do you think he is happy with regular radio? No he is not, he listens to his iPod all day…

   How is an entity that only has advertising on its talk stations
   going to undercut advertising, I am really confused on that one. The
   average “ditto head” that listens to talk radio all day, is not the
   person that is going to kick down the $12.95 a month to listen to Rush,
   when he can get it for free, unless of course Rush tells them to, and
   maybe the occasional right wing trucker. That is not the satellite
   demographic. I will concede that XM does have advertising on I think 7
   of its channels, which was the result of a deal with clear channel, but
   as I understand it, those ads will go away in a year or so…

   So Chris, go get a radio and subscribe, and tell me after a month that regular radio is better…

   The last thing I would like to address is the difference between
   Billing and Customer Service. I have had nothing but the greatest
   service from both XM and SIRIUS’ customer service departments, my issue
   was the BILLING department. The entire situation was explained to me as
   to what happened, I was credited the full amount and then some…

   Okay the last last thing, with the exception of Madison, all the
   DJ’s on SIRIUS are head and shoulders above anyone on regular radio,
   she just annoys the F out of me…

   Jun 9, 8:45 PM — [ ... ] — Satellite Radio Interruptions

3. Chris | Nolan07@gmail.com | sirius.com | IP: 128.241.104.90

   While I have never been a customer of either service, I’ve been following the proposed merger in my work with the NAB.

   Between the customer service and programming problems you mention,
   should the merger go through, their would be even less incentive for
   that entity to address these problems. You aren’t the first person that
   I’ve heard complain about XM’s customer service. This combined
   satellite radio monopoly could charge higher prices, and feel less
   pressure to cater to demands of their listeners.

   Not to mention the potential harm to local broadcasters. This
   monopoly would have the ability to utilize anti-competitive practices,
   like charging more and use those profits to undercut the advertising
   prices at both the national and local levels.

   Thanks.

   Jun 6, 3:49 PM — [ ... ] — Satellite Radio Interruptions

I have been meaning to write about this for a while…

The sports media is totally obssesed with TO’s antics on and off the
field, why don’t they just start treating him like any other moron that
runs on the field, cut away to something else. If they did that the
jackassary would end.

Although I do enjoy the pictures of him on the bench shortly after
dropping a crucial third and long pass that was right in the numbers,
you know the one with that look on his face and you know he’s thinking
“Thank God I’m the only jackass on this team”.

Well, with the exception of a few flooded (very minor) garages, and
a few hours of the street being flooded enough to kayak around the
neighborhood, and some pretty wicked winds in the morning, the impact
of Ernesto was very minor. We had a lot off rain ~11 inches in 3 days,
and wind gusts to 38MPH. That was pretty much the experience for the
area.

What I found interesting, was the reports I got from my family on
the West coast. We got calls from everyone, but no one called on
Friday, the reason… “Oh we wanted to give you time to get back home
after the Hurricane evacuations” They were all, surprised when I
laughed. Why did I laugh, because in a city of over 400,000 there were
between 30 and 100 evacuations, all were because of localized flooding,
and to the best of my knowledge none were mandatory.

Well in typical media hype hysteria, a Tropical Storm that was a
Hurricane for about 18 hours a week earlier, was still being reported
as a Hurricane a week later. After the 2005 tropical season, I’m
betting that so many stations invested heavily in some type of tropical
package, that they are making a big deal out of every tropical
disturbance no matter how minor. In my opinion, this is the worst thing
that could happen, creating artificial hype for something that is
really a non event. Once again the general public will begin to ignore
official warning statements, and not do what is needed when a threat
does truly exist.

For example, this week as Florence was developing in the Atlantic,
and the initial path was pointing to the mid-Atlantic region, the
teasers on the news was the potential impact of Florence on our area.
This was when the storm was at least 10 days out, five day track errors
were about 300NM, I guess all that mattered was that line pointing our
way. Then there was the simple fact that just about every model on the
planet said that Florence was going to turn to the North, and not make
U.S. landfall, but why let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Simple fact of the matter is if you want the facts go to the National Hurricane Center