Hi,
As most of you know, I’ve worked as a radio broadcaster for nearly 30 years, starting in the late 1960s.
In those days, I had several jobs at commercial radio stations. I started as a d.j. but, when they learned that I could put more than two words together coherently, they added advertising copywriting and news reporting to my tasks. And not always at a higher wage.
After nearly a decade, I left the business, in part to begin a new life with my new wife.
That takes us to 2002.
I had made an occasional appearance on some online radio shows when I was presented with the opportunity to join a new radio network. Named MacRadio, it was clearly meant to provide information and possibly entertainment for supporters of the Apple Mac platform. I eagerly accepted, and thus created The Mac Night Owl LIVE, based on the title of my daily blog.
Only Apple wasn’t just about Macs even then, not with the arrival of the iPad digital music player, which ultimately led to the creation of the iPhone. I had a sense of where Apple was going and, despite protests from other network members, I opted to change the name of my show to The Tech Night Owl LIVE. In 2006, I leveraged my interest in the strange and unknown to create The Paracast.
In 2010 both shows joined a real terrestrial radio platform, the Genesis Communications Network (GCN), which syndicated its roster of several dozen shows to hundreds of stations. At the same time, I kept the online presence with my podcast versions of the same shows.
In 2019, GCN was confronting apparent business difficulties at a time when small radio networks were suffering. So I opted to discontinue The Tech Night Owl LIVE after 17 years. After a final episode on July 6, 2019, I focused strictly on The Paracast.
GCN continued, but business pressures resulted in the decision to shutter the network on May 5th of this year.
It was high time for a change anyway, and so I made arrangements to begin to work with a growing podcast network known as Podethics, which uses the SoundStack platform to host its shows. It’s a pretty favorable deal, since my shows can share ad revenue. That’s unlike GCN where they gave us slots for our own ads, but no paychecks.
So it was time to consider my options.
One of the criticisms of our shows at GCN was the presence of so many ads. It was, after all, commercial radio, with 42 minutes of spots per episode. The schedule is similar to commercial TV programming. But free of network requirements, I made a change, so current episodes of The Paracast run about a third as many ads, while still offering a premium version, The Paracast+ ad-free with an added bonus podcast, After The Paracast.
And that takes us to another big decision.
It’s about the fate of The Tech Night Owl LIVE. With a new home for our shows, it was time to bring it back.
So starting May 18th, The Tech Night Owl LIVE returned as a weekly one hour show. Our first guest was one of the mainstays of the original show, author, commentator and podcaster Kirk McElhearn, who has tremendous insights into the world of technology, including developments in AI.
Next week, another frequent guest, Bryan Chaffin, formerly of MacObserver, returns. And other guests, both old and new, are being scheduled for future episodes.
What’s more, the second generation of The Tech Night Owl LIVE is available on more podcast platforms. We recently added iHeart Radio to the roster that includes Apple, FM Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify and many others. You can also seek out and play episodes from our site, https://www.technightowl.live.
And here’s a direct link to the latest episode:
May 18, 2024 — Kirk McElhearn - The Tech Night Owl LIVE — Tech Radio with a Pop Culture Twist!
As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome. If you’d like to hear a specific guest, please let us know.
Now because of the format of the new Tech Night Owl LIVE, we’re no longer offering a Tech Night Owl LIVE+ subscription feature. If you’ve already subscribed, you’ll continue to receive episodes you paid for though. No worries.
In the meantime, we always welcome your support. Due to the nature of the business, we won’t see any income from show advertising until August.
So if you’d like to help the cause, please donate to Gene Steinberg's Tech Night Owl! We could sure use the help. As my wife and I grow older, there are more and more medical copays, meds, and, of course, our web server. Just click or tap the PayPal link below to send your payment to:
Pay Eugene Steinberg using PayPal.Me
Thanks for listening.
As most of you know, I’ve worked as a radio broadcaster for nearly 30 years, starting in the late 1960s.
In those days, I had several jobs at commercial radio stations. I started as a d.j. but, when they learned that I could put more than two words together coherently, they added advertising copywriting and news reporting to my tasks. And not always at a higher wage.
After nearly a decade, I left the business, in part to begin a new life with my new wife.
That takes us to 2002.
I had made an occasional appearance on some online radio shows when I was presented with the opportunity to join a new radio network. Named MacRadio, it was clearly meant to provide information and possibly entertainment for supporters of the Apple Mac platform. I eagerly accepted, and thus created The Mac Night Owl LIVE, based on the title of my daily blog.
Only Apple wasn’t just about Macs even then, not with the arrival of the iPad digital music player, which ultimately led to the creation of the iPhone. I had a sense of where Apple was going and, despite protests from other network members, I opted to change the name of my show to The Tech Night Owl LIVE. In 2006, I leveraged my interest in the strange and unknown to create The Paracast.
In 2010 both shows joined a real terrestrial radio platform, the Genesis Communications Network (GCN), which syndicated its roster of several dozen shows to hundreds of stations. At the same time, I kept the online presence with my podcast versions of the same shows.
In 2019, GCN was confronting apparent business difficulties at a time when small radio networks were suffering. So I opted to discontinue The Tech Night Owl LIVE after 17 years. After a final episode on July 6, 2019, I focused strictly on The Paracast.
GCN continued, but business pressures resulted in the decision to shutter the network on May 5th of this year.
It was high time for a change anyway, and so I made arrangements to begin to work with a growing podcast network known as Podethics, which uses the SoundStack platform to host its shows. It’s a pretty favorable deal, since my shows can share ad revenue. That’s unlike GCN where they gave us slots for our own ads, but no paychecks.
So it was time to consider my options.
One of the criticisms of our shows at GCN was the presence of so many ads. It was, after all, commercial radio, with 42 minutes of spots per episode. The schedule is similar to commercial TV programming. But free of network requirements, I made a change, so current episodes of The Paracast run about a third as many ads, while still offering a premium version, The Paracast+ ad-free with an added bonus podcast, After The Paracast.
And that takes us to another big decision.
It’s about the fate of The Tech Night Owl LIVE. With a new home for our shows, it was time to bring it back.
So starting May 18th, The Tech Night Owl LIVE returned as a weekly one hour show. Our first guest was one of the mainstays of the original show, author, commentator and podcaster Kirk McElhearn, who has tremendous insights into the world of technology, including developments in AI.
Next week, another frequent guest, Bryan Chaffin, formerly of MacObserver, returns. And other guests, both old and new, are being scheduled for future episodes.
What’s more, the second generation of The Tech Night Owl LIVE is available on more podcast platforms. We recently added iHeart Radio to the roster that includes Apple, FM Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify and many others. You can also seek out and play episodes from our site, https://www.technightowl.live.
And here’s a direct link to the latest episode:
May 18, 2024 — Kirk McElhearn - The Tech Night Owl LIVE — Tech Radio with a Pop Culture Twist!
As always, your comments and suggestions are always welcome. If you’d like to hear a specific guest, please let us know.
Now because of the format of the new Tech Night Owl LIVE, we’re no longer offering a Tech Night Owl LIVE+ subscription feature. If you’ve already subscribed, you’ll continue to receive episodes you paid for though. No worries.
In the meantime, we always welcome your support. Due to the nature of the business, we won’t see any income from show advertising until August.
So if you’d like to help the cause, please donate to Gene Steinberg's Tech Night Owl! We could sure use the help. As my wife and I grow older, there are more and more medical copays, meds, and, of course, our web server. Just click or tap the PayPal link below to send your payment to:
Pay Eugene Steinberg using PayPal.Me
Thanks for listening.