Radio Canada International Experiments with Time-Shifting: Ends Up in the Past

Radio Canada International (RCI) Broadcasts in Shortwave around the world. They produce superb daily programming in English, French, Spanish, and other languages. They have a well deserved world-wide following.

They also broadcast online. Their programs used to be available for download in mp3 format. It was great to download a weekend review of the news in Spanish and listen to it while exercising or driving or sitting in the shade. The new world of online broadcasting was wonderful.

Then one dark and stormy night RCI reported they had some copyright issues. Changes were in the wind. What would be their response? What would some of broadcasting's brightest minds come up with? How would they lead us through to a new age of media dissemination?

The media savvy use and interact using a half-dozen delivery modes, often in one day. Millions make their own 'casts of one sort or many. These new Sociocasters insist on choices. If the choice isn't there they'll go elsewhere or more than likely they'll create a new format to get what they want. For millions this is not the future, this is the current base-line.

In the context of these trends, RCI reviewed their copyright issues and came up with a brilliant set of recommendations. They came up with a truly lateral conclusion. They stopped making broadcasts available for download. The exact title of the report was something like, An Off-White Paper on Copyright Solutions by I. Mann Ostrich, LLB.

Now if a quick check of the archives reveals broadcasts only up until 2006.

Listeners want more choices not fewer. They find it irksome when a public broadcasters tell them that the only legal way to use their services is to chain themselves to computer workstation. They don't need infinite choices. So...how about two choices? One of them portable.

Take your heads out of the sand RCI. You can figure out a better solution. Put those heads together where they belong.

Online Shortwave for Learning Spanish

Online shortwave is a real boon to learning Spanish.

Some sites have been particularly useful to me in improving my listening skills. The greatest site hands down is the BBC. You owe it to yourself to spend quite a bit of time poking around there. You'll find language instruction, news stories, video, photos, and tons of written material.

Another great site is Radio Netherlands. In terms of its focus on programming, including a lot of joint productions with networks all over Latin America, it is probably the best source for audio programmes. They have daily news, and weekly shows varying from science, agriculture, and Dutch news, to a very interesting "answer letters, emails and phone calls show".

Another good shortwave station online is Radio Canada International or RCI. Monday to Friday they have a daily one hour show in Spanish which is well worth listening to. Saturday there's a one hour show with highlights from the week's stories interspersed with Canadian music. Sunday is my favourite show, a listeners show similar to Radio Netherland's Sunday show. Coincidentally, the two listeners' shows on Radio Canada and Radio Netherlands team up and do a couple of shows together each year. The last one was at Christmas time.

There are other excellent sources of online shortwave programming but we'll get to that.