Canada’s Next Great Broadcast Innovation

Last week, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) released an official DRM-free BitTorrent of a prime time show– a first for a major north American broadcaster. Canada's Next Great Prime Minister features four young Canadians competing in a heated political competition before four country leaders for $50,000. Obviously geared to a tech savvy audience, this is innovative stuff and quite simply a smart thing to do. I certainly hope it marks the beginning of a trend for the CBC. I know they’re doing this successfully in Norway where it’s proven to be a huge win for broadcasters.

This option is the clear future whether other broadcasters like it or not. To have the opportunity of having a high quality broadcast available to downloaders anywhere is both efficient and forward thinking. Now if only other media outlets and music publishers would jump on board we could truly be on to something here.

Everyone, grab this show using the uTorrent Client or Transmission for Mac. If you’re new to the concept of BitTorrent a quick Google should lead you to all the information you will need.

The Hour's Disc Drop

I’m a big fan of CBC's The Hour and it is indeed my favourite way to spend sixty minutes on a cold Autumn night. Hosted by the uber informed George Stroumboulopoulos, the shows content is always engaging.

Two weeks ago he mentioned the recent closing of Canadian music retailer Music World and the sad decline of the record store, especially as a social place to discuss music. This is where the interesting part comes in; the powers that be at the hour came up with Operation Disc Drop. General idea is to make up a mix CD, leave a track listing (or artwork for those inclined); Label it as part of The Hour's Disc Drop, with the URL drop it off somewhere in the wilds and hope someone enjoys it.

I am going to try this and I’ll post the results (if anything) here. I encourage all of you to try the same in this, the season of giving. Peace and good mixtapes to all.

For full details on Operation Disc Drop go here.