Shades of Dan Rather! Pajamas TV launched slightly over an hour ago with me as anchorman. Thankfully, as I type, Peter Robinson – far more qualified than I – is now sitting in the anchor chair about fifty feet to my left.
How was it? Well, to be honest, in sixties parlance, it was a trip. There I was (only 75% befuddled) sitting in the high director’s chair passing the baton to Cindy McCain and Laura Bush on stage, trying to sound suitably solemn about the hurricane and glad I was on with Glenn Reynolds, Ed Driscoll, John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson and James Lileks – all gentlemen who know how to move their mouths… because let me tell you you run out of ideas fast. This is especially true because, as the world knows, this is a convention in temporary postponement. Luckily for us we are only streaming about three hours today. Coming up… some intereviews I did with American Carol director David Zucker and Jon Voight (who plays George Washington in the film). These guys are members of the Friends of Abe (FoA), a Hollywood organization started by Gary Sinise for the folks in the entertainment industry who think the battle against Islamic facism might actually be worth fighting. This org was supposed to be hush-hush but the cat has now gotten far out of the bag. (Yes, I’m member – though we don’t have cards.), so Zucker and I talk about it. Anyway…. tune in on our convention coverage and let us know what you think. But be gentle, dear reader. We are still very much in beta – and likely to be for some time to come. Nevertheless, we are going to try to evolve a new form of interactive blogger TV – so that means feedback… And you the viewer on webcam, once we get that set up. (patience, patience)
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17 Comments
1. Steve Clouthier:Roger,
Congratulations. This is the beginning of a new era as we move from msm tv coverage to internet tv coverage. Absolutely fantastic. Thanks for working so hard to make this a reality with all the others.
Sep 1, 2008 - 4:05 pm 2. Dick Stanley:I’m supposed to be snagging an eight-year-old away from tee-vee for a dominoes games. Instead I got wrapped up watching Robinson, Green, Rubin and Ham for a half hour. The video/audio only paused twice in mid-sentence, yet I wonder where you will get all the needed bandwidth for interactive cam, blogger, comments. Worth it, nevertheless. Fun, too.
Sep 1, 2008 - 4:05 pm 3. Steve:PJTV is wonderful! I enjoy seeing and hearing the people who contribute to the articles.
Sep 1, 2008 - 4:06 pm 4. ZEITGEIST:[...] ROGER SIMON: My First Hour As An Anchorman. [...]
Sep 1, 2008 - 4:45 pm 5. Mister Snitch!:Huh. Pulling in viewers on webcam might be fun. Might be frightening, too. I tripped over an ad agency site a year ago, where you hit a button to let the site control your (built-in, in my and any Mac owner’s case) webcam. It was simple as can be, for the user anyway.
Sep 1, 2008 - 4:56 pm 6. Dave:I just joined up over at PJTV and sent an email to tech asking why my new membership didn’t get me to any videos that I couldn’t already see for free.
No response two days later. Guess you guys are busy. Id love to see your coverage, Roger, but I can’t figure out how to find it on the PJTV site.
work in progress… but you’ve already got my money.
Sep 1, 2008 - 5:02 pm 7. Carol:I wish you guys all the best!
Too bad you couldn’t be around for the Dem convention, I woulda msg’d to ask about those subjects and people we WEREN’T hearing about or seeing, as a for instance: labor unions, their profound influence, ergo Obama’s first order of business: Card checks and bullying on every union vote.
Why isn’t anyone talking about that?
Sep 1, 2008 - 5:49 pm 8. srlucado:Good job, Roger (anchoring and the FoA). Keep it up.
Scott
Sep 1, 2008 - 7:14 pm 9. NahnCee:How do you sign up to be a Friend of Abe, or is it by invitation only?
Sep 1, 2008 - 9:04 pm 10. Peg C.:Roger, I really enjoyed seeing you and the gang, whom I feel I already know. So far I can’t find Parts II and III and got Part I to play for at least 90 mins and then both times it died on me (video continued, audio was gone). I hope to find Fred and company eventually. Tough getting the right one to play and work all the way through.
If it worked perfectly I’d never need cable news again (and I pretty much don’t already)! BTW you all are doing great with the convention in a state of semi-chaos. I like watching people wing it well.
Very little of Obama-like uh’s and ah’s.
Sep 1, 2008 - 10:06 pm 11. Mike:Sorry to rain on the parade. I was enjoying the blogcast when my browser crashed about 75% of the way through. After recovering the only way I could get back to where I was was to listen to the whole thing a second time. I suggest you either break into more segments or provide a way to fast forward than works in larger than few second intervals and doesn’t require a keystroke for each of those intervals.
Other than that the content was excellent. Since I don’t have TV I expect I will make use of this more.
Mike
Sep 1, 2008 - 10:26 pm 12. kiwikit:I watched about a half an hour this morning and present my congratualtions. It was intelligent, witty, and interesting unlike the blah, predictable, biased rich media. I’m certainly going to watch as much as I can and only wish I could start it up on the PC and shift that firefox output over to the TV while I start up a second firefox on the laptop for continuing surfing. Wonderful job (except the buttons for stopping, fastforwarding etc seem not to be on yet.
Sep 2, 2008 - 3:35 am 13. Lawrence Kellogg:PJTV has great potential and I’m glad to be among your first subscribers but it was more of an alpha than a beta stage last night (Sunday night) or perhaps I should say a Delta (as in Delta Tau) stage, even though Delta is after beta. The buttons didn’t work and sometimes there’d be audio & no video & other times video but no audio. It was great, when it worked, in my Mac but non-existent on the PC. These are only the kvetches of a real fan and, along with my fellow charter subscribers I salute you and your great gang of bloggers on PJTV. You’ve definitely taken it to another level, but please try to work out the techno-glitches while the Republican Convention is still ongoing. Also, in the middle of Roger’s fascinating interview with Zucker—BAM–first the audio went, and then the video. Very frustrating since it was so good. Good luck and congrats.
Sep 2, 2008 - 6:50 am 14. Lem:Nice going Roger.
Sep 2, 2008 - 9:11 am 15. Nomenklatura:Your video just crashed my whole browser as it launched (I’m using Firefox 3 on OSX 10.5.3). That’s quite an achievement – no web page ever managed it before.
Sep 2, 2008 - 9:16 am 16. Pat Patterson:As long as you stay away from both guys rambling about the frequency and guys speed talking about The Order.
Sep 3, 2008 - 8:55 pm 17. Billigflüge:PJTV is wonderful!
Nov 19, 2008 - 2:21 amCongratulations Roger.
Keep up ur godd job