Week 1 Assignment - 950 KJR

The website I am reviewing is Seattle #1 sports radio station 950 KJR . I visit this site quite frequently to listen to the live streaming radio broadcasts and occasionally listen to the podcasts that are loaded on the website. This site has been providing live streaming broadcasts for at least three years, which is a long time considering the streaming technology is fairly new.

As far as the live broadcasts go, i really have a hard time finding anything I would like improved; the streaming braodcast loads very quick on my laptop, it takes one click to listen anywhere in the world. There is no requirement to sign up for membership to the 950 KJR sportsclub in order to listen to the live broadcast. As far as the quality of the sound, the compression is relatively low or atleast it is difficult to detect. There is a slight hollow feeling to the sound of the broadcast, meaning that the highs and lows are dampenened a bit but the clarity is very crisp. It is a bit difficult to listen during the commercials, many of the commercials are blocked likely due to contractual reasons, therefore there is just this repetitive music playing and a voice callout every two minutes or so.

The podcast feature on the website is much newer, it has probably only been available for the past six months. The quality of the podcasts are considerably lower, with the compression much higher. I actually have been on the show with the Groz three times in the past few weeks discussing my competitive eating career and two of the interviews are up on the web (filed under Audio, Groz OnDemand, 'Erick "Red" Denmark' w/Groz 6-2 and 6-5 (they misspell my name)). Anyway, although the quality of the interview sound is not the highest, the podcast feature is very convenient for sharing and archiving especially for me because I can load these broadcasts on my website. I think the podcasts need to be more consistent; some things get loaded, some things don't, but for the most part this is a great feature and once again it is free and very easy to access.