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The baby is in her chair now in the living room. Rock and roll music, early music, is playing on the radio. I love having a radio in the house like this and definitely appreciate being able to turn on a box and let other people make the decisions for me in terms of what song comes next. I am tired and not looking forward to going in to work tonight, but it'll be fine. This is kind of a dream time where I get to play a different role while holding on to my old ones. This new radio is otherworldly, with those odd speakers and the stand, which grants the radio much more dignity than any other appliance in our house. The songs coming out of it at the moment are amazing, timeless, fast. Baby is sitting in her chair kicking her feet into the air and waving her arms while she and the Butterfly catch up on old times. The dial is tuned to 91.2, which is something you don't see in North America. The jingles for U.K. radio stations can be jarring, hearing frequencies ending in even number

Okay, that's a gotcha headline, definitely. The idea of Stewart crossing over to a corporate sister is something that has been bandied about a lot since Dan Rather stepped down, and I have nothing new to offer on that score. But, this article in Forbes by David Andelman mentioned it as part of a slightly tongue-in-cheek list of media predictions for 2006. CBS News will move The Daily Show over from Comedy Central, and anchor Jon Stewart will replace an aging Bob Schieffer in a last, desperate effort to attract the young viewers that advertisers so lust after and increasingly fail to find on the networks' news programming. On the face of it, I don't think this is likely at all. First of all, Stewart is not news, and his demographic doesn't start watching television until later on in the evening. The network may not have a hit on its hands, but I'm sure the status quo makes money. I think it's too big a risk to move Stewart to broadcast television, because his ac

"People talk about alternative comedy, but how it started was simple. We were bored and knew we would never be part of the mainstream, so we thought, 'why don't we just do what we like?'" That's Nigel Planer, who played Neil the hippy on the Young Ones , BBC's ground-breaking "alternative comedy" series. Americans were exposed to this program thanks to how much cooler MTV was back in the days where they didn't exactly know what was going to make the most money. The Young Ones is a glimpse into how crappy Britain is perceived to have been in the 1980's: Bleak, despairing, and run-down. The 12 episodes, spread apart two series, follow the day to day lives of four flatmates attending university. None of them are particularly good students. Rik is a self-proclaimed People's Poets who always talks about others' first, but is always looking out for himself. Vyvyan is the metal medical student who wings up pregnant in one episode, despit

The question on everyone's mind: What will become of advertising in the podcasting world? Well, the folks at Motel 6 are proud enough of their witty radio commercials to turn them into a podcast . Chain spokesman Tom Bodett gives the top six reasons why you should stay at Motel 6 this Christmas. Will this sort of thing work? What's their motivation for doing this type of thing? Do they really think they'll get an audience? I'd be interested to know what people think about this. (corrected - Georges le Mener is the CEO of Motel 6, not Tom Bodett. Bodett is an author who is currently hosting a show on BBC Radio 7 .

This is what podcasting was invented for - They Might Be Giants have a podcast , and it's offering exactly the kind of material that used to be on their Dial A Song. Subtle evidence that podcasting will replace using the phone to get audio information, perhaps? The first track on this album would probably not have sold too well, but that's what used to make They Might Be Giants so amazing. I've always thought their better songs to be the whimsical ones. But some of this stuff borders on comedy, as with "Turtle Songs of North America." I don't know how often they're going to offer podcasts, but when they do, it'll be like a little album each time. How they'll make money off of this, I don't know, but should that always be what motivates people to do creative work?

As radio changes, content producers are no doubt going to be looking at innovative ways to make money. The incremental stripping of audience to digital forms of delivery will begin to add up. In Australia, podcasting success is causing one of that country's radio networks to dramatically rethink its business model. Here's a quote from an article in the December 8 Sydney Morning Herald . ABC Radio, by far the country's leading podcaster with 300,000 downloads a week, is so enthused with the figures it has embraced the unthinkable - exploring ways of charging listeners. It has already done so in a small way with a $5.95 podcast fee for each of this year's six Boyer Lectures by the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen. Read the rest here: (subscription required)

Thanks to the Internet and podcasting, I've been able to connect to British culture in a way not quite possible before. Now I can listen to BBC Radio 4 when I'm in the U.S., catch up on various television shows (erm...), and of course, I can know what's happening in pop culture thanks to the Pete and Geoff Breakfast Show on Virgin Radio . England is part of my every day life. But sad news this week with the announcement that Pete and Geoff are splitting up. After ten years together as a radio duo, they've decided to go their separate ways. Pete Mitchell is the straight man, much older, and it sounds like he's being pushed out. Geoff is my age, and provides the wacky irreverence. The two of them together are nothing terribly special, perhaps, but to me they keep me company while I walk the dog and try to live my life. And, help me feel a tiny bit more connected to the country where my son is growing up. Divorce isn't really fun for anyone. So, I'll miss this