We’ve seen Shirely Phelps Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church who’s church hates America from godhatesamerica.com. This is an interview with her, from Negative Penguin’s own “Political Inversion with Paul Tevis”.

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…So it is becoming uncomfortable for us to pretend that everything is the same at this table. Star, regrettably, will no longer be on this show.

Barbara Walters, 75 announced yesterday on the American ABC Network’s “The View” program that longterm co-host Star Jones-Reynolds would not be appearing on any future episodes. She did announce her resignation the day before saying her last episode would be in July, however due to Star’s heated words in “People” magazine she has been relieved of her duties immediately.

Reynolds has been well known for her diva antics and ever since the announcement that Rosie O’Donnell would take over from the now departed Meredith Vierra who left to co-anchor the Today Show there have been rumous that Reynolds would depart the high rating daily chat show.

O’Donnell had in the past made critical comments about Reynolds especially regarding her weight and claims of Gastric bypass surgery. Reynolds had been with the program since it’s inception in 1997. No replacement has been announced yet.

I do not usually source posts from elsewhere but saw this on BizPodcasting and a link to the original post on PR Thoughts. Anyways it is a good list of 10 Good Reasons for a Broadcaster to Podcast.

1. A good way to give a second life to a huge amount of content that would directely becomes archives.
2. An opportunity to create and develop a new audience which might become a new community for the brand.
3. A way to prepare an evolution to “Television on Internet”.
4. Generating new traffic on the corporate web (podcasters and bloggers will link to the new available podcast).
5. Providing a new form of content, for a younger audience.
6. Generating some rare content, available only and exclusively through the podcast.
7. Making some buzz to launch new TV shows: give pieces of exclusive previews through the podcast to give a flavour of it prior to the big launch.
8. A new source of revenu: you can have sponsors for your podcast (allocine is the first in France having been including ads in the show).
9. Generate excitement for existing shows by producing “best of XYZ”.
10. An interesting way to reach niche audiences that would not normally be reachable for financial means.

Link to full post at PR Thoughts.

The PloyCast finishes its current series next episode on our twenty fifth episode. However after saying to a online buddy that we were finishing our “season” he asked me this.

I have a question, why have you done two seasons in five months?

Reason is we do a group of episodes in a “series” the first group was ten episodes. The second group of episodes was fifteen episodes thus making twenty five episodes by the end of our second “series”. He went on to ask…

This isnt Television though? Podcasts don’t have seasons?

Depends on who you ask. Some podcasts do take breaks we just call each group of episodes a series or season. Thats all it is, a group of episodes. When we return after a short break for a next group of episodes we freshen up the show with new openings, graphics etc… To be funny, like we have to be for The PloyCast we like to take breaks sometimes and freshen up. Whatever we call these, seasons, series or anything else in the end of the day it is just groups of episodes. Nothing else.

We also got criticised having one break after ten episodes, then we will have another after episode twenty five. We only take at max two weeks off in that break and this is also a good way to avoid “Podfade” we keep it fresh, we can have a little time off once in a while and doing this will stop us getting sick of doing the show. It makes us and the audience look forward to a new episode, which is always a good thing. Alas keeping it fresh means a new logo for a new season. So here it is (left of screen) it’s first public appearance right here on this blog. This new logo will premiere on episode twenty six of the show which goes to air in around three weeks when we return for the next series.

A new and awesome episode of The PloyCast is out. Give it a listen. Also congratulations to the Socceroos for making it through to the second round in The 2006 FIFA World Cup.

The Leading Australian Cable and Satelite provider Foxtel is launching some new programs for the second half of this year on its channels. It also co-owns and runs Austar which is for rural subscribers.

As I said in a previous post The Daily Show with Jon Stewart launches on The Comedy Channel, and other new programs for the channel include a new series of South Park and popular Canadian program Kenny VS Spenny. Now on Fox Classics which screens classic TV shows and movies will begin showing the classic Australian sitcom Hey Dad! Which I havent seen for years but am looking forward to seeing again. It has a reputation for being bad however the series lasted 10 years, over 250 episodes and rated very well until its final series when cast changes ruined the ratings.

Martin Kelly is a successful architect in Sydney bringing up his three children alone while working from home (sort of like half of The Brady Bunch).

I couldn’t live without Foxtel these days. It screens so many great channels and programs I find myself almost never watching the networks. I have been a subscriber to Foxtel Digital since its launch in 2004, having never subscribed to the previous analogue Foxtel service which launched in 1995. I look forward to seeing what the service brings in the rest of 2006 and the start of 2007.