I am in the midst of a fascinating experiment – web casting. Incidentally, so I can get my own plug in, the website is www.rafelive.com. We are in a one week hiatus right now but will be going again on September 24th.

This I found out is not like radio. It’s a one hour show starting with an editorial at 10:00AM and, because we have no phone lines, planned to take public responses by email. It didn’t happen and as we thought about it, there is a reason. It’s a lot of trouble doing an email especially if you’re listening at your place of work. We got email but it was often sent after the show had finished. This left a horrible gap of 15 minutes between the editorial and the featured guest. It was 15 minutes I had to tap dance and I was often tempted to give my famous version of “The boy stood on the burning deck ’’!

We also found out that the internet has gremlins just as radio does but they are harder to fix and you can wind up not able to broadcast. On show #1, for example, our phone line to Delta Mayor Lois Jackson went west. On Show #2, either our server was down or our software failed and the only ones to hear the show were the operators and the guest. That is a tad disappointing, to say the least.

But you learn from this. And we now have things in order. The reason for the hiatus is for producer and host to put in place solid programming for every show which really means, what the hell do we do with 10:15-10:30? And how do we make our show of interest to people all over the province?

We’re satisfied we can do that. The answer was so simple it was almost buried under the complicated ones. Not to give too much away our show will run Monday-Wednesday-Friday and will, apart from guests and their subjects, cover Metro Vancouver issues (many of which impact other areas) Provincial issues and federal matters.

What is so much fun is that we’re on the cutting edge. Just as Opinion 250 is on a constant learning curve trying to keep up with changes so are we. The time hasn’t yet arrived where we can seriously challenge the regular media outlets but we’re getting there. I’m mindful of the words of Bruce Allen, the famous entertainment agent who lives in Vancouver. When asked if he would do a show for CKNW (which was once the hot bed of lively debate) replied “My God, I’d be the only one with an opinion”! 

We plod along not for big profits although they would be welcome indeed because the proprietor of this Internet paper and I deplore the loss of tough journalists now replaced with pablum. Someone has to hold the establishment’s feet to the fire and it sure as hell isn’t going to be the Canadian media.