2: A Matter of Expedience
A discussion on the timing of album releases.
By David Hilder | November 1, 2011
A discussion on the timing of album releases.
By David Hilder | November 1, 2011
In entertainment there are basically two models in terms of when content is released for sale to the public: the television show model and the music industry model. TV shows are aired to the public first and then released for sale much later once all the episodes have aired. On the other hand, music albums are preordered before you can hear them on the radio, sometimes even before they have been completed. They go for sale prior to anyone listening to the final product. Adventures in Odyssey is in the form of CDs and digital downloads. While it may make some sense for Odyssey to go with the music industry model because of this small similarity, it doesn’t quite fit AIO’s unique situation. We’re talking about a radio drama. An Odyssey album is in fact more like a TV show season than a regular music album because it is composed of a concrete storyline created by writers, actors, producers, sound engineers, composers, etc. It includes a collection of episodes, not songs. The season of a TV show would never be released for purchase before it had aired to the public. Why Odyssey must do so seems odd.
Likewise, a movie would never be released on DVD before going through theaters. The only time a film is put on DVD remotely close to the time that it played in theaters is if it does badly at the box office. Because AIO doesn’t profit from the premieres of new episodes as movies do, it’s logical from a financial point of view to try and take in some earnings at the beginning of the season. Not at some later ambiguous time when the fans feel like they want to hear those episodes again and decide to buy the album. But does this release timing create problems?
In the episode Welcoming Wooton, a parcel courier tells us that “speed is everything at Speedy Package Express.” And I wonder if that policy is being unintentionally implemented here. Putting out an AIO album before it airs is nice for the fans because it arrives quickly. Quicker than normal, that is. All of a sudden we have twelve brand new episodes to listen to instead of having them released slowly one by one over 3 months. The importance of speed and efficiency is playing a larger role than in the past. In the rest of this article I’ll explore how this could possibly be affecting the Adventures in Odyssey fandom.
Today it’s much easier to hear new AIO episodes than ever before. Now we no longer need to remember to tune into the radio or listen online by a certain time before the shows disappear from the website. All that’s required of us is a few simply clicks and the album is delivered right to us, instantaneously if it’s the digital version. It’s definitely a treat to receive the episodes early. But what I am slightly concerned about here is the possibility of overindulgence. With so much new content available to people at once, I find that sometimes we can go a little crazy and devour it all immediately without taking the required time for the individual episodes and themes that they really deserve. Instead it can be a panicked rush to gobble all of it up as quickly as possible. And then the stories seem to blur together and we can’t remember exactly what happened in each episode. We can’t completely differentiate between the events that took place or the characters involved. And more importantly, we get less meaning from the essential messages included when we go through them at that extreme pace. With such an overload of information we’re less likely to retain it and learn from it.
When dealing with story arcs that span multiple episodes it makes sense to listen to them closer together, instead of hearing the parts separated over a few weeks. It can be difficult to recall absolutely everything that happened the previous week, making the plot harder to follow. But with the “previously on Adventures in Odyssey” segments, which recap past incidents, this has become easier to manage. The website also helps with this. But with stories as big as the Novacom Saga it doesn’t work as well.
Listening to albums instead of the radio can happen to be less family-oriented. Gathering around the radio to hear the new releases all at the same time becomes unnecessary. With an album coming out early, now the initial listening of the episodes can be done at different times by different people with less of a community experience. It’s impossible to rewind the radio. This required families to listen to the shows together and all at the same time. It encouraged discussion. Of course the albums may be listened to all together by entire families as well, but it’s less likely when people have the convenience of listening to them whenever they want on their own. Albums are perfectly fine to have. But I think the initial listening is what will prompt the most discussion. That’s why I prefer it to be on the radio because it creates a focal point where everyone listens collectively.
This is trickier when people don’t have a local Christian radio station that airs Adventures in Odyssey. In this situation the best thing to do would be to plan a time with your family to listen to the latest episode online, maybe during a meal, and discuss the themes and biblical truths then. The most important component is listening together.
When the Green Ring Conspiracy was airing, the internet was not a safe place for people who didn’t buy the album immediately. Not even some Odyssey forums were safe. Spoilers were everywhere. And even when people would go to great lengths to prevent people from being spoiled, it always ended up happening somewhere regardless. And if people didn’t get spoiled on the internet they had their friends to fill in that position. People couldn’t keep the information to themselves because obviously it was so exhilarating and important to the town of Odyssey, which they cared deeply about. But that became the problem. And all because the fandom was not coordinated. If everyone had heard the episodes at the same time, this wouldn’t have happened in the same way. The people who heard the shows wouldn’t have had to keep the secrets to themselves for weeks and the people who hadn’t heard them yet wouldn’t have been jealous. Spoilers are less of a problem with the slice of life shows. But when the mystery thrillers come along they are going to pop up.
Because of issues with time, the radio version of an episode is not always the same length as the album version. That’s the reality because it’s not always possible to perfectly judge how long a script will turn out to be in the finalized episode with all the music and sound effects. And what also has to be taken into consideration is how fast different actors will read the lines. What usually happens is that some lines of dialogue, or even entire scenes, are left out when Odyssey plays over the airwaves. But it can be a good thing to hear the shorter radio version first and then hear the extended album version later. It’s the same episode as before but with extra bonus content. And as a result it’s almost twice as exciting to hear the radio version first and then after a while the album version because both experiences give us new content. But if we hear the extended episode first, then those bonus lines are devalued and become less special. And then if in the future we catch the condensed show on the radio or online afterwards it feels empty because we notice where things have been cut out. Waiting for this additional stuff is better for us because it doesn’t let people give in to a need for instant gratification. It encourages and enforces patience, a topic that has been the whole theme of a number of Odyssey episodes.
One more downside about getting the album early is that we can’t hear the episodes beforehand. We pay for it, basically endorsing the content with our money, prior to even listening to the stories and knowing what unfolds during them. How are we supposed to know if we’re going to like them? There’s no guarantee we will. Granted, this is Adventures in Odyssey we’re talking about. Most of its stories are really good. But I bet some of the people who preordered Album 51, who didn’t like it when they got it, weren’t too happy about how this buy-before-you-listen system has been set up. Especially if they spent money on something they may not otherwise have bought if they had listened to the episodes before. If the album comes out after the episodes air, people know what they’re getting and won’t feel let down.
Expedience is not taking priority over quality at AIO. After the small bump in the road with the re-launch, they’ve recovered nicely and have returned to producing very high quality shows. But even so, convenience may still be becoming a slight problem. And I’d say this isn’t altogether AIO’s fault. I would encourage people to go through their purchased albums slowly. Maybe not one episode per week like the radio schedule, but definitely not more than one or two episodes per day. Most things should be taken in moderation, even Adventures in Odyssey. And while expedience may make it harder to do so, that doesn’t make people less responsible for not having self-control. Odyssey is just too good to be gulped down. It must be savored.
Likewise, a movie would never be released on DVD before going through theaters. The only time a film is put on DVD remotely close to the time that it played in theaters is if it does badly at the box office. Because AIO doesn’t profit from the premieres of new episodes as movies do, it’s logical from a financial point of view to try and take in some earnings at the beginning of the season. Not at some later ambiguous time when the fans feel like they want to hear those episodes again and decide to buy the album. But does this release timing create problems?
In the episode Welcoming Wooton, a parcel courier tells us that “speed is everything at Speedy Package Express.” And I wonder if that policy is being unintentionally implemented here. Putting out an AIO album before it airs is nice for the fans because it arrives quickly. Quicker than normal, that is. All of a sudden we have twelve brand new episodes to listen to instead of having them released slowly one by one over 3 months. The importance of speed and efficiency is playing a larger role than in the past. In the rest of this article I’ll explore how this could possibly be affecting the Adventures in Odyssey fandom.
Today it’s much easier to hear new AIO episodes than ever before. Now we no longer need to remember to tune into the radio or listen online by a certain time before the shows disappear from the website. All that’s required of us is a few simply clicks and the album is delivered right to us, instantaneously if it’s the digital version. It’s definitely a treat to receive the episodes early. But what I am slightly concerned about here is the possibility of overindulgence. With so much new content available to people at once, I find that sometimes we can go a little crazy and devour it all immediately without taking the required time for the individual episodes and themes that they really deserve. Instead it can be a panicked rush to gobble all of it up as quickly as possible. And then the stories seem to blur together and we can’t remember exactly what happened in each episode. We can’t completely differentiate between the events that took place or the characters involved. And more importantly, we get less meaning from the essential messages included when we go through them at that extreme pace. With such an overload of information we’re less likely to retain it and learn from it.
When dealing with story arcs that span multiple episodes it makes sense to listen to them closer together, instead of hearing the parts separated over a few weeks. It can be difficult to recall absolutely everything that happened the previous week, making the plot harder to follow. But with the “previously on Adventures in Odyssey” segments, which recap past incidents, this has become easier to manage. The website also helps with this. But with stories as big as the Novacom Saga it doesn’t work as well.
Listening to albums instead of the radio can happen to be less family-oriented. Gathering around the radio to hear the new releases all at the same time becomes unnecessary. With an album coming out early, now the initial listening of the episodes can be done at different times by different people with less of a community experience. It’s impossible to rewind the radio. This required families to listen to the shows together and all at the same time. It encouraged discussion. Of course the albums may be listened to all together by entire families as well, but it’s less likely when people have the convenience of listening to them whenever they want on their own. Albums are perfectly fine to have. But I think the initial listening is what will prompt the most discussion. That’s why I prefer it to be on the radio because it creates a focal point where everyone listens collectively.
This is trickier when people don’t have a local Christian radio station that airs Adventures in Odyssey. In this situation the best thing to do would be to plan a time with your family to listen to the latest episode online, maybe during a meal, and discuss the themes and biblical truths then. The most important component is listening together.
When the Green Ring Conspiracy was airing, the internet was not a safe place for people who didn’t buy the album immediately. Not even some Odyssey forums were safe. Spoilers were everywhere. And even when people would go to great lengths to prevent people from being spoiled, it always ended up happening somewhere regardless. And if people didn’t get spoiled on the internet they had their friends to fill in that position. People couldn’t keep the information to themselves because obviously it was so exhilarating and important to the town of Odyssey, which they cared deeply about. But that became the problem. And all because the fandom was not coordinated. If everyone had heard the episodes at the same time, this wouldn’t have happened in the same way. The people who heard the shows wouldn’t have had to keep the secrets to themselves for weeks and the people who hadn’t heard them yet wouldn’t have been jealous. Spoilers are less of a problem with the slice of life shows. But when the mystery thrillers come along they are going to pop up.
Because of issues with time, the radio version of an episode is not always the same length as the album version. That’s the reality because it’s not always possible to perfectly judge how long a script will turn out to be in the finalized episode with all the music and sound effects. And what also has to be taken into consideration is how fast different actors will read the lines. What usually happens is that some lines of dialogue, or even entire scenes, are left out when Odyssey plays over the airwaves. But it can be a good thing to hear the shorter radio version first and then hear the extended album version later. It’s the same episode as before but with extra bonus content. And as a result it’s almost twice as exciting to hear the radio version first and then after a while the album version because both experiences give us new content. But if we hear the extended episode first, then those bonus lines are devalued and become less special. And then if in the future we catch the condensed show on the radio or online afterwards it feels empty because we notice where things have been cut out. Waiting for this additional stuff is better for us because it doesn’t let people give in to a need for instant gratification. It encourages and enforces patience, a topic that has been the whole theme of a number of Odyssey episodes.
One more downside about getting the album early is that we can’t hear the episodes beforehand. We pay for it, basically endorsing the content with our money, prior to even listening to the stories and knowing what unfolds during them. How are we supposed to know if we’re going to like them? There’s no guarantee we will. Granted, this is Adventures in Odyssey we’re talking about. Most of its stories are really good. But I bet some of the people who preordered Album 51, who didn’t like it when they got it, weren’t too happy about how this buy-before-you-listen system has been set up. Especially if they spent money on something they may not otherwise have bought if they had listened to the episodes before. If the album comes out after the episodes air, people know what they’re getting and won’t feel let down.
Expedience is not taking priority over quality at AIO. After the small bump in the road with the re-launch, they’ve recovered nicely and have returned to producing very high quality shows. But even so, convenience may still be becoming a slight problem. And I’d say this isn’t altogether AIO’s fault. I would encourage people to go through their purchased albums slowly. Maybe not one episode per week like the radio schedule, but definitely not more than one or two episodes per day. Most things should be taken in moderation, even Adventures in Odyssey. And while expedience may make it harder to do so, that doesn’t make people less responsible for not having self-control. Odyssey is just too good to be gulped down. It must be savored.
This site is in no way affiliated with Focus on the Family. "Adventures in Odyssey" is a registered trademark of Focus on the Family.