Wednesday Webcasts: Bostonist Rates The Boston Channel

Bostonist has never liked the evening news. The perfect haircuts and empty banter distract from any and all substance. What do The Boston Channel's shows about the web and health issues bring to the internet? How do they produce content different than what is on TV?

Not surprisingly The Boston Channel does not really produce a podcast. They simply rip the audio straight out of the evening news and and regurgitate it online. This is not necessarily bad as there is a lot of good content on TV and more of it should be available for free download. The two features seem to be the least likely to be offered on the web. The web shows are too basic to be very informative for someone who is web savvy enough to listen to podcasts. The health segments are mostly based off of newly released studies that are often proven untrue.

Unlike newscasts which are often overproduced, the same attention is not given to the online shows. The podcasts often cut off in odd places as if the producer is not really paying attention to what he or she doing. The podcats do not have much to do with Boston and mostly focus on more national stories. Many people do like the evening news and if the entire broadcast was online then it would be a worthy replacement to watching it on TV, but these small snippets of news just are not worth it.