End of an Era: Taping of Genealogy Presentations at Conferences

One of the time-honored traditions at national genealogical conferences has been the audio tapes of the sessions. Those unable to attend in person often ordered audio tapes of the presentations. While not as good as attending "in person," the audio tapes added a lot of value to those unable to attend the live events. Sadly, the practice is disappearing. The reason apparently is because of dropping sales of the tapes.

For years, most of the tapes at the U.S. National Genealogical Society (NGS) and Federation of Genealogical Societies' (FGS) conferences have been recorded by AudioTapes.com. Yet a search of the company's web site at http://www.audiotapes.com shows no genealogy conference tapes recorded after May 22, 2004. The company is not offering audio tapes recorded at more recent genealogy conferences. To my knowledge, no other recording company has stepped up to make the recordings.

The National Genealogical Society has a blog about the upcoming national conference to be held in June in Chicago. At http://ngs2006.blogspot.com/2006/03/announcement-taping-of-conference.html, that blog states:

The National Genealogical Society (NGS) will not be using a taping company to tape sessions at this year's Chicago conference (June 7-10, 2006). As most of you know, they have done this in previous years and the tapes were offered for sale to attendees at the show and also to the public to purchase after the event.

NGS has made this decision due to lack of demand for conference tapes and cost considerations.

It looks like the NGS announcement is a "sign of the times." Apparently, very few future genealogy conferences will be recorded.

Comments

[theKiwi]

I think one of the reasons for this is that tape players are going the way of record players - particularly in cars where one might have a half a chance of having the time to listen to tapes in the past.

Our Society (Western Michigan Genealogical Society) has for many years had a collection of tapes we made from our speakers and past conferences, and tapes purchased from other conferences for our members to rent and listen to. Demand for this service in recent years has dwindled to nothing - even for the tapes of our 50th Birthday Conference in 2004. But the tapes did vanish quickly at our last meeting when we put some out on the table with a sign saying Free/Donation.

We're now recording meetings and speakers on a digital recorder and considering whether to make these available as podcasts.

Roger

[Dick Eastman]

I agree. I have three automobiles and all of them have CD players but no tape players. I remember reading a year or so ago that Wal-Mart was no longer carrying any tape cassettes. Wal-Mart stopped selling both pre-recorded and blank tapes, due to no demand from customers.

It looks like audio tape cassettes are headed in the same direction as 8-track tapes.

[BJLS]

I purchased CDs from the last FGS conference, but was disappointed to see that several of the lectures of interest were not 'taped'. Asking around, I heard that many speakers are not allowing taping because they were not receiving their royalties.

It seems reasonable to me that the speaker should receive royalties on the sale of their creation.

Audiotapes.com does not seem to update their website. If you call them, they can fax a list of tapes available from 2005. They now (finally) offer CDs as an alternative to tapes (I don't have a cassette player anymore either).

I was saddened by the NGS announcement. There are many times where you'd like to be at two or three lectures taking place at the same time -- so purchasing the tape is desirable. Other times, a lecture was so compelling that I've wanted to listen to it a couple of times to let everything really sink in.

I'd like to see the 'taping' continue, but perhaps it could be distributed in a better manner -- like mp3 download. I'd think this would lower costs since they wouldn't have to create a physical object and mail it. Warehousing would also be simplified. And the artists (speakers) should receive part of the purchase price.

[AncestralManor]

Most conference attendee numbers peaked in the 1990s.
Audio recordings are also often quite dependent on having referenced syllabus material and/or presentation slides. There never was much of general audience for the recordings alone.
In the old conference attendance model, the upfront costs of a professional recording (born by the recording company, not the sponsoring society, the speakers or the attendees) were supposed to be absorbed by the recording sales - which disintegrated rapidly, pretty much in proportion to the conference attendance numbers.
Thus as this narrow market for recordings dwindled with conference attendance numbers, the recording royalty contracts were changed to include a minimum number of tapes sold per speaker.
Also, digital recordings, along with analog recordings, were started several years ago, but the general populace of the conferences (organizers, speakers and attendees) were resistant to the change.
The Salt Lake City FGS tried to make that transition, but the bottom line is that the resistance remained and conference attendee numbers are not where the cost of recording can be offset by the sales - especially straddling both MP3 and cassette.
If you have 100 to 400 hour or so long talks to be physically covered by recording experts, but only 1000 or so attendees who have the companion syllabus material, it is a bad economic model.
The bottom line is to answer the questions of what will attract more attendees to conferences and what will make recorded sessions more saleable to attendees and to the general public alike.
Millions of people haven't been to a local seminar, let alone a national conference. The loss of the recordings is secondary to the loss of conference attendees.
What should a live event be and what should a recording package be to be a cost effective and saleable product? It has to produce the right numbers to work.

[Dick Eastman]

This topic is generating much discussion online and in person. The St. Louis Genealogical Society has decided to take action at the society's upcoming regional conference.

You can read more at http://announcements.eogn.com/2006/03/genealogical_le.html