One call in the middle of the holiday season for many people is not a good indication of general interest in tracking these calls. And as you suggest, $60 is a pretty trivial sum. If registrars want to be budget-conscious (and who can blame them for that) they could knock out a Whois study or two and fund the audiocasts for the decade or two. 

> -----Original Message-----
> As you may recall, in Brussels the Council passed a NCSG motion
> requiring that all Council calls be audiocast  in real time on the web.
> Useful in terms of general transparency and accountability, but also
> operationally for us, as NCSGers can Skype chat with their Councilors
> during the session to provide input on votes etc.
> 
> Since passage of the motion there's been some post hoc push-back from
> the registrars about why do we need to do this, the $60 per session is
> too expensive (!) and not all that many people care to listen in anyway
> (not supported by the numbers thus far).  I guess this combines a) the
> usual contracted party claim that ICANN's paying for stuff with "their
> money" (rather than the money of registrants), and b) a desire by some
> councilors not to have their SG listening in as Council performs its
> alchemy.
>