From the Portland Press Herald: "BroadcastAmerica.com,
the once-promising New Economy company that
plummeted into bankruptcy, failed to strike a deal for an infusion
of cash from an Alabama company and may be sold at auction.
"Roger A. Clement Jr., BroadcastAmerica's lawyer, said
Wednesday that Bowman Investments had decided not to make an offer
to buy BroadcastAmerica. That sale might have allowed the Internet
broadcasting operation to continue.
"Clement said he will ask a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge
in Portland to schedule an auction of BroadcastAmerica's assets.
He said BroadcastAmerica will ask
the court to order the company be sold as one unit, rather than
by breaking up its assets and selling them one by one."
Read the Press Herald story
here.
From RBR: "In a 12/31 letter to BA shareholders, John Brier,
President/COO and Alex Lauchlan, CEO had the following to say:
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Dear BroadcastAmerica shareholders:
We are writing with regret to tell you that BA will not be
doing a deal with Bowman Transportation. This, in effect,
exhausts our last chance of structuring a deal that will keep
the company out of Chapter 11, or from transferring property
to SurferNetwork, due to the lien on the assets.
It has been a tumultuous few months and we feel confident
we tried everything possible to keep the company alive in
these difficult times. NASDAQ has seen the worst possible
performance in 29 years. Interest rates have been raised six
times in the last year and the internal sector has lost over
1.2 trillion of value in the last 52 weeks.
None of these factors bode well for BroadcastAmerica as we
continued to try and build the company to a profitable conclusion.
We sincerely regret the conclusion BA is now facing.
Thank you for your support and we sincerely regret having
to share this bad news regarding your investment in Broadcast
America. |
|
Read RBR's report
here.
It had been reported (read
RAIN's coverage
here)
that BroadcastAMERICA had already filed Chapter 11, and that
part
of that deal was a merger (plus a $1 million investment) with
SurferNETWORK.
No word on where that deal stands.
BroadcastAMERICA, after losing the services of Sprint, MCI,
and Real for defaulting on payments, lost most of their streaming
affiliates. With no money left to pay employees, only upper management
and a skeleton crew willing to work gratis remain. Note that the
homepage (
here)
hasn't even been updated (notice the age of the news story running
on the site).
Reprinted from this morning's edition...
 |
We
began the new year with a look back at some of the biggest
news stories in radio and the Internet in the year 2000.
These were the events that helped shape the issues with
which we're dealing today. As always, we'd love to hear
your thoughts on our choices and analysis. To read Parts
1 and 2, click the blue arrow to the left of the date at
the top of the screen, or simply click here
for Part 1, here
for Part 2.
|
It's
long been believed that our industry won't get serious
advertising attention until we can pony up cold, hard data
on audiences. And since August 17th, there's even been competition
on that level...
MeasureCast
to compete with Arbitron's InfoStream
 BY
KURT HANSON
Responding to a webcast ratings service from
Arbitron that's
most recently-released ratings estimates are (as of mid-August)
for February,  a
new Portland, OR-based firm called MeasureCast
announced plans to compete yesterday with a service that will
offer its clients, among other things, a 24-hour
turnaround time.
The firm also announced the signing of its first client,
the Portland, ME-based aggregator BroadcastAmerica.com,
which bills itself as the  "World's
largest Internet broadcaster" based on the number of
different stations it streams.
MeasureCast, like InfoStream, intends to produce its statistics
based primarily on actual, hard data
from its client's servers. (By contrast, Arbitron's broadcast
measurements are merely rough estimates
projected from a random survey of a few thousand consumers
in each market.)
Read RAIN's coverage here.
|
With
juggernauts Clear Channel and Infinity still sputtering
at the gate, a group of other radio owners decided the time
was right for broadcast radio to make a serious foray into
the Internet space. Only time will tell us how significant
this unveiling, reported September 20th, may turn out to be...
Emmis unveils LMIV
consortium tomorrow at NAB conference
Emmis
Communications will unveil their Local
Media Internet Venture (previewed in the 5/12 issue
of RAIN here)
with a
formal presentation this Thursday at the NAB
gathering in San Francisco by Emmis's Jeff Smulyan and Doyle
Rose.
The LMIV is intended to be an industry-owned network
with large scale resources to provide content, technology,
and marketing to local member station websites. Participating
broadcasters are apparently to include Emmis, Bonneville,
Greater Media, and Jefferson-Pilot, with a rumored $60 million
behind the venture.
Read RAIN's coverage here.
|
|
On
November 1st, the seemingly unthinkable!
An alliance between the renegade file-sharing company Napster
and a major label company. One of the year's biggest stories
takes a controversial turn...
BMG forms alliance
with Napster
From
the Napster press release:
"Bertelsmann
AG and Napster,
Inc. today announced the formation of a strategic
alliance to further develop the Napster person-to-person
file sharing service.
 "Bertelsmann
AG's newly formed eCommerce Group, BeCG,
and Napster have developed a new business model for a secure
membership-based service that will provide Napster community
members with high-quality file sharing that preserves the
Napster experience while at the same time providing payments
to rightsholders, including recording artists, songwriters,
recording companies and music publishers.
Read RAIN's coverage here.
|
The
presidential election and its ensuing controversy
had implications even in the radio and Internet industries,
and spurred quite a bit of discussion from RAIN readers.
This is from November 10th...
Presidential
outcome may hinge on bad user interface
design
 BY
KURT HANSON
To remind yourself that graphic design issues are
not some minor point you can safely leave for subordinates
to worry about, keep in mind that the race to determine the
next President of the United States -- and, of course,
the choice of some Supreme Court justices that will affect
the next  several
decades -- may hinge on a single bad "user interface"
decision by one Florida county official!
And the fact that the lousy user interface, which statistics
show pretty conclusively hurt the Democratic candidate, was
approved by a Democrat herself shows one other thing: The
critical importance of user
testing before making
graphic design decisions.
RAIN's coverage of this story is here.
|
Along
with all the controversy and debate leading up to it,
this final development, from December 11th, capped
off the year 2000. As to whether or not this will adversely
affect the industry, the debate continues...
Broadcasters
must pay copyright fees to stream music
BY
PAUL MALONEY
On Friday, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that broadcasters,
like Internet-only webcasters, will have to pay copyright
fees to stream music online -- even to simply webcast their
over-the-air signal.
The government, however, chose not to rule on the issue
of "interactivity," or how much a listener can influence
the music he or she hears, and decided that the amount of
personalization allowed will have to be determined for each
individual case.
"This was a very good day for webcasters," said Jonathan
Potter, the executive director of the Digital Media Association,
which represents webcasters in the tilt against the RIAA.
Read RAIN's coverage here.
|
This
is the third and final part in this series.
From VentureWire.com: "
Listen.com,
which distributes products and services for music on the Web, said
it laid off 42
employees, or 25 percent of its staff. The company said it is restructuring
since its business changed from a business-to-consumer model to
a syndicated business-to-business model.
"The company said it made staff cuts in every department
except sales."
|
Have
an opinion on this article? Share it! Simply click
the headline at left to bring up a convenient "Submit"
form. |
From the RadioWave press release: "
RadioWave.com
announced the appointment of Tom McCarthy
as
VP/Chief Technology Officer. Formerly the Director of Worldwide
Engineering Operations at Bose, McCarthy brings extensive technology
management experience to RadioWave.com where he will provide strategic
guidance in the acquisition and development of enabling technologies,
as well as leadership for the company's engineering resources...
"Before his tenure at Bose, McCarthy's experience included
senior technical and general management roles in both Lockheed Martin
and General Electric...
"McCarthy holds an Executive MBA from Boston University,
MSEE from Syracuse University, and a BSEE from Lowell University,
among other technical and business education."
|
|
Simply
click the headline at left to bring up a convenient pop-up
form -- or click here
to use your own e-mail software. |
From the company press release: "
PhatNoise,
Inc., developer of the first complete automotive digital
media
jukebox system, today announced that Visteon Corporation has licensed
its award-winning technology for a new vehicle audio system called
the MACH MP3 Jukebox.
"Visteon's MACH MP3 Jukebox, powered by PhatNoiseŚ technology,
will enable consumers to enjoy MP3
and WMA music tracks through their existing vehicle audio system.
The MACH MP3 Jukebox, designed specifically for the automotive environment,
will play up to 4,000 high quality digital audio tracks, enabling
consumers to bring an entire music collection into the vehicle quickly
and easily...
"PhatNoise's technology includes powerful software for
uploading and managing MP3 and WMA content, a removable storage
cartridge capable of holding up to 4,000 audio tracks and reprogrammable
hardware."
Read the press release
here.
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Try
it out! Explore the wide world of
Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.
