From YahooNews: "Just nine months after its launch, Intel Corp. is quietly closing down a streaming media content business that the world's largest chipmaker said would serve an estimated $2.5 billion market by 2004.

"Intel, Santa Clara, Calif., announced the effort -- Intel Internet Media Services -- in May 2000 and said then it would spend $200 million to build an Internet media business that would allow customers to transmit everything from movies to conferences to online training via the Internet.

"But a subsequent oversupply of streaming media content providers, changing business plans of content start-ups that would use streaming to generate sales and the slowing economy meant it would take too long for the division to make money, said Intel spokesman Bill Calder."

Read the entire story in YahooNews here.

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From The Globe and Mail: "Martz Communications Group Inc. has pulled the plug on its Internet broadcasting operations, FMcities.com and FMcanada.com...

"A notice on the FMcanada.com site yesterday said the service interruption was temporary, but Mr. Martz confirmed FMcities.com has dropped off the Internet permanently, because it is unlikely new capital or a buyer will be found.

"He blames the soft Internet advertising market for the shutdown.

"'We had revenue and were growing, but [profits] were still a long way out,' he added. 'The audience was there, but it was our inability to monetize that audience.

"'It's absolutely viable, if we weren't in this current negative dot-com climate that we're in,' he said. 'I think maybe this was just ahead of its time.'"

Read the entire story in GlobeandMail.com here. Read RAIN's initial coverage of this story here.

...

. One additional problem Martz might have faced involves the fact that he was hoping to find media partners in each city to help him promote his radio stations. His problem might have been this: Any potential media partner could have simply gone to Everstream themselves to get the exact same 50-station line-up under their own brand, keeping 100% of net revenues for themselves (rather than just getting a percentage of Martz's revenues). -- KH ...

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From Arbitron: "News/talk/information webcasters were particularly popular in November due to the presidential election, according to Arbitron's Webcast Ratings.

"In November, WABC-AM, a New York-based news, talk and information radio station streamed by Real Broadcast Networks, had 369,500 Aggregate Tuning Hours (ATH) - the sum total of all hours that listeners tune to a given channel...

"'Online and terrestrial radio listenership of news/talk/information stations has increased in the month of November,' said Joan FitzGerald, director of marketing, research and development, Arbitron Internet Services. 'The ATH for news, talk and information programming has increased from 1,187,600 hours in October to 1,645,800 hours in November...'

"The decline in reported listening from October to November by NetRadio channels is attributed to missing raw tuning information due to technical streaming server issues. In November, raw tuning information was missing for more than 50 percent of the month."

Read the entire story and see the rankings here.


We've received lots of great feedback over the past week or so, and we want to share with you some of the great insight and ideas of RAIN readers.

If you have any thoughts on issues we've covered in RAIN, or anything in the realm of radio and the Internet, we'd love to hear from you. Click one of the "Send a quick message to RAIN!" boxes, or click here to use your own e-mail client. Thanks!

Simply click the headline at left to bring up a convenient pop-up form -- or click here to use your own e-mail software.

Here's even more feedback RAIN's coverage of Activate's shutting down of former GlobalMedia (now SurferNetwork) radio stations streams (read RAIN coverage here and here. Read yesterday's feedback here.)

"Probably the most sensible course for most stations in that position..."

Rich Potyka's solution ("RAIN Reader Feedback" here) to the whole Magnitude/Global/Surfer/Activate mess is probably the most sensible course for most stations in that position. As I see it, the choices are:

1. Sign a dubious agreement with a company that is highly unlikely to survive (I'm not singling out Surfer Network here - that holds true for anyone offering barter-only streaming now or in the near future).

2. Pay for it. Companies like Activate, iBeam, & Akamai do an excellent job of large-scale streaming at realistic prices, or you can co-locate your own servers somewhere. If you're really serious about reaching anything approaching a marketable audience size, this is pretty much your only option.

3. Do it yourself. Most stations that were streaming with the barter networks have reasonably small online audiences (less than a few hundred concurrent listeners) that can easily be handled by a server located at a local ISP. ISP's are, as a rule, quite amenable to trade deals.

This enables a station to maintain an online presence while they let things shake themselves out in the streaming space. There shouldn't be any costs involved that can't be traded out with an ISP & perhaps a computer retailer.

Bill Goldsmith www.kpig.com, www.radioparadise.com

February 21-25, 2001	The Gavin Seminar 2001, Miami, FL
February 26-28, 2001	Broadcasters Website Sales Conf. 2.0, Tempe, AZ