From RBR.com: "Virtually all Los Angeles radio stations
have stopped streaming their programming
on the Internet. The abrupt mass shutdown came after AFTRA sought
to enforce a little noticed new provision of the 'Recorded Commercials
Contract' put into effect last October. It requires advertisers
to pay union talent 300% of the normal session fee if a spot originally
recorded for radio use is used on the Internet.
"The advertisers and agencies immediately told stations
to block their spots from Internet streaming. That forced the stations
to pull the plug on their Web streams while considering whether
a software fix to accomplish that is practical and can be implemented."
Read the entire piece in RBR.com
here.
With the words "We were glad to be of service," and
a display of the awards the product had earned in its short
life, Kerbango seems to be announcing the end of not only the Internet
radio appliance, but the end of the tuning service as well.
RAIN reported (
here)
last month that 3Com had decided to discontinue its appliance line,
which included the Kerbango and Audrey products.
The Kerbango tuning service is a portal of sorts to the streamed
signals that made up the Kerbango "network."
The idea that the service will shut down was supported by an
e-mail from Former Kerbango Sports Editor Scott Cooper, to certain
webcasters, that said, " While we are still looking for new
potential buyers, the outlet is not promising. This means that the
Kerbango Internet radio production and Kerbango tuning service will
effectively be shut down this month. If you have a radio station
listed in our tuning
service,
it will remain there until we shut down, but will not be managed.
We the employees of Kerbango still believe that we have a great
product and service, but current economic conditions at 3COM warranted
their decision. Hopefully, our radio and service can and will resurface
in the future in some form."
From Individual.com: "Labels and Internet companies still
need to wrestle with difficult issues of what to
charge for their services, how much music to make available, and
how to negotiate the rocky shoals of consumer acceptance, royalty
payments and other issues.
"'The signs are good for a thawing in the marketplace,''
said Sean Ryan, president of privately held
Listen.com,
which sells a digital music search engine to other Internet media
networks. 'But there is a big difference between press releases
and a mass market for these products, which is the only thing that
matters,' Ryan said. 'I think we're a bit further away from a mass
market than many of these announcements would have us believe...It
takes time for people to understand the advantages of a subscription
service versus what they currently do.'
"Andrew Rasiej, chief executive and co-founder of
Digital
Music Club, which provides Webcasts of live concerts of
unsigned and smaller independent bands, also expressed some skepticism
about the services. 'There's no detail as to what's going to be
offered by these services,' he said. 'I think the announcements
are more aimed at the business community to make it feel like the
music industry is moving toward providing more robust action.'
From ZDNet News: "Analysts say the (new
MSN
Music) service (reported in
RAIN here)
is as much a placeholder in a quickly evolving market as a serious
bid for today's customers, however. All of the big portals, as well
as music labels and smaller online music companies, are scrambling
to be in a position to attract online music lovers to new subscription
services as free music disappears from Napster . Microsoft, with
a sweeping consumer reach and a strong copy-protection technology
of its own, now becomes a serious contender in that match."
Read the Individual.com piece
here.
Read the ZDNet piece
here.
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From MSNBC: "NBC said Monday it is shutting down its
loss-ridden Internet subsidiary, acknowledging that
any hopes of it becoming profitable had vaporized along with the
online advertising market. Many of the 300 jobs there will be
eliminated as the unit’s assets are integrated into NBC."
From the Industry Standard: "Reversing its course, General
Electric-owned NBC is purchasing the outstanding assets of the
portal NBCi for an estimated
$138 million, or $2.19 a share. The deal represents a 46 percent
premium over NBCi’s Friday closing price of $1.50 a share...
"NBCi CEO Will Lansing, in a prepared statement, said,
'In the end we have determined that this course of action is best
for the company's public stockholders.
They will be receiving a substantial premium over the current
share price, in an environment in which only top-tier portal services
are even close to being profitable."
"NBCi was founded in 1999 as a joint venture with
the direct-marketing company Xoom.com and CNET’s portal Snap.com.
It operated as a Snap.com until last fall, when it was renamed
NBCi."
Read the MSNBC story here.
Read the Industry Standard story here.
Reprinted from Friday...
From the press release: "Twenty-three radio web sites are
succeeding in attracting significant local market
audiences, according to
The
Media Audit, a syndicated survey of both online and traditional
media in more than 80 US markets and accredited by the Media Rating
Council.
"According to the survey data, 23 radio web sites in
the U.S. are attracting at least 2% of all adults in their immediate
market. If the web site audiences were figured
as
a percent of just those adults with Internet access the
percentages would double in
most markets...
"To put the radio web site numbers in perspective, (The
Media Audit co-chairman Bob) Jordan says,
'it
helps to compare them to TV broadcast web sites. Half of the 345
TV broadcast web sites covered in our recent surveys attracted less
than 4% of their market. Even the web sites of the dominant daily
newspaper in most markets attracted less than 10% of that market’s
adults. The radio market is much more fragmented than that of TV
broadcasters or newspapers. In most markets there are at least 15
to 20 radio stations competing for listeners...'
According to The Media Audit data, the 23 most successful
radio web sites in the 80+ markets covered are:
| WNNX-FM, Atlanta |
4.5% |
| KMJX-FM,
Little Rock |
4.3% |
| WEGR-FM, Memphis |
4.1% |
| WIVK-FM, Knoxville |
3.5% |
| KFMB-FM, San Diego |
3.3% |
| WTKS-FM, Orlando* |
2.9% |
| KQRC-FM,
Kansas City |
2.8% |
| KQRS-FM, Minneapolis-St.
Paul |
2.6% |
| WDCG-FM,
Raleigh-Durham |
2.6% |
| KRFX-FM, Denver |
2.4% |
| WGRF-FM, Buffalo |
2.3% |
| WRIF-FM, Detroit |
2.3% |
| WJJO-FM, Madison |
2.3% |
| WKLS-FM,
Atlanta |
2.2% |
| WEBN-FM, Cincinnati |
2.2% |
| WNOR-FM, Norfolk-Virginia
Beach-Newport News |
2.2% |
| WWDC-FM, Washington |
2.2% |
| WTOP-FM/AM, Washington |
2.2% |
| WFLZ-FM, Tampa |
2.2% |
| WBHJ-FM, Birmingham |
2.0% |
| WFYV-FM, Jacksonville |
2.0% |
| WJRR-FM, Melbourne (FL) |
2.0% |
| WVKS-FM, Toledo |
2.0% |
*(WTKS also has a 2.3% in Melbourne, and a 2.1% in Daytona Beach)
Read the press release
here.
We're working right now on getting links to all of these stations
for you.
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