BY PAUL MALONEY
According to ABC Radio property WLS-AM/Chicago's
website, the company was
to have taken down the last
of their remaining online streams as of midnight this morning.
From the site: "Effective 12:01 a.m. on Monday, April 16th,
Newstalk 89 WLS -- along with all other ABC
radio stations -- will temporarily suspend our live Internet broadcasts.
ABC is rebuilding its Internet streaming infrastructure in order
to handle all of the many Digital Rights Management issues that
have emerged..." The site did indicate that the absence of
a live stream is temporary.
According to Radio Ink (here),
ABC-owned music stations had pulled their streaming as of last Friday,
but the company continued to allow their talk stations to stream.
A message on WABC-AM/New
York's site was a little more direct (see screenshot). With
the headline "Who grabbed my WABCRadio.com audio stream away
from me?"
and an accompanying animation of a hand bursting
through the page and "grabbing,"
a short bit all
but blamed the situation on AFTRA announcers.
WJR-AM/Detroit also indicated
its stream had been pulled to be "retooled." Even
KSFO-AM/San Francisco,
which had reportedly still been streaming past this morning's announced
deadline, has now suspended their stream.
...
 |
...
BY KURT HANSON
WABC's explanation, as shown
in the screenshot above, seems a bit  disingenuous.
AFTRA is not "now making demands." The truth is, they successfully
negotiated an increase in talent fees in arms' length negotiations
with agencies last summer and signed the contract last fall.
Perhaps it seems ridiculous that agencies would have agreed
to quadruple the talent fees for spots that run on the Internet,
but that's what they apparently did. Maybe they traded something
else way for it. In any event, it would seem that AFTRA won
its increase fair and square.
It's actually the agencies
that are primarily responsible for shutting down radio
station streams. They (or their buying services) are the ones
that have decided that they don't want to pay that extra one-time
$600 expense to increase the reach of their schedules.
And the secondary culprit might be the radio stations
themselves, who for many months now have had the opportunity
to acquire the technology that allows spots to be selectively
stripped out of the broadcast stream and replaced with Internet-only
spots...but chose not to do so.
(Am I wrong? Am I missing something? E-mail me here.)
... |
Later today, RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson will cohost "Radio
Files," a live, streamed industry talk show
at RadioInk.com.
Radio Ink editor Ed Ryan and Hanson will discuss the recent
decision by some major broadcasters to suspend streaming their
broadcast content on the Internet at the request of advertising
agencies, who are contractually obliged to pay union commercial
talent extra for radio commercials that run online.
Also to be discussed is the possible solution offered by
ad-insertion technology. Scheduled to appear on the show are representatives
from ad-insertion companies like SurferNETWORK
CEO Gordon Bridge, CLBN
CTO Frank LaFraniere, and RadioWave
CEO Bill Pearson. Guests will also include LMIV CEO Jack Swarbrick;
and officials from the commercial talent union, and advertisers
and advertising agencies.
The show will stream this afternoon at 3 PM CDT (4 Eastern).
|
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an opinion on this article? Share it! Simply click
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From the Industry Standard: "MP3, a popular format
for downloading music from the Web, is encountering
competitive
pressure as leading technology companies such as
Microsoft
Corp. work to subtly wean consumers away from the technology, Thursday's
Wall Street Journal reported...
"Microsoft, for example, plans to severely limit the
quality of music that can be recorded as an MP3 file using software
built into the next version of its personal-computer operating system,
Windows XP. But music recorded in the Redmond, Wash., software company's
own format, called
Windows
Media Audio, will sound clearer and require far less storage
space on a computer.
"RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle also is encouraging consumers
to use proprietary software formats, such as its Real Audio 8, though
RealNetworks' listening
software can accommodate a variety of different formats, including
MP3 and Microsoft's."
Read the full story
here.
RAIN readers have been
quite vocal about their feelings regarding webcasting and its
most recent challenge. This is just a sample of the great feedback
we've been getting. We hope to continue to publish more as this
ordeal develops.
Please share your thoughts with us and other
RAIN
readers. E-mail us with your insight at
feedback@kurthanson.com,
or feel free to use the "Send a quick message to
RAIN"
boxes. We look forward to hearing from you.
 |
"We
give the ad agency too much control..."
|
Throughout the dialog that is looming drearily
about AFTRA/AAAA and all the other groups looking for
another nickel there is one thing they have overlooked, the CLIENT!.
As I recall from my 35 plus years in marketing nothing would happen
if we didn't have a client to represent.
Frankly I think we give the "ad agency" too much control!
While radio is working towards being a viable partner with
the Internet -- which by the way, is opening doors for some clients
presence to be introduced to a wider world -- we are being told
by the "ad agency" that we cannot stream some commercials without
prior approval. HUMBUG!
Agencies and broadcasters need to be partners, not adversaries
-- and realize that better and more profitable gains will happen
as an end result.
|
"Listeners
'can't' legally listen..."
|
This is simply one more assault on how listener's
can't (in somebody's language)
legally listen to our radio stations.
First it was the ASCAP/BMI cops (they were really Muzak
salespeople weren't they?) telling every
mom-and-pop
store it's illegal to listen to anything other than "fill-in-the-blank"
subscription service even though the Supreme Court had clear
guidelines on how commercial businesses could play radio stations.
Now it's this.
I don't have any quarrel with anybody asking to be paid
for their work; I have a
huge
problem on
how this one
is being laid on our doorstep.
| |
William Wertz
Fairfield Radio
|
|
"Wait
'til the other shoe drops with DMCA..."
|
I would be worried about Arbitron and Measurecast
and what those ratings are going to look like without the big
players. Will it be all euro stations or will it be Internet
only plays. And wait til the other shoe drops with DMCA.
|
"Why
should AFTRA get more money?..."
|
This whole thing is totally absurd! The music
industry should be thrilled that stations are webcasting! I
listen to web radio because the over-the-air stations in my
city do not offer a lot of what I care to listen to. I have
had to seek out other sources. Translation: I am hearing things
that I might actually BUY, solely provided by these webcasts.
As for AFTRA, there are only 2 types of web listeners.
Those that can receive the station over-the-air and those that
can't. Those that can most likely also listen over-the-air in
their cars, homes, offices, etc. This means they are the same
audience. Why should AFTRA get more money for that?
For those such as myself, I cannot patronize local advertisers
(since I don't live there).
