BY
KURT HANSON
According to ABC Radio's EVP/New Media Geoff Rich, ABC has
temporarily pulled its webcast streams as part of a larger plan
to implement what may be the industry's most sophisticated system
for turning broadcast content into a
customized-for-the-Internet
webcast stream.
"The main point here," Rich (pictured, right) told
RAIN
yesterday, "is that ABC is rebuilding its streaming infrastructure
in order to handle
all of
the many digital rights issues that have emerged in the
past
four months -- including music rights, advertising, third-party
content, and the thing that everybody seems to be forgetting about
right now, embedded network commercials.
"For us, 2001 is the year that the Internet has got to
grow up. It can't do everything it wants to do. It used to be,
'It's the Internet, it's cute.' But this is the year that intellectual
property issues have got to be addressed."
Many ABC Radio stations have performed well in Internet
listening surveys.
Stations like WABC-AM/New York, KQRS-FM/Minneapolis,
and KSFO-AM/KGO-AM/San Francisco have consistently been near the
top in
MeasureCast's
weekly "Top 25" ratings, and ABC is currently
Arbitron's
number one rated
broadcast
network on the Internet. ABC Radio streams through RealNetworks.
Rich said that ABC is developing new proprietary systems
that can feed different commercials, music beds, sweepers, jingles,
and promos on a station's webcast stream.
"On the air, we'll be able to have a jingle that says '95.5 WPLJ,'
while on the Internet the jingle can say 'WPLJ.com,'" Rich explained.
"These are things that can make it a more interesting medium."
"It's a studio-level solution as opposed to a server-level
solution," Rich told
RAIN. "Think of it as having a separate
mix for your Internet stream. We're audio entertainers, and we're
trying to make the end user's experience as enjoyable as possible."
How quickly will this be rolled out? "We're hopeful that
all our stations will be up with this new system in the next 60
to 90 days," Rich said, noting that the first stations using the
system will roll out sooner than that.
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.
This feedback is in response to RAIN publisher Kurt
Hanson's comments during Monday's Radio Ink
webcast discussion and his analysis the following day (here).
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.
 |
"Ignorance
is no excuse..."
|
How large was the negotiator's sample size regarding
the awareness of streaming among buyers? Ten
people?
Any media buyer who is not aware that radio stations are
streaming should NOT be buying media. Kurt is right: there have
been articles in many online and offline trade magazines. Many media
buyers ask for banner ads as added value. One would think that they
have checked out the radio station website to make sure the content
is acceptable for their client and that the content is updated frequently
and promoted heavily on air. Ignorance is no excuse.
| |
Marlene Kruelle, Manager of Media Services Cox Interactive
Media
|
|
"90%
of my clients are local..."
|
As
an owner of an agency buying air time on 6 radio stations in
Southern California, I disagree with your assessment that "it's
worth $660 to get spots played on webcasts."
That may be for national advertisers, but 90% of my clients
are local and would derive no extra benefits by their spots being
webcast. Gross impressions indeed.... Well, I'm not impressed!
The alternative would be for radio stations to build in
the extra cost to advertisers and agencies.... For in my situation,
I'd have to raise my rates and perhaps lose business.
| RAIN's Kurt Hanson replies: He's right! I
was thinking about major market and national buys in my analysis.
For the 1-2% increase in avails that this buyer would get
on this buy, a $660 increase in talent fees is absurd. The
AAAA/ANA negotiation with AFTRA did not do SuperRadioFan any
favors. |
|
"We
can do it, and keep 100% of the money..."
|
Why should stations have to "acquire the technology
that allows spots to be selectively stripped out of the
broadcast stream and replaced with Internet-only spots?"
Broadcasters have been up in the air about this whole Internet/streaming
thing from the beginning. This AFTRA fee was just one more reason
to respond with a knee jerk reaction and everyone followed suit.
The problem with the whole thing is this: where's the revenue?
Turn my inventory over to a company that will strip out
my local advertisers and AFTRA spots, and let them sell my inventory
and send me a check at the end of the month? Forget it! I was a
broadcaster. I think like a broadcaster. And broadcaster's believe
that if they can do it, we can do it, and keep 100% of the money.
Period.
|
"Radio
will figure out what's best for radio..."
|
Right now our brightest and best minds have set
about the task of solving the technical issues surrounding
ad-insertion for our Internet broadcasts. Previously, most ad-insertion
discussions began and ended with solutions currently being offered
by such third party providers as
HiWire
or
CLBN (With some sort
of revenue sharing plan at the heart of these solutions).
I believe the best solutions will be those that put radio
stations in total control of their on-line revenue streams, providing
us with tools to sell, implement and account for on-line inventory
on the local level. While recent developments have given some broadcasters
pause with regard to streaming and perhaps even given others an
excuse to give up entirely, in the end, radio will figure out what’s
best for radio… We’ll just do it a lot faster now!
| |
Hal Fish, Program Director
WBZX/WEGE Columbus, Ohio
|
|
Have
an opinion on this article? Share it! Simply click
the headline at left to bring up a convenient "Submit"
form. |
From the press release: "
MeasureCast
announced that the total number of hours streamed by on-line
broadcasters measured by MeasureCast declined nearly five percent
during the week of April 9-15, due largely to stations temporarily
pulling their broadcasts off the Internet as a result of the AFTRA
Recorded Commercials Contract, which requires advertisers to pay
a higher fee if ads originally recorded for radio are played over
the Internet...
"Last week, the MeasureCast Internet Radio Index returned
to February listening levels, dropping 4.8 percent from a value
of 148 to 141. The index has declined a total of 13.3 percent during
the past two weeks."
Read the press release and see this week's MeasureCast Top
25
here.
