BY
KURT HANSON
Advertising rep firm MediaAmerica
is scaling back its interactive division and resigning some of
its smaller clients in the process, president Gary Schonfeld confirmed
to
RAIN yesterday.
Meanwhile, MediaAmerica interactive division COO Michelle
Jennings is planning to open her own dedicated shop and will work
as an independent contractor for MediaAmerica, dedicated full-time
to streaming ad sales.
Schonfeld explained, "We've always believed in the
Internet, and in streaming.
There's no question we've scaled back the operation, but we're
going to stay in streaming. They (the sales staff) sell all platforms
-- radio, Internet, and cable. We've repurposed some of the people
from the streaming department to support those efforts."
MediaAmerica is a division of Denver-based
Jones
Media Networks, Ltd., which owns and operates a radio
programming syndication business and two cable television networks.
In February, Katz announced it was shutting down its Streaming
Media Sales Network, after the company said its forecasts showed
no positive return on its efforts in the foreseeable future (see
coverage in
RAIN here).
MediaAmerica's announced webcasting clients have included
StreamAudio, SurferNetwork, CLBN (Cool Link), Beethoven.com, RadioMoi.com,
and Morefeo.com.
From RBR.com: "What is it which we understand about satellite
radio that Wall Street is missing? The fatal
flaw in the business plans of both
Sirius
Satellite Radio and
XM
Satellite Radio is really quite simple and obvious—churn.
"At this week’s Banc of America Securities conference
in New York, we asked both companies what they expect their churn
rate (annual subscriber loss which has to be replaced) to be after
the first few years (when it should be near zero, with all subscribers
under their initial contracts). Both offered the same churn projection
for their mature service: 15%...
"No
one knows what the churn rate will be for satellite radio,
but it is illogical to assume that it will be any less than cable
TV—and simply ludicrous to project that it will be half that of
cable. More likely, it will be considerably higher than cable’s
churn rate.
"Cable, with monthly fees four or five times that
of satellite radio, can handle the staff and marketing costs associated
with a 30% churn rate. A 30% churn rate, and the costs associated
with it, would push the break-even point for satellite radio companies
well beyond the 4M subscriber mark that’s now in their business
plans. A rate well above 30%
might
make profitability impossible to achieve...
"Rather than have audience growth held back by the
costly subscription model, we continue to believe that the satellite
radio companies will be forced to compete head-to-head with terrestrial
radio as a free-to-consumer, advertising-supported service."
Read the essay in the Archive section, dated 5/18,
here.
From the press release: "Award-winning classical music
and jazz Internet site
GMN
is transforming into
an 'arts network' and introducing opera, theatre, ballet and 'world
music' channels...
"The network promises an extensive range of its own
content, including arts news from around the globe, plus audio
and video, MP3 downloads, interviews, features, radio, discussion
forums, CDs and other shopping...
"The comprehensive music sites
ClassicalPlus
and
JazzPlus
will deliver the quality classical and jazz music content for
which GMN is renowned. More 'Plus' sites for the other performing
arts genres will be added to the network over the next year."
Read the press release
here.
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This Reader Feedback piece from StreamAudio is in response
to yesterday's RAIN Exclusive (here)
on Cox Radio streaming...
 |
"Why
some (Cox) locations are streaming and some are not..."
|
We wanted to provide you...information as to why some locations
are streaming and some are not. It will
give
your readers a more complete picture regarding the Cox Radio Group's
commitment to streaming.
StreamAudio and Cox are working together to get all stations
back streaming as quickly as possible. Stations that were previously
streaming are being brought back up as soon as we achieve connectivity
to their digital audio systems,
which provide both now-playing info and data to indicate which
commercials should be blocked for AFTRA reasons. As we achieve
connectivity, we bring the stations back online. Geographic location
and format do not enter into the decision to bring a stations'
streaming back up.
Below we've clarified some reasons these stations were
down in the
RAIN report as published:
WHZT-FM - is streaming on a dialup while awaiting a permanent
Internet connection. If the dialup goes down the stream goes down.
That is the case today. The station has been notified the stream
is down.
WSFR-FM - resumed streaming this AM (had a bad encoder
computer)
KRTQ-FM - was down because of problems with their digital
audio system. Those problems have been fixed and the stream is
back up.
Cox Radio, in fact, currently has 43 radio stations streaming.
| |
Tom O'Connor, VP/ Sales and Marketing StreamAudio
|
Here's more feedback from several frustrated streaming listeners
who've been "cut off" since the beginning of the AFTRA
debacle, which either listeners or stations have forwarded to
RAIN...
|
"They
have also cut me off from listening to their ads..."
|
I am getting so frustrated with trying
to listen to my shows at work and getting nothing, that
now I give up  and
am just going to listen to my own local AM WOKV
broadcast on my radio.
Forget you guys, at least I know that my radio signal
never blacks out or has stupid "sometime soon we will be
back on line, just please be patient for another 2 or 3
or who knows how many months". Yeah, like I believe that.
Like the city promises road infrastructure improvements
to be done in 3 months, and 1 1/2 year later the road is
still "in progress."
Those people who want to charge more money for advertisements
(that are additionally broadcast over the Internet) are
fools...in cutting me off from my streams they have also
cut me off from listening to their ads, free or otherwise...and
now that I am back to WOKV, I won't hear their ads in the
future either. |
| It's been more than 90 days! |
You know, nobody gives a **** about
your ****ing disputes with the union thugs. I like to listen
to the same thing everyone else listens to in their cities.
And for AFTRA or what ever the **** the union thugs
call themselves, to tell me how I should listen to what
the locals listen to, seems to be a violation of the First
Amendment.
To you, the union thugs, **** YOU, give me back me
stream, without your censorship, get it, *******s? |
