 |
From The i-Street Reporter: "Magnitude
Network, a Chicago-based firm that was a leading  streaming
audio company to Internet radio stations, is closing its doors here
at the end of the month, according to employees interviewed by i-Street.
"CMGI, the Internet operating
company based in Andover, MA, made an initial investment in the
firm in July 1998 and acquired 88% of the firm in January 1999  after
the company attained important milestones. Now Magnitude Network is
down to around 19 employees from as many as 40 earlier this year,
the employees said.
"Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the employees
said management indicated the company -- in which CMGI invested as
much as $23 million -- will be
sold to an unidentified buyer for $5 million.
'We were making money,' said one employee who was looking for a job
Thursday evening at the High Tech Happy Hour on Chicago's north side.
"CMGI's investor relations department did not respond
to the i-Street Reporter by press time...
"Magnitude Network had some recent press in the April
issue of Wired magazine. In a story about the hot new net medium
of streaming audio, Wired reported that Arbitron, a strategic
partner, counted 'nearly 1 million unique listeners tuned to 240 channels
for some 1.3 million hours.' Nine of the 10 top net broadcasters got
their streaming audio from Magnitude Network.
 "One
observer told the i-Street Reporter that while Magnitude Network
was the industry leader, it wasn't making money."
Read more news about Chicago's vibrant high-tech community
in The i-Street Reporter here.
...
...
 |
...
Publisher Darcy Evon of i-Street told RAIN
this morning that she stands by the above story, having found
additional confirmation since it was originally published.
Magnitude Network this year has been offering stations low-cost
streaming packages (as low as $500/month) in which Magnitude
shared revenues from CD sales (through their "Music Massive"
on-line CD store) and retained rights to a "gateway
ad" at the start of each stream (which
they usually used either for a Microsoft ad or to promote "Music
Massive").
It's entirely possible that the gateway ads, being brief
and untargeted, were not big revenue-generators...and CD sales
certainly haven't been huge home runs for most radio station
websites to date.
Magnitude Networks had nine of the top 10 stations in some
of the early Arbitron InfoStream reports -- but only in terms
of Monthly Cume. (They apparently achieved those positions
by having secured good positions on the presets in older versions
of RealPlayer. See RAIN story here.)
Now that Arbitron is factoring in Time Spent Tuning, most
of those Magnitude stations are dropping somewhat lower on the
list of top stations.
i-Street also noted in its article, correctly, that Magnitude,
oddly enough, doesn't appear on the list of CMGI's and CMGI
Ventures' companies, found here
and here.
... |
...
Darcy said she expects to publish an update
this afternoon on Magnitude's buyer...
... |
3PM
update:
From
The i-Street Reporter: "Magnitude
Network, a Chicago-based company that has provided streaming audio
to  about
90 percent of major Internet radio stations, plans to close its doors
July 31, according to employees interviewed by i-Street magazine.
"At press time, it was expected Vancouver-based Global
Media would purchase Magnitude Network’s assets for around
$5 million, although a Global Media spokesperson could not comment...
"Speaking on the condition of anonymity, former and present
employees said Internet operating company CMGI invested as much as
$23 million in the firm in July 1998 and acquired 88 percent of the
firm in January 1999 after Magnitude Network attained important milestones.
But because Magnitude Network was all but giving away streaming audio
services to stations to gain market share, it burned through the investment
quickly...
 "A
former manager...said there was a classic revenue problem: Magnitude
charged just $500 a month to provide streaming audio services to radio
stations. Many of the stations had few Internet listeners and therefore
cost very little to serve, but others, such as KPIG
in Freedom, Calif., have millions of online listeners and cost Magnitude
as much as $10,000 a month for streaming audio bandwidth, one of the
former employees said. The company also offered money-losing Web development
and other services..."
Read the full piece from this afternoon's The i-Street Reporter
here.
| Note
that the "90
percent of
major Internet radio stations"
line is not correct -- I assume it's an allusion to the month
that Magnitude had nine of the top 10 InfoStream monthly cumes
-- and KPIG, of course, doesn't actually have "millions"
of online listeners. |
| Definition
of terms: What I call a "RAIN
exclusive" is a story that hasn't been covered
yet, as far as I know, by the radio industry's trade
publications. Although there may be a credited original source
publication, you hopefully read it about here first. |
From Radio & Records: "Arbitron  posts
station info profiles online: The database, accessible at www.arbitron.com,
contains station names, call letters, broadcast times, frequencies,
formats, programs, on-air personalities and addresses for all Arbitron-measured
stations as submitted by  stations
on their SIP forms.
"The SIP site had been undergoing beta-testing until
yesterday, and is now available to the entire radio industry."
Read more news in R&R Online here.
Executives
from Clear Channel, Launch Networks, and Click Radio are scheduled
to appear  on
panels at the upcoming "Plug.In: Jupiter Online Music Forum"
conference in New York City.
The fifth-annual event, according to Jupiter's website, "has
become the preeminent  gathering
of the industry elite. This two-day event attracts
top-level executives both as speakers and attendees to discuss
topics such as record label strategies, digital distribution, music-oriented
online content, intellectual property and more."
The
event will take place July 24th and 25th at the Sheraton New
York Hotel and Towers. (Click logo at left to visit the forum's
website.)
Read more about the event from the 6/29 issue of RAIN
here or on the Jupiter website
here.
BY RALPH SLEDGE, RAIN intern
About six weeks ago, Radio Business
Report became the first radio trade publication to put their
own  radio
station on the web -- and they did it for $99. "We got some recording
equipment, and we already had a computer and a partnership with
WebRadio," says Vice President Ken Lee. "We're all radio
guys here, so it was easy."
At the core of the broadcast is a two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half
minute news broadcast, voiced by Executive Editor Jack Messmer,
which cycles throughout the day.
The broadcast also contains old radio airchecks, advertisements,
and jingles -- ranging from old "Lone Ranger"  and
"War of the Worlds" episodes and Steve Dahl's 1978 "Disco
Demolition" aircheck to the Mercury Award-winning Budweiser
Frogs commercials.
The archival material seems to be popular: According to Messmer,
the average listening time per user for the broadcast has been
21.9 minutes -- a time span substantially
longer than the short newscast. (This statistic is based on 3,002
users listening for a total of 1,060 hours in June.)
"The people who grew up in the environment [with the older
material] enjoy hearing it again" says Lee. He noted, "We're looking
for help from the industry. If you've got any old jingles or broadcasts
that you think people would like to listen to, send them in!"
Visit the RBR.com website here.
We're writing it now! Please check back shortly.
Reprinted from yesterday's afternoon edition:
From the New York Times: "Less than two years ago, the
first handheld MP3 player was introduced, at a time when  downloadable
digital music was still a mystery to just about anyone...
"That first player, the Rio 300 PMP, has now spawned
its third generation, the Rio 600, as sleek and curvy as its predecessor
was boxy and bland.
"And it is only one of a new wave of consumer-friendly
 digital
players, aimed not at the early adopters, the tech-hungry minority
who will buy anything as long as it is shiny and showy and it beeps,
but at the mass market...
"The goal is nothing less than overtaking the cassette
player and the CD player as the standard for listening to music
on the go..."
| Read
this comprehensive piece on
the new generation of MP3 players -- including one that plays
Iomega Clik disks (but none that seem to have built-in FM capability)
-- from the New York Times's "Circuits" section
here.
|
From
Radio & Records: "Radio
ad revenues exceeded
$2 billion dollars in May, making for the highest month of revenues
in the history of the medium.
"It was only six years ago — in May '94 — that radio
revenues exceeded $1 billion for the first time. The incredible
showing has spurred RAB
President/CEO Gary Fries to predict the radio industry will
end the year with more than $20 billion in revenues. That’s 15%
higher than last year’s $17.4 billion, and Fries says the figures
could even be higher if the economy performs as expected..."
Read more in R&R Online here.
Bertelsmann
agrees to buy CDNow
From
CNET News: "German media conglomerate Bertelsmann today
said it has agreed to buy cash-strapped online retailer CDNow
for $117 million... Under terms of the deal, Bertelsmann  said
it will begin a bid for all CDNow common stock for $3 per share
in cash... In addition, Bertelsmann will give CDNow about $42 million
in advance financing to pay off its existing loans and to fund the
company's ongoing operations until the close of the transaction.
In the past year, its shares have traded as high as $23.25 and as
low as the $2-per-share range..." Read the full story here.
Entercom partners
with Innuity for six markets
From
Radio Business Report:
Leveraging 17 stations in six markets, Entercom announced an agreement
with Innuity’s Media  Services
(IMS) division to produce comprehensive revenue-generating web sites,
along with training for the staff and their advertisers. The deal
includes IMS’s “e-ListenerSuite,” providing listener profiling,
contest management and an email marketing system that will be integrated
into the sites. IMS has more than 300 radio station clients.
WebRadio
issues revenue-sharing checks
From
Radio Business Report: WebRadio.com,
co-owned by GEO Interactive Media and Westwood One,  announced
the issuance of its quarterly revenue-sharing checks to affiliate
radio stations streaming on its network. The company claims some
checks were 200% higher than the cost of streaming. One six-station
market cluster GM, Scott Gillmore of LBJS Broadcasting in Austin,
was quoted as saying, ”Broadcasters are asking who’s making money
on the Internet..the answer is we are..."
Microsoft unveils Windows Media Player 7
From
Streaming Magazine: "Microsoft
announced that the final version of Microsoft Windows  Media
Player is now available for download... The latest release adds
more functionality to the player, integrating new audio-CD-creation
technology from Adaptec Inc. and a wide array of new skins and visualizations..".
Read
more in Streaming Magazine here.
BroadcastAmerica launches BroadcastBible.com
From
Radio Business Report:
BroadcastAmerica.com,
now sporting more than 10 separate online channels, has launched
BroadcastBible.com,
featuring Christian music  and
programming from Southern Gospel to Hip-Hop. Along with a host of
syndicated programs, two stations have signed to stream on the channel:
WJIS-FM Sarasota, FL and KXOJ-FM Tulsa.
 |
"If I ever get real rich, I hope I'm not real mean
to poor people, like I am now."
Buy this fine item from Amazon here.
(RAIN doesn't have an affiliate deal with Amazon or
anything. It's just a great book.)
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