TEN SCOOPS IN TEN DAYS! We've got a LOT of excellent, exclusive material in the queue. Look for original reporting on brand-new stories involving radio and the Internet every day for two straight weeks in RAIN!

BY KURT HANSON
Without any press release on the subject or, as far as I know, any other type of formal announcement, WWW.com, the Los Angeles-based multi-channel Internet-only webcaster, appears to be on the verge of launching a new version of its product that will offer listeners its 230 channels on a commercial-free basis -- for $5/month.

WWW.com is the firm that has repositioned itself as a "business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C)" play and recently received $41.5 million in venture capital funding from London's Carlton Communications, Synapse Capital, Gold & Appel Ltd., and Transamerica Business Credit Corp. (See 5/26 RAIN story here.)

Sometime in the past month, I believe, WWW.com quietly debuted a new audio player -- with a new button on it labeled "Commercial free." (See screenshot excerpt at left. The pink oval is RAIN's emphasis, not theirs.)

That button opens up a window at the bottom of the player that contains the following message:

This is an interesting angle! However, it's mitigated by the fact that I'm not sure that I'm not sure I've ever heard a paid commercial on a WWW.com channel. (This morning, for example, as I write this, over the course of about 90 minutes of punching around I heard two stop sets. One consisted of two 30-second PSA's. The other consisted of 45 seconds of silence, a 30-second PSA, more silence, and finally another 30-second PSA -- followed by last half of the Temptations' "Just My Imagination".)

This also raises the question of whether consumers would be willing to pay any amount -- even pennies -- to prevent banner ads from showing up on an audio player. (Certainly there's never been any consumer interest in purely visual mediums like magazines offering ad-free versions.)

Nonetheless, this will be an interesting experiment to watch!

...	... WWW.com offers six subchannels of oldies -- "50s Hits," "60s Hits," "Jukebox," "Motown," "Oldies," and "Teen Idols." The "Oldies" subchannel is described as "Classic jams from War, The Stylistics, The Delfonics and more. It was music that reflected everyday life." But as I write this, the channel is playing "It's Now or Never" by Elvis Presley -- which is about as far from a classic jam as Elvis ever recorded. ...
	... All right, I have one other beef: WWW.com just played "Always and Forever" by Heatwave, and according to the audio player's display, it's from the album "Art Laboe's Dedicated To You Vol. 3." No, it's not! As every fan of the song knows, it's from the 1976 Epic album "Too Hot to Handle." (And it's also available on Heatwave's greatest hits CD(s).) This is simply sloppy work. They ripped the song from a compilation CD, so, for convenience's sake, that's the album title they choose to display on their player. (And this is not an isolated case -- they're using the same kind of attribution for about a third of the songs they play on this channel.) Please note, however, that WWW.com is not alone in doing this; I've seen it in other places too. (But it's nonetheless annoying.) ...
	... Wait, wait, wait! Now the Oldies channel -- remember, "Classic jams from War, The Stylistics, and The Delfonics" -- is playing "It's You Or No One" by Doris Day. ...

Have an opinion about WWW.com's $5/month pay radio plan? Share it with other RAIN readers! (Thanks to the work of RAIN's crack team of interns, clicking the headline at left should bring up a nice POP-UP FORM.)

BY PAUL MALONEY
Fourteen "Styles" channels representing basic formats. Eight "Destinations" representing CDNow-programmed "hybrid" formats. And of course the opportunity to (almost) instantly purchase the music you hear from CDNow's extensive inventory.

The idea behind this online retailer creating a "living" catalog to push CD sales is a good one. Even the interface, navigation, and player are good. There are just a few questions that arise when you listen to the channels.

The CDNow Radio homepage provides navigation to the "Styles" and "Destinations" channel pages. "Styles" are simply basic musical formats like Alternative, Classical, and Pop. Additionally, CDNow has designed eight "Destination" formats, which seem to be designed more around themes, demographics, or experiences.

One example of a "Destination" format is "The Villa," described as follows: "Take a break from your hectic day of errands, the kids, and the daily grind...Whew! Relief is here."

Unfortunately, the actual musical selections you hear don't often seem to mesh as well as the channel's colorful description might lead you to believe. Cases in point: Frank Sinatra, Doobie Brothers, and TLC in "The Vineyard" (what's in that wine?), or Hootie and the Blowfish on an "Altered State" channel which is described with the musical examples of Fatboy Slim, Deftones, and Method Man.

Of course, you can leave the CDNow site and keep the player open. The player itself even gives brief descriptions of the channels, so if you want to switch channels, you don't need to return to the homepage to figure out where you want to go.

Again, the idea here is really admirable. In fact, it's how traditional radio sells records: Play the songs and artists your audience is expecting, and add in new music that it's reasonable to expect the audience will grow to like.

Reprinted from yesterday's late afternoon edition:

RAIN readers have been responding to Friday's article (here) on the Internet-only CHR broadcaster ClevelandHits.com, and more...

"To compare webcasting to other forms of media is not accurate..."

Thanks much for the coverage of the growth of Hits Network. I would like to spend a little time on the numbers you deduced as an editorial addition to your article. You're right about 7a in the morning not being a peak time for webcasting. But more than that we have many more listeners that do not interact and choose just to listen. We find morning non-drive time to be our worst daypart. Even less traffic than overnights. It's a webcast thing!!!

Secondly, looking at the time-spent-visiting and average visitors per moment is not an accurate look at any media when the perspective you are using the average of a 24 hr. day. Webcasting has peak hours during the day and peak days during the week. Such a broad look at any media is never favorable. Give me a break. I feel those numbers for my first full month of webcasting are spectacular.

Our stations' job is to deliver local Internet users to local customers websites by being closest to that choice...on the Internet and a mouse click away. Is it a quick fix? No. Is webcasting a plodding, gnawing, long term media? Yes, other media have their uses. TV for its shotgun approach. Radio for its use outside the home. Print for its use as....well, I don't what you use print for (just kidding).

To continue to compare webcasting to other forms of media is not accurate. We are not trying to take the place of any media. We are taking our place among the media as another tool for delivering an audience. How come no one seems to mention the qualitative advantages of the webcasting audience? Sometimes less is better.

Mike Hilber ClevelandHits.com

Well-respected New York City-based radio researcher Gerry Boehme also wrote in recently...

"There is nothing that says that low-ranked stations are 'less valuable..'"

I have been reading with interest your articles and the comments by others regarding the audience size of Internet audio streamers. Frankly, I think your whole approach is misdirected and shows that we all have a long way to go before we realize how different this new medium really is.

There is no longer a "minimum" level of audience that a channel needs to be viable. There may no longer be a need for research companies to rank the top channels based on audience size. The net is changing the entire way advertisers and sellers look at audience and delivery because we finally have access to a medium where channel choice is virtually limitless. The issue is no longer one of minimum audience. It now consists of finding the right method to reach listeners in this very complex environment.

In the past, media have always depended on limited access to channels for at least a portion of their success. The FCC controls channel space for radio and TV; cable systems are limited by the number of channels they can offer through a wire to the home; even newspapers have to construct printing plants, etc. Each media vehicle has to hire and maintain staff to prepare content, make sales, etc.

By definition, limited channels can garner "significant" audience because channels try to appeal to the masses and the consumer has limited choices. Put 100 channels in a market of 1 million people and the channels will average 10,000 each. After a while everyone starts to think that 10,000 audience is significant. Attracting more than the average audience makes the channel a winner. Losers fall below the average audience size.

Limited channel space also affects the sales process. Agencies are paid by the amount of advertising they place. In a world where advertising runs on specific individual channels, advertisers have to find a way to limit the discussions that they have with salespeople to make the process as efficient as they can. Agencies therefore look at things like rankers to rule out channels which fall below some arbitrary number.

There is nothing that says that low-ranked stations are "less valuable" than high-ranked stations on a person-by-person basis. In fact, you could argue that niche-appeal stations actually have more loyal audiences who may be more responsive to an advertiser's message. The only thing that makes four one-share radio stations worse than one four-share radio station is that the advertisers has to perform four negotiations instead of one. Therefore the small stations don't get bought, and we start thinking in terms of rankers and minimum audience size. It's all about efficiency, not value.

Now think of a market where the 1 million people have a virtually unlimited number of choices. There no longer is an "average" audience size. Each person could theoretically have their own favorite channel, or two. The average audience size is one, yet 'one' is not an insignificant number since each channel represents the 'best' way to reach each individual consumer. The problem for the advertiser is how to make an ad placement efficient when literally thousands of channels need to be purchased to reach the consumer in the environment that best suits the individual.

That's where we are today, and this business is still in its infancy. Streaming providers offer hundreds of channels. Many providers offer the consumer the ability to program their own content according to their personal tastes and schedules. Does average audience size, or AQH, or ATH, or rank positions, mean anything in that environment? The answer is no. The value becomes individual delivery to individual consumers.

All that an advertiser really wants is two things: the ability to reach a person in an environment where the ad makes the most impact, and a method to reach enough consumers to generate awareness and sales. The only real challenge is to make the process efficient so one advertiser can reach many consumers across virtually infinite channels. That is what Katz Interactive is doing through its streaming media sales network.

So please -- enough already with comparisons of web to terrestrial channels in terms of audience size. No matter how big the web audience gets, the sheer number of available channels will always show relatively low audiences per-channel. You're trying to fit streaming into a comfortable, traditional, limited-channel box, and it doesn't belong there.

Gerry Boehme Sr. VP, Managing Partner Katz Interactive Marketing

Want to comment on Gerry's thoughts? Simply click the headline at left!

September 12-14	Digital Coast 2000, Los Angeles, featuring a panel on Internet radio moderated by RAIN's Kurt Hanson
September 20-22	Gavin.com: Music on the Net, San Francisco
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
Sept. 29-Oct. 1	MOBE/Internet & Technology, Chicago
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
October 9-12	QuickTime Live! Conference, Beverly Hills
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
Nov. 28-Dec. 1	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Santa Clara, CA

 

xxx

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