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 virtually every day for two straight weeks in RAIN!

BY KURT HANSON
In a possibly landmark event for Internet radio, AAA-formatted, Clear Channel-owned "Channel 103.1" (KACD/KBCD/Los Angeles) loses its FM frequency and segues to the Internet at 9AM Los Angeles time this morning.

As noted in a front-page-of-the-feature-section story in Friday's Chicago Tribune, "At a time when almost every radio, TV and gas station has its own Web site KACD's venture is noteworthy because it marks the first time a major chain has committed to moving one of its properties entirely from broadcast to broadband."

Tribune staff writer Gary Dretska added, "If, by moving its operation lock, stock and barrel to the Internet, KACD-FM 103.1 is able to stay alive in the face of rampant merger mania, the Santa Monica-based purveyor of 'World Class Rock' will have accomplished something no other station has done. If it fails, the worst that can happen is that KACD's experiment will be dismissed as being slightly ahead of its time."

The jocks are saying as I write this that there will be very few changes in the station's programming -- although it's going to be four jocks pulling six-hour shifts each. (They' are saying they won't need to say the station's name over and over, as they've been doing in the past to try to get ratings credit.)

Visit the www.WorldClassRock.com website here, read the Trib article here, or read RAIN's recent coverage on the story here and (the second news story on the page) here.

...

... Lots of pieces are in place for this transition, including the availability of a supposedly unlimited number of streams in a variety of formats, including WindowsMedia, RealAudio, and Emblaze (called "Java player") -- but the station's website is in surprisingly poor shape. It's a mere five-page website...and even some of those five pages are outdated! (For example, it says that Clear Channel is "considering" moving the station to the Internet. And the site's one contest is to win tickets to a House of Blues concert that happened over a week ago) (If you only have a five-page website, you'd think you could keep it fairly current). Also, the station's custom audio player, provided by a firm called SpotMagic, is called "SpotPlayer" (pictured below). If you were a consumer who was smart enough to know that "spot" meant "commercial," would you willingly download and install a piece of software called "SpotPlayer"? ...

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BY BOB BELLIN
Streaming media has heated up as a media topic. Several articles on it have been featured here lately that discussed technology as it relates to what one CEO dubbed "the user experience" and I think the subject is worth a look.

It's clear to me that streaming media, particularly audio, is the underachieving "ne'r do well" of the Net music sector. I'm sure that many employees of major Netcasters have already begun typing their exceptions to that statement, but consider this before you hit the "send" button: The latest InfoStream ratings estimate that there are more people living in my small subdivision than listening worldwide, at the average moment, to the # 1 rated webcast.

Edison Research, in their most recent study on the subject, said that only 4% (flat from the previous survey, six months prior) of those online listened to streaming audio in the past week. Arguing that webcasting is a real factor in web entertainment is like arguing that UPN is a real factor in network TV.

There are a lot of reasons that consumers are just saying "no" to web based audio and I've discussed many of them here in the past. One that hasn't been talked about much is the proliferation of customized "players" and endless numbers of registrations. Why are they such a problem?

(1) Usage barrier
Does anyone really believe that the words "register now" or "download now" do anything but send people away? Let's examine the "user experience:" The truth is that none of the custom players or updates on the RealPlayer since the inception of the G2 format (roughly 2 years ago) have done anything to enhance the "user experience" when it comes to streaming media, as the codec is exactly the same for audio and video as it was then. The current Windows Media's codec is newer than Real G2, but it's been over a year since any Windows Media update that impacted sound or video.

I can't be the only one who races for the box with the big X when I see those words -- and the InfoStream numbers lend support to my supposition. It's easy to blame Napster for Streaming Media's slow adoption, but free music on demand doesn't seem to have hampered radio listening much. Of course you don't need to download new software and provide your e-mail address, zip code, age, income, blood type and inseam measurements every time you tune in a new radio station, and that may explain the disparity.

(2) Resource draining
Want to make a Pentuim lll run like a 486? Install a bunch of media players!

We're in the process of testing all of the major players and have found not all programs use equal amounts of system resources in proportion to their size -- and most media players are on the upper end of the utilization spectrum. Not only will they slow you down while they're running, they'll slow your system down when they're not running.

Just uninstalling the players won't help either. Many of them make permanent registry and DLL additions that don't go away after you remove them and those are changes that will bog you down. One additional player and a plug in or two probably won't be all that noticeable, but download five or more and your system will slow considerably.

Who's looking at the banners anyway?
Here's a question for all you "user experience"-focused media streamers. What makes you think that anyone is looking at those banners you've embedded in your custom players? People rarely stare at their clock or car radios -- so they probably won't focus on your faceplate either. I'll bet most folks are using some other application on their PC when they access streaming media and just minimize the player, as leaving it up doesn't enhance that "user experience."

Streaming providers might want to take a cue from the radio industry. They've made quite a business out of selling sixty-second audio ads and my guess is that webcasters would do much better marketing audio than visuals.

Larry Fine of the Three Stooges, having burned a hole in a table with a powerful, smoke emitting substance while looking to hatch some sort of escape, once exclaimed in a burst of vision, "If it'll burn a hole through the table, it'll burn a hole through the floor." Larry's sage insight applies here: If selling audio ads works for radio, it'll probably work for webcasting. I don't know what Moe's opinion would have been, but if asked he probably would have included the words "...you knuckleheads!"

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From The New York Times: "To listen to the editors and publishers of the Web site Inside.com and the magazine Industry Standard talk about the new technology and entertainment magazine they announced last week is to imagine the excitement of ancient Mesopotamians discussing their newly invented wheel...

"The weekly magazine will be titled Inside: The Business of Entertainment, Media and Technology. It is supposed to make its debut by the year's end, focusing on the impact of digital technology on the media and entertainment industries.

"The magazine will be published in a partnership between Standard Media International, the parent company of the two-year-old Internet business magazine The Industry Standard, and Powerful Media, the parent of Inside.com, an entertainment industry news Web site that started in June and is still trying to find its way.

"Michael Hirschorn, the editor in chief of Inside.com, said last week that the Internet economy and digital technology were about to undergo the long-predicted melding and transformation that would make the magazine necessary reading across several industries.

"Even some competing magazine editors said last week that the concept behind Inside was a solid one. Ned Desmond, the editor in chief of E-Company Now, a new monthly magazine published by Time Inc., said that the intersection of technology and entertainment was a growth area that deserved watching.

"'There is certainly the case that there is a lot going on, as a whole bunch of industries try to figure out digital technologies and entertainment," he said. "And we are fascinated by the same subject.'"

Read the entire New York Times story here (registration required).

In regards to the RAIN interview (here) with Arbitron Internet Information Services VP/GM Bill Rose and his company's plans for their InfoStream webcast ratings service, one RAIN reader wrote in with the following perspective:

"Arbitron is trying desperatly to create the need for their product..."

Finally, Arbitron has said it themselves (from your 8/22 issue): "Rose commented on MeasureCast's plans to release data with a 24-hour turnaround basis: 'That's just fine and dandy, I think, when it comes to understanding what's going on with your streams, but software like Lariat's Media Reports has that ability, and it's usually available for free from your content delivery network."

So I ask, why do we need Arbitron or MeasureCast? The CDN's should be offering this as verifiable data from a third party.

Arbitron is trying desperatly to create the need for their product in a medium that already has the ability to offer the data that Arbitron can provide. At this point, they are preying on the ignorance of advertisers and content providers in hopes of establishing a new marketplace.

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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