TEN SCOOPS IN TEN DAYS! We've been giving you original reporting on brand-new stories involving radio and the Internet virtually every day for the past two weeks in RAIN. And we've got even more coming soon!

From Radio Ink: "GetMedia.com is yet another Internet company that has gone under. This one, a company that attempted to provide e-commerce solutions to Radio stations. GetMedia even lured Joe Carrife, a highly successful San Fransisco radio station sales manager to 'the other side' but it was not to be.

"There has been no official release from the company, often there never is. However, the word is that the doors are officially closed and everyone is out. Other indications are that the company has been unable to pay its advertising bills for quite some time. A leading website that details companies that go out of business called F*&%ED Company.com has Getmedia.com as a 100 on the scale of 1 to 100 for companies bailing out."

... You know, it had always seemed odd to me that the company was never able to afford to get a reasonably professional-looking logo. -- KH ...

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BY PAUL MALONEY
NetRadio.com SVP Content and Programming David Witzig is leaving the Minneapolis-based, multichannel Internet-only webcaster NetRadio.com to develop the music and movies section of Best Buy's website, he informed RAIN last night.

Witzig explained, "After four+ years of working at an Internet startup, I have decided to go back to the 'for profit' world. Next week, I will start working at BestBuy.com. I will oversee the music and movies area of BestBuy.com and help to build a significant presence for Best Buy on the Web."

NetRadio is the only one of the four big multichannel operations -- the others, we believe, being Spinner, SonicNet, and WWW.com -- currently participating in Arbitron's InfoStream webcast ratings study. In February, the five channels that NetRadio allowed Arbitron to measure (of their 120 total channels) took five of the top six slots in the month's report (here).

Regarding NetRadio's profitability, local business news site dBusiness.com reported last month, "Broadband service provider NetRadio (Nasdaq:NETR) announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2000. Revenues for the second quarter were $616,000, up 164 percent from $234,000 for the same period a year ago. Net loss for the period totaled $4.1 million, or 41 cents a diluted share, against last year's net loss of $2.6 million, or 43 cents a diluted share.

"Shares of NetRadio closed Friday (7/21) at $2.50, down 25 cents. The 52-week range for the stock is $1.50 to $14 and the stock has slid downward since the company's initial public offering in October." (The stock was trading this morning at $1.88, giving the company a market capitalization of about $19 million, down from a high last fall of about $100 million.)

NetRadio is 49.9%-owned by the music and software wholesaler Navarre Corporation. The dBusiness article described its business model this way: "NetRadio lures CD buyers to its music retail site with free online radio content covering genres from country and Christian to rap and rock."

...

... NetRadio sounds like one of the better-programmed multichannel operations -- with actual radio programmers actually involved in programming its channels. But we don't quite understand how a 56-employee firm (per Hoover's Online here) can be spending almost $20 million per year. (Sure, there are marketing costs -- but how much marketing have you noticed for NetRadio?) ...

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From the press release on BusinessWire: "The number of Americans who have listened to radio stations online has tripled from 6% of Americans in 1998 to 20% in July 2000 according to a new Arbitron/Edison Media Research Internet Study.

"When listening to Internet-only audio channels is added to those who have listened to radio stations online, one quarter of all Americans have listened to Internet audio which is approximately 57 million people. 34 million Americans (15%) have viewed online video according to the new Internet study.

"'Webcasting is rapidly approaching critical mass as evidenced by the growing number of people listening to audio and viewing video online,' said Bill Rose, general manager and vice president, Arbitron Internet Information Services. 'More and more Americans are going to the Internet for their listening and viewing and advertisers are beginning to invest their ad dollars to reach "Streamies" who spend more time and money online.'

"'Audio and video make Web sites more interesting, appealing and "sticky,"' said Larry Rosin, President, Edison Media Research. 'In fact, three quarters of Americans surveyed agreed that Web sites would be more enjoyable if sound and video were included more often.'

"These facts are a preview of the findings in the upcoming 'Arbitron/ Edison Internet V: Twenty Startling New Insights About the Internet and Streaming.' The full study will be released at the National Association of Broadcasters Conference in San Francisco on September 21, 2000. Since 1998, Arbitron and Edison have conducted five groundbreaking studies of streaming media every six months."

... "Have listened" is not the same as "listening." ...

Kevin Mayer to lead CCU Internet Group
From Radio & Records: "He's been named to the newly created Chairman/CEO post at the Internet Group and will work closely with Clear Channel's radio, TV, outdoor and SFX Entertainment divisions. Mayer, who will report to Clear Channel President/COO Mark Mays, previously was President/CEO of Playboy.com and, while working with Disney, ran the GO.com portal." Read more in R&R Online here.

And from Radio Business Report: "Mayer is responsible for all of Clear Channel’s global Internet and interactive business, as well as overseeing and implementing its long term strategic revenue-generating goals. Based at Clear Channel’s SFX Entertainment in NYC, he will work closely with both SFX and Clear Channels’ radio, outdoor and TV holdings for leveraging and developing synergies. He holds an MBA from Harvard, a Mechanical Engineering degree from MIT and a Master’s in EE from San Diego State. John Martin, former President of Clear Channel’s Critical Mass Media, remains President of Clear Channel’s Web Services Group and now answers to Mayer." Read more at RBR.com here.

New Northwest selects SiteShell to create and maintain websites
From Inside Radio: "SiteShell will produce a locally branded, format-specific, e-commerce integrated website New Northwest’s more than 40 radio properties. New Northwest President Ivan Braiker joins SiteShell’s affiliate advisory board of its "BlueDot Website Network" as part of the deal. New Northwest plans to maintain its own internal Internet group. Will focus on producing advertising and promotions on the websites that make money for New Northwest." Read more in InsideRadio.com here.

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StreamAudio.com to handle Internet streaming of all Saga stations
From Inside Radio: "Will start with Des Moines, IA and Bellingham, WA properties. StreamAudio.com will provide audio streaming, ad insertion and 'now playing' for every Saga website. StreamAudio.com is free for the broadcaster. StreamAudio.com sells banner ads on the player and Internet-only ads inserted in the audio. Sharing the revenues with the stations. StreamAudio.com already has deals with Entercom, Clear Channel, Infinity (providing co-branded streams of Internet-only radio stations), Jefferson-Pilot, Tribune, Delmarva, Hispanic, Zimmer, Sandusky, Big City and Sunburst streaming nearly 450 stations nationwide." Read more in InsideRadio.com here.

New RAIN feature:
	SFBG.com: "The Good Life" "After selling their souls to rock and roll, a handful of S.F. music junkies find justice and jobs in the world of online music" writing reviews for Listen.com. Interesting article from the San Francisco Bay Guardian here
	TimmyBigHands.com A relatively-new humor site (launched in April) from some of the Minneapolis-based creators of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." Includes essays, "poetry," Flash-based cartoons and games, syrup ads, and more. Here.
Do you know of a website that you believe other RAIN readers would enjoy visiting? Recommend it here.

Reprinted from Thursday's edition:


As one of the highlights of this summer's internship program, RAIN's crack team of summer interns is currently in the process of building an Internet-only radio station that readers will be able to listen each day to while perusing that day's issue of RAIN.

The station, to be called (logically enough) RAIN Radio, is not only designed to be an educational experience for the interns, but it will hopefully eventually serve as the "RAIN Test Lab" for various products and services available to webcasters.

Previously, RAIN's summer interns have added a "Search" feature and bulletin boards to RAIN, beefed up our LAN (local area network), contributed a number of "Site of the Day" pieces and feature stories (including last week's piece by intern Ralph Sledge on Internet appliances), and are currently in the process of redesigning RAIN's "RadioJump!" website (our consumer-oriented guide to the wonders of Internet radio).

RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson is a big believer in the value of internships, having launched his career as an intern at WLS/Chicago working alongside such current industry heavyweights as John Gehron, Don Bouloukos, Larry Lujack, Jim Smith, G. Michael Donovan, John Cravens, Linda Waldman, Marty Greenberg, and others.

So look for a series of feature stories on how to build an Internet-only radio station -- starting NEXT WEEK in RAIN!

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
October 10-12	Streaming Media Europe 2000, London (NEW!)
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
November 12-14	Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) "Broadcasting 2000: On-air / On-line," Calgary (NEW!)
Nov. 28-Dec. 1	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Santa Clara, CA, featuring a brand-new national study on Internet radio usage presented by Eric Rhoads & Kurt Hanson

xxx

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