Triggering a realignment of their management team, Arbitron today announced the hiring of Canadian TV and radio ratings executive Owen Charlebois as head of its U.S. media operations, effective January 1st, 2001, bumping current EVP/GM, Worldwide Media Information Pierre Bouvard (Arbitron's current #2 exec under President Steve Morris) to a new position as President, Internet Information Services.

Up until now, the Internet division -- responsible for the Arbitron Webcast Ratings project -- has been run by VP/GM Bill Rose.

Charlebois is a well-respected ratings exec who has run Canada's BBM Bureau of Management (BBM) for the past ten years. According to the BBM's press release, he will be based out of Arbitron's Research and Technology Centre in Columbia, MD.

More tomorrow in RAIN.



NetRadio Corporation (Nasdaq:NETR) today announced the resignation of President and Chief Executive Officer Edward Tomechko and said that Chairman of the Board Eric Paulson, would assume the President/CEO responsibilities on an interim basis. Paulson will continue in his role of chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Navarre Corporation (NAVR).

Last week, Navarre announced that they expect to record a charge of $9.6 million in the second quarter to write off a loan to NetRadio, which was spun off from Navarre in an initial public offering in Fall of 1999.

Navarre currently owns 49.9% of NetRadio, according to Hoover's Online (here).) Navarre, a music and software distributor, said in a press release that the charge is in accordance with Financial Accounting Standard 114.

According to a news report from Dow Jones (here), "Company officials could not be reached to give a reason for Tomechko's resignation."

NetRadio has been the leading player in Arbitron's "Webcast Ratings" project, scoring five of the top ten positions in the most-recently-released July 2000 report. (See RAIN story here and Tomechko's "Reader feedback" to RAIN in this issue.)

The company lost $14.5 million on sales of $1.4 million -- approximately half of that representing CD sales serviced by Navarre -- in 1999.

Read LocalBusiness.com's take on the story here.

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From the New York Times: "A television network is making its longtime logo the focus of an ambitious promotion to encourage viewers to interact with its Web site. Which network? Here's a hint: The effort, which is to begin today to mark the start of the 2000-2001 prime-time TV season, involves neither eyes nor peacocks.

"The promotion, by the ABC unit of the Walt Disney Company, is emblematic of attempts by media giants to more closely integrate their offline and online operations.

"'We're always trying to find new and different platforms to help people think about the ABC brand: our shows, our stars, our identity,' said Alan Cohen, executive vice president for marketing, advertising and promotion at ABC in Los Angeles.

"The promotion uses a technology developed by a company named DoDots Inc. to offer visitors to the ABC Web site (www.abc.com) an opportunity to download directly to their desktops small packages of Internet content, called ABC Dots, with network themes ranging from video clips and a calendar to games and a news ticker.

"The effort is centered on the ABC logo, the disc carrying the initials of the American Broadcasting Company in lower-case letters. 'The one thing we want more than anything,' said Mike Benson, senior vice president for advertising and promotion at ABC, 'is that when people pick up the remote control, we want them to think of ABC first instead of just thinking "What's on?' and surfing all over...'"

"ABC has already reached agreement with Hearst Entertainment, representing Harvey Entertainment, to use the comic book mainstay Little Dot as the spokescharacter for the ABC Dots promotion..."

Read the full story by Stuart Elliott in today's New York Times here (registration required).

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xxxxxxxxxxxxx In general, this is a great idea: Get yourself prominently placed on your listeners' desktops to promote listening to your station. And it's probably even better suited to radio stations than TV networks, as a lot more people have a favorite radio station than a favorite TV network. But as a minor observation, I always question the actual real-world, consumer-level popularity of Harvey Comics characters. (And "Little Dot" is not one of the best-known or most-beloved characters in even their stable.) And the "DoDots" themselves are incredibly annoying -- you have to keep moving them out of the way of what you're doing -- and the prospect of having DoDots from several different marketers on your desktop simultaneously would be an absolute nightmare! xxxxx

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From the Industry Standard: "An analysis of the financial underpinnings of streaming media delivery suggests that as broadband traffic grows, other content sites and ISPs will find it difficult to cover the costs of delivering streaming media content...

"Jupiter (Communications) predicts that 23 percent of homes with Internet access, or 15 million households, will surf via broadband connections in 2003. IDC offers an even higher estimate: 21 million, accounting for 32 percent of online homes...

"Given that the cost per thousand ads delivered might reach $75, sending out streaming media based on a purely ad-based revenue model that is currently bringing in from $20 to $40 may be foolhardy.

"So far, only very-low-quality video and FM-quality radio streams seem to be able to cover the content-delivery cost/ad-revenue gap. Ad targeting might bring higher revenues, although hiring a third party to deliver such ads would increase the costs for the content site.

"To make matters worse, surfers may not be willing to pay enough to cover the ISP's cost to deliver streaming media. Sixty percent of people most interested in high-speed access said they would not pay $40 for the service, according to a Yankee Group survey. For free ISPs, broadband costs seem almost insurmountable."

Read the full article from The Standard here.

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... However, maybe costs of streaming broadband will come down with the introduction of new technologies (although, despite what you may have read in some places, Moore's Law doesn't necessarily apply). Or maybe the Internet will prove itself a more powerful "delivery" medium than advertisers give it credit for. Note that The Standard makes the following three interesting assumptions: (1) That Internet radio listeners would be willing to listen to programming consisting of a pattern of 5 songs followed by two 20-second spots. (2) That the cost to stream FM-quality sound to a listener -- based on $.01410 per 470 seconds of programming -- would be slightly over $.10 per listener-hour. (3) That "breakeven" -- if a webcaster's only expense was streaming costs -- would be selling the 20-second spot that funds the airplay of those 2.5 songs for a CPM of $14.10. (To put it another way, that much of the CPM would be required to pay for the associated streaming cost.) ...

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This e-mail is a response to last Tuesday's "RAIN Internet Radio Site of the Day"(here) featuring Microsoft's MongoMusic.

"Sadly, their choices mostly consisted of Rick Springfield..."

Sept. 29-Oct. 4	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
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