From Inside.com: "The celestial jukebox, according to its
legions of proponents, will be a vast digital
cloud of music that contains every song ever recorded -- 'a musical
smorgasbord,' in the phrase of economist Hal R. Varian. Unlike Muzak,
the celestial jukebox will not be limited to preselected channels.
Instead, subscribers will pay a flat monthly fee to listen to any
song they dream of, on demand and as often as they'd like...
"One small problem: It's not going to work...
"A host of commercial, technical, legal and economic
obstacles stand in the way of turning the conceptually attractive
notion of a celestial jukebox into something for use by large numbers
of average Net-using Americans...
"With the labels having apparently concluded from the
failures of their pay-per-download experiments that customers don't
want to reach for their wallets every time they beam in a Beatles
track, streaming has become the method of choice in the music world...
'''If you're selling digital copies of music, you have to
ensure that the copies are not permanent,' says
Howard Singer, senior vice president of business development for
Reciprocal, a leading digital-rights management firm. 'If they are
permanent, people could subscribe for one month, take advantage
of the flat fee to download a thousand songs -- and quit. What's
the reason for them to come back next month?' With a streaming system,
he argues, 'they'll come back.' Subscriptions tied to downloads,
says Kenswil, end up offering little more than a 'bulk discount.'
"Unfortunately, streaming music, however necessary for
profitability, is 'from a technical point of view, the worst way
to do it,' according to a senior executive at a large Internet service
provider that has considered -- and discarded -- the possibility
of creating a streaming music service for its subscribers."
Read the entire piece here.
BY
JIM TASZAREK
On Sunday December 10th, "60 Minutes" had a story
on the fallout of the dot-coms and their wiped-out, overnight millionaires.
What's it mean to radio? Consider this. In spite of the flops, many
new web companies are producing billionaires because theirs is a
sound business idea, they work hard and hang in there. (Amazon,
Netscape, AOL, Yahoo.)
Question, Why do dot-coms go out of business? Please note
the numbers as you read.
1) New idea. Goofy idea. Not well thought-out idea. (Sushi2u.com,
swoon.com, stamps4u.com.)
2) New brand. Nobody ever heard of them. They need fortunes
to advertise, just to get known and get an audience.
3) A start-from-scratch business starting with a ton of overhead
- lots of people, space, equipment. Impossible to forecast expenses
and revenue. Bad plan. Need lots of money.
4) No sales experience or sales staff.
5) No experienced management - little experience in business.
Have never made a profit. Don't know the phrases "P&L," "Earnings"
or "EBITA." Some have never heard the expression, "Budget."
Now, let's look at a radio station website. Compare each
numbered item with the same number above.
1) K-Earth, KIIS, KSHE, WADO, WIOD, WGCI - aren't new business
concepts. They're time-tested, successful - known by the audience
for their benefits.
2) They're well-known brands, household names with giant audiences
that dot-com guys would die for.
3) Been in business for decades. Have a tradition of success.
Need an additional 1% in overhead to crank up a wildly successful
website.
4) Best sales people and sales management in all of media.
5) Well-run business. Know where every nickel is. Fanatic
about cost control. Profit? Hell, that's nothing.
They concentrate on "margin," how high the profit can get.
Conclusion. We've got everything the dot-com guys are looking
for. We've already got assets they had to go out and buy. So that's
the reason we should embrace the web big time. Take the station
and extend it to the web bringing the station benefits closer to
listeners. We've got all the ingredients for success.
Jim Taszarek is a well known radio sales consultant.
He writes and publishes a weekly newsletter called "QuotaBusters."
This article is also available at here.
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From the release: "Musicmusicmusic inc. announced an affiliate
partnership with Sesamestreet.com
to create
and support "Sesame Radio", a 24-hour radio station dedicated to
playing kids' favorite Muppet tunes.
"Through the use of RealPlayer or Windows Media Player,
fans will be greeted by a colorful, easy-to-use 'boom box' where
families can listen to a library of over 100 songs. Parents and
kids can sing along to world-renowned tunes like 'Rubber Ducky'
and 'Sunny Days' sung by Elmo, Oscar, The Count and the rest of
the Muppets while exploring additional Sesame Street activities."
Read the entire article here.
The technology to broadcast the customized radio show for
Sesamestreet.com is provided by musicmusicmusic's
www.Kidsownradio.com.
According to the release, musicmusicmusic inc. is the first
interactive Internet radio station to be licensed by the Recording
Industry Association of America.
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"Mel
and Dan may be the smartest guys in the class..."
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Streaming is not necessarily the silver bullet needed
to improve your web site, in fact, streaming creates a very real
exposure for broadcasters. Given the excellent traffic performances
of KROQ and WNEW, two Infinity/CBS stations who do not stream, and
at the same time are both highly popular radio station web sites,
at the end of the day Mel and Dan may be the smartest guys in the
class again.
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--
Dave Martin
BuySellBid.com |
The following is an excerpt. Read the entire essay
here.
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"You
are paying a competitor money..."
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As I stated in a posting on the
RAIN
MESSAGE BOARD back in August. "If you are paying Real,
RBN or for the
priviledge of using their so-so systems you are paying a competitor
money - money that goes back into their company and comes out
in the form of competeting with you (in one way or another). Let
me ask you this. Why would you extend loyalty to a company that
takes your hammer and hits you in the head with it? Come on folks,
econ 101 here. Don't be a customer of your competitor - HELLO!
Anyone who pays REAL is a customer of REAL. REAL knows
all the stations, all the channels, everything. They also know
all the channels you (if an aggregator/broadcaster) are paying
REAL to stream. It appears that REAL is now in your territory.
Have you been lining the pockets of REAL only to have that lining
come back and bite you in the butt now?
A RAIN article in the past stated that RBN will be offering
"a comprehensive Internet broadcasting solution for
traditional radio broadcasters." Is this being offered directly
to radio stations or to it's clients who stream radio stations?
If it's directly to it's clients who stream these radio stations
then fine but if not... aren't aggregators/broadcasters doing
this already? If so, or if they intend to, does RBN not become
a competitor? If they are a competitor why in God's name would
anyone pay a company for a product [G2 Server] when that company
will be using the revenue to battle all those in the same field
[RBN and it's Real Guide]
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--
Salvatore Lepore
CyberRadio2000.com |
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"Imagine
if Sony couldn't license their music to a company they
created..."
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There are parts of the digital copyright act (
The
Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995, or
DPRA) (the part of the law the DMCA didn't change) that put
all kinds of restrictions on how copyright owners can offer their
content.
For instance, if you offer your content exclusively to
a company, you can't do it for more than 12 months. If you
give more than 85 percent of your catalog to a company, you have
to do that with at least 5 companies.
No one is calling the labels on this. Things like Jimmy
and Doug's
Farmclub,
companies like Sony and BMG that create separate companies to
do interactive downloads
are third parties.
Imagine if Sony couldn't license their music to a company they
created after 12 months. That's what the law says.
You should have one of the lawyers writing the last 2 days
(
Barry Skidelsky here;
David Oxenford here)
dig this stuff up and write about it. It could be interesting,
and hopefully we can nail some labels.
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