From the company press release: "EBandMedia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Internet Incubator iWeb Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: IWEB), has been victimized by what is apparently the first case ever of online radio cyber terrorism.

"A spokesperson for EBandMedia says the company's three online radio stations are off the air and have been literally stolen from their sophisticated server. Ft. Lauderdale, FL, police are searching for a man who company officials describe as 'a disgruntled former employee.'

"EBandMedia has been swamped with telephone calls from listeners, unable to access the online-only stations, which are part of the EbandRadio.com portal. The three stations, E101, Pro G and Trance Invasion, feature electronic music and have enjoyed enormous audience growth along with the rest of the online radio industry.

"'We are quite concerned about this incident,' said iWeb President James West, from his Los Angeles office. 'We could incur a multi-million dollar loss if the radio stations, which we hope this individual saved on CD-ROM, are not returned safely to us.'

"iWeb Corporation, founded in 1994, is an Internet oriented incubator involved in the development of high-tech health and media firms."

Read the company's full press release here.

Then you may want to go back and read RAIN's original story on the company and its plans here.

And finally you may want to ask yourself the following questions:

	(1) If the stations were on a "sophisticated server," shouldn't backups exist somewhere?
	(2) If this event deserves to be characterized as "cyber-terrorism," would an employee's theft of items from his job thus deserve to be characterized "terrorism"?
	(3) Do we have any evidence that the stations were enjoying "enormous audience growth" other than this press release?
	(4) As a professional "Internet Incubator," wouldn't you expect that iWeb Corporation would know how to save their own logo in a reasonably compact file size? (The iWeb logo pictured above is a 26K image which any second-week website design student could have saved as a 16K image.)
	(5) Why isn't EBandRadio listed on iWeb's list of owned and affiliated companies (here)?
	(6`) If the radio station's site was essentially down (which it is; see second screenshot above), how did all the concerned listeners get the station's phone number?

(Did any RAIN readers ever try listening to any of these stations? If you did, share your insights here.)


Legendary Chicago air personality Steve Dahl -- a fixture in Chicago radio for over 20 years at stations including WDAI, WLUP, WLS-AM, WLS-FM, WMVP, and WCKG -- apparently resigned from his afternoon gig at Infinity-owned WCKG yesterday...and used his website to announce it.

According to Chicago Sun-Times media columnist Robert Feder in an article last Thursday, "Listeners who tuned in for the start of his WCKG-FM (105.9) afternoon show expected to hear the third day of his remote broadcast from Las Vegas, site of the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Instead, what they heard was a 'Best of Dahl' tape, setting off wild speculation among fans online and in calls to the station that the veteran host had been suspended for some offense.

"About an hour later, however, Dahl turned up live on his show to explain that he had been yanked off the air and reprimanded by his bosses for previously failing to run his full load of commercials on time. After promising to try harder and agreeing to resume the discussions with management today, Dahl was able to talk himself back on the air..."

Yesterday, he was off the air again and the following message was posted on his website:

I QUIT!!! By Steve Dahl Monday 4-17-00 I received a call this morning from Mike Disney and Gehrig Peterman (Al Haig) that I was being suspended for a week without pay because of my "on air conduct". Guess what: That's a breach of my contract with WCKG, and I quit. They also do not have the right to run "best of " shows, either, so I'm not sure what they think they're doing on the air this afternoon, but running "best of" would also be a big mistake. Oh, I almost forgot; they changed the lock on my office door this morning so that Ali and I cannot get in to access our stuff (Ali works for me, not CKG). I'll keep you posted, on what my next move is. If anybody has any thoughts or suggestions, please post them up on the bulletin board. Time for my bootheels to be wanderin'. SD

The "Gehrig Peterman" reference actually refers to WCKG program director Gehrig Peterson.

Dahl's website, Dahl.com, is one of the most comprehensive air personality-based sites out there, with archived excerpts, a bulletin board, a webcam, music news, community links, and more. (Visit it by clicking here.)

(Of course, his resignation is currently the talk of the bulletin boards. Expressing a common theme, one listener wrote, "I recently moved to Tampa, Florida. The radio market consists of hicks and right wing conservative psychotics. Please consider a future that includes live internet broadcasts.")

Many observers credit Dahl with establishing a revolutionary, reality-based on-air style that set the tone for the entire FM talk format. On WCKG, he's been part of a weekday lineup that included Howard Stern, Jonathon Brandmeier, and Dahl himself.

Read Robert Feder's column from Thursday in its entirety here and check to see if there's a new column in today's issue here. (You may also want to read Chicago Tribune media columnist Jim Kirk's take on last week's events here (registration requried).)

Sign up as a RAIN subscriber! We appreciate hearing from you. And in return, we'll send you e-mail news updates every so often so you don't forget about us -- plus bulletins when important news breaks.   Name:   Company:   E-mail:   Your   comments   and/or   suggestions:     Please add me to your "subscriber" list     I'm already on your mailing list; I just wanted to              send you the comment above.         Thanks!

Taking the last digit of yesterday's closes of the Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500, a rising stock market yesterday helped created the essentially random number shown below of 164:

	Dow	1	0	5	8	2	.	5	1
	NASDAQ		3	5	3	9	.	1	6
	S&P 500		1	0	4	1	.	4	4
		X	X	X	X	X	X	X	X

Which means that the 164th name on our list of contest entrants (as posted early yesterday morning) is the winner in the RAIN VIral Marketing Contest!

	One lucky RAIN reader has won this entire phenomenal prize package -- the most amazing prize packge ever offered in the entire history of Web-based newsletters about radio and Internet issues! Click here to find out if RAIN contest entrant #164 was you.

You can easily click through previous issues of RAIN by using the blue arrows next to the issue date at the top of the page. (This navigation element has been added retroactively to all of March's issues.)