From Radio & Records: "While the recent selloff in Internet-related stocks has some people worrying that dot-com advertisers will cut back on ad spending, [CBS and Infinty chief Mel] Karmazin said he’s seen no change so far.

"'We have not lost a single dollar from a dot-com company not being able to pay their bills,' he said today. Karmazin added that the major advertisers in Q1 were from the auto, financial services, telecom, dot-com and specialty retail industries, but he stressed that dot-com advertisers still don’t make up a large chunk of radio spenders – none of the top 20 advertisers on Infinity radio is an Internet-related company."

For more from R&R Online, click here. (Radio Ink has details on Infinity's Q1 financials here.)



As you probably know, although CBS has not yet permitted its owned radio stations to begin streaming their audio on the web, the parent company of Ininfity Broadcasting has made the Internet a significant part of its corporate strategy -- primarily by trading airtime for significant equity stakes in several Internet companies.

This is highlighted in a recent redesign of the CBS.com website. Five of those investments are profiled on the home page as the "CBS iGroup" (see screenshot at right).

To visit the site, click here. (From the site, for a "Late Show" top ten list of "Signs Your Life May Be a TV Show," click here.)




Eight-year veteran KLSX/Los Angeles sales executive Rick Flores is leaving the Infinity-owned FM talk station early next month to join Hiwire, the Los Angeles-based company that has developed a technique to insert targeted audio ads into a streamed audio broadcast.

Flores joined KLSX from KABC/Los Angeles as an Account Exec in 1992, and has since held the positions of head of sports sales, NSM/West Coast, and Local Sales Manager for the station. Although the station typically barely makes the top 20 in terms of P12+ ratings. it's the #2 biller in Los Angeles and in the top 10 nationally, Flores noted.

Hiwire has built a "client side" solution for inserting targeted audio ads into a station's webcast. In a "server side" solution, Internet listeners can hear a different spot than over-the-air listeners, but all Internet listeners would hear the same commericial. Hiwire's approach allows each Internet listener to hear a different spot, targeted based on their age, sex, and/or location.

"Being at a CBS station, I know that Mel Karmazin has been very outspoken regarding his feelings about not streaming audio," Flores told RAIN. "And the example he uses is, 'Why would I want people from New York listening to my Los Angeles station online, because it's nothing more lost opportunity in New York?' I personally believe that the Hiwire model answers his question and offers a solution, in that the local markets can sell and maintain their own inventory while making money from the out-of-market listeners."

Visit the KLSX site here or the Hiwire site here.

If you're hiring for a position that's radio and Internet related this week, we'll post it -- free! Simply e-mail the job description here. If you're looking for opportunities that involve the Internet to some extent, you can take a look at the first two available positions here.

From a company press release: "iCommerce Group Inc. (OTCBB:ICGI) today announced that it and Dick Broadcasting Co. Inc., owner and operator of 15 major market FM and AM radio stations, have mutually agreed to terminate their previously executed agreement whereby iCommerce Group purchased $1 million worth of radio advertising airtime in exchange for an equity investment in iCommerce Group consisting of 1 million restricted shares of iCommerce Group common stock.

"The two companies noted that the mutual termination of the agreement resulted from the pending sale by Dick Broadcasting of its 15 major market FM and AM radio stations."

This is the same kind of deal that CBS used to make its acquisitions, except that ICGI is a $.25/share stock (see chart from Morningstar.com here) with less focus and perhaps less-stellar properties.

Read the full press release here. For the press release from January that announced this deal, click here. See a description of iCommerce Group's operating properties here.

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April 26-28	USC/Inside Radio Internet Conference, Phoenix
May 15-18	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Boston
May 22-26	Real [Networks] Conference 2000, San Jose
June 12-14	Streaming Media East 2000, New York City
June 14-17	R&R Convention 2000, Los Angeles
June 14-17	PROMAX & BDA, New Orleans
July 13-16	Upper Midwest Conclave, Minneapolis
August 3-5	Morning Show Bootcamp, New Orelans
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
Did we miss a major conference? E-mail us here.

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