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BY KURT HANSON
Showing an aggressiveness -- and I believe creativity -- that hasn't been shown much by the radio industry, as far as I know, NBC announced today that it's going to repurpose its comedy content on a new "digital entertainment" website aimed at young adults called NBCx.com.

According to a report in today's Variety, "NBCX.com will consist primarily of original comedy-focused animated and live-action streaming video drawn from both NBC and other providers." NBC late-night staples "Saturday Night Live," "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" and "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" will be featured contributors on the site.

NBC exec Scott Sassa pointed out that "SNL" regularly tapes several sketches each week in rehearsal which never make it on the air. Such segments might now find a home on NBCX.com.

"'We've got the library and we've got the production capacity,' he told Variety. "Longer-term, NBCX.com may serve as a breeding ground where NBC can develop new comedy talent for primetime programs. 'You can almost think of NBCX.com as NBC's Internet Studio -- an incubator for new comedic talent, writers, producers and directors,' Sassa said."

Similarly, your radio station may have loads of content that's potentially repurposable -- weekend special programs that currently only air once during low-radio-listening hours, full-length interviews that get edited down, new music that has almost made it on the air but hasn't quite yet, etc.

Perhaps this idea of NBC's will inspire you -- or others in our industry -- to make use of that content

Read the Variety article 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.

Reprinted from yesterday's edition:

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.