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Radio
and Internet Newsletter is
a daily compilation of news (plus essays, commentary, and resources)
designed to help you better understand the Internet and its
potential impact on radio -- both the dangers it presents
and the opportunities it offers. We hope you find it
valuable.
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From the San Jose Mercury News: "The Internet can
bring radio broadcasts from the other side of the planet directly
to your computer, but it can't get them from your PC to your car stereo.
Or your Walkman.
 "Eventually
mobile wireless connections might solve that problem, letting people
tune in to their favorite online DJ anytime, anyplace. But until wireless
networks can support online broadcasts, the next best thing is emerging
technologies that help listeners record Web broadcasts onto something
that can travel -- a cassette tape, for example..."
The article goes on to describe three soon-to-arrive Internet-audio
recording devices that may let consumers record (and time-shift) their
favorite radio stations and listen to them anywhere. Read the
full story in Mercury Center here.
 From
CNET News: "With so many hipsters shopping online, you
would think Tommy Hilfiger's new Web site would sell the fashion designer's
popular jeans or cologne.
"But with a Net radio station that plays everything from hip-hop
to metal, and artists such as Britney Spears and Sugar Ray splashed
across its marquee, Tommy.com seems more like an entertainment site
than a clothing retailer. And that is exactly the point...
"Music on the Net is arguably one of the hottest online sectors.
In the past six months alone, a slew of sites has popped up to try
to garner advertising or music sales revenue by luring music listeners
to their digital downloads, articles and videos..."
Actually, despite what the article implies, Tommy.com actually
offers visitors six different channels of music (Alternative,
Hip-Hop, Rock, Metal, Dance, and TommyTracks) on its branded RealPlayer.
Click here
to read yesterday's CNET article or here
to visit the website.
BY KURT HANSON
One of the confusing things about understanding vendors that are offering
to help radio is figuring out who does what.
To that end, we're working on fleshing out this chart:
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Magni-
tude
Network
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Radio-
Wave
|
First
Internet
Media
Corp.
|
Web-
Radio
|
OnRadio
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Broad-
cast
Amer-
ica
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| Streaming |
Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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Yes
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| Site
design |
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Yes
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| Branded
player |
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| Site
content |
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|
Yes
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| E-commerce |
Yes
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| Sales
training |
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|
Yes
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| Aggregation
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|
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Yes
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Yes
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| Other
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| Established |
1996
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| #
of stations |
200
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| #
in mkts.1-10 |
?
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====== |
====== |
====== |
====== |
====== |
====== |
The chart above
only shows the "full service" vendors and is of course
not filled in yet.
We're also in the process developing a more detailed, one-page guide
for each of the dozens of firms involved in Internet radio.
Click here
for a sample.
Your comments and recommendations would be helpful. Click here
to contriubte any insights you might have.
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The
lead story in Wednesday's issue of RAIN noted that the
nation's leading radio station website, Z100.com, according
to PC Data Online, doesn't even make the country's top 5,000
websites. (Click screenshot at right to read the article.)
In the e-mail below, Bob Bellin notes that even the most popular
radio stations have popularity that's essentially limited
to their market only and discusses the implications
of that.
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No
local radio station can ever hope to crack the top echelon in
site traffic...
Bob Bellin (fbob@adelphia.net ) |
December
15, 1999
6:16:42 PM
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Kurt,
First of all, I really enjoy reading your RAIN newsletter.
It's one of the best designed sites of it's type I've seen yet. I
don't know whether this is a money making venture for you or just
a labor of love...either way it's very well conceived and implemented.
Some thoughts...
It's hard to know who's actually where in page views, as different
sources cite different numbers. Alexa, for instance, puts mp3.com
way ahead of mtv.com. No matter really, the big point is that no local
radio station can ever really hope to crack the top echelon in site
traffic, because they only have significant penetration in one market.
Outside the NY metro, I'd guess that less than one percent of the
US even knows what Z100 is and only a very small percentage of them
would have any reason to check out their site. And if Z100 in new
York is site number 6000 (roughly), imagine where the site of the
#1 CHR in Kansas City would fall on the page view food chain! At the
going rate of about $10 per thousand, I'm surprised that any radio
station could view their website as a big source of ad revenue any
time soon.
So what should radio stations be doing with their websites
and on the Internet? In my humble opinion, several things. The Edison
Research study that Arbitron commissioned provides some viable suggestions.
First, advertiser coupons. Listeners and advertisers both want
them and you can charge advertisers for them, yet they cost virtually
nothing to provide. If that station in market #30 (roughly Kansas
City if I remember correctly) bills say, $6,000,000 locally and they
could get half of their advertisers to pay a ten percent surcharge
to be included in the "98 Rock Virtual Discount Mall" (OK, so I'm
not a great name thinker upper, but you get the idea), that represents
(roughly) a four percent increase in overall billing, and because
there's virtually no expense associated, probably a ten percent increase
in cash flow. Not the end of the world, but certainly worth doing.
Whether advertisers actually up their expenditures to pay for the
service, or just spend the same amount on ten percent fewer spots
(same revenue, fewer units) in Martha Stewart's words, "...it's a
good thing."
Second, audio streaming. The Arbitron study suggests that statistically
significant numbers of people have real difficulty picking up their
favorite stations at work. Streaming is a real solution to that problem.
Arbitron has already said they treat streaming listenership as a simulcast
and include it in the regular market report. I have my questions as
to whether that's appropriate for them to do, but if they said they'd
do it and I were running a radio station, I'd certainly take them
up on it. Don't do it and risk losing that at work audience to a national
streaming provider (they all suck now but it's only a matter of time
before someone gets it right).
Also, side brands (like iRIF in Detroit) can protect a local broadly
programmed mass appeal station form being niched to death by national
streamers offering 500 format options, especially now that so many
local stations are doing more canned voice tracking with less and
less local content.
So if this is such an important option for listeners, why do
the numbers add up the way they do (and I concur with you math, currently
streaming adds up to much ado about nothing)?
Here's my analysis:
First and foremost, few if any stations support enough streams
to add up to anything. I think you mentioned a streaming AQH of 300.
I doubt that any station buys enough bandwidth to support even 1000
simultaneous streams, even at peak hours. (you can rent bandwidth
as you use it so that you don't have to buy 1000 stream capacity at
4AM).
Also, most stations (and many still haven't) only recently
converted to the G2 (RealNetworks) format, which is the only one that's
really listenable without broadband. Prior to G2, all other formats
sound unlistenable, at least for music. The new WIN media format isn't
helping either. It's better than the old Real Audio stuff, but not
as good as what comes out of most radios. The whole AMFM chain uses
WIN media...OK for listening to Bob and Tom, but still not acceptable
for music. If the reason you're there in the first place is because
your station sounds crappy at work, another crappy sounding option
isn't likely to be widely adopted.
Last but not least, few if any stations really promote their
streaming in a way that would showcase their value. "Do the steel
walls of your office building make it hard to pick up Oldies 101 easily?
Try our webcast..." If a top station in a large city with a lot of
office towers (NY) or one with terrain issues (Denver, Seattle) or
both (San Francisco) offered a lot of streaming capacity in Real G2
format and promoted it properly, I bet they'd add to their AQH in
numbers that would be impressive, say 10%.
This e-mail is really long, but you bring up some really interesting
questions and deal with the whole subject in such a cogent manner
that you really got me thinking. Thanks for reading this (assuming
you have).
Bob Bellin
FYI -- I'm a former
radio GM, now CEO of an Internet start up.
I'm
writing a new business plan!
Steve
Blatter
(yobeerman@earthlink.net) |
December
16, 1999
09:11:42 AM
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Your "3-Step Guide to Better Performance in the InfoStream Webcast
Ratings" (here) was brilliant.
I'm writing a new business plan first thing tomorrow morning!!!
Well, not really. Great job with the Arbitron InfoStream analysis
though.
More reader
comments received during the past week will be posted here over
the weekend. Add your own comments here.
Want
to read more RAIN? See
menu at top left.
Apparently
some readers were getting
"Mailbox full" messages yesterday. Today the form above
should absolutely work! Please try it.
...
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