RadioWave, the Chicago-based streaming provider founded by Motorola, will be annoucing a surprising, major new investor and strategic partner within the next few days: Intel Corporation.

And Intel is actually one of two major investors that RadioWave will soon be announcing, according to RAIN's sources. Just prior to Intel's commitment, RadioWave also received a multi-million-dollar investment from a lead investor that is rumored to be Warburg Pincus.

From a strategic point of view, however, Intel is probably the more significant investor. (The Santa Clara-based manufacturer of microprocessors "is making a big push into networking services and communications infrastructure products," according to Hoover's Online.)

In addition to offering streaming services, RadioWave offers an audio player that's integrated within a station's browser window and is beginning to create content for clients as well. RadioWave's clients include Merge 93.3/Dallas, KSAN/San Francisco, and EMI's Blue Note Radio.

Click here to read the recent RAIN exclusive on Barry Mayo's Blue Note Radio project and its way-cool audio player (pictured at right).





BY KURT HANSON
One of the most interesting aspects of the recent Arbitron InfoStream Webcast ratings report is this: Out of 255 stations measured in markets of all sizes across America, three sister stations in Columbia, MO (Arbitron market #243) managed to take the #2, #4, and #6 slots in terms of Time Spent Tuning (TST)!  How in the world did they do that?

It's an amazing accomplishment for the three radio stations, all locally-owned, and all operating out of the same building in a 90,000-person community in the middle of Missouri, halfway between Kansas City and St. Louis.

And the even more amazing thing is, they've done it not just once, but for two months in a row! (Well, to be precise, they were #2, #5, and #7 last month.)

Here's a review of the top stations in TST in the just-released November 1999 InfoStream report (as printed in Monday's edition of RAIN):

Realize that by the time you get 15 stations lower on the list, TST is below two hours, and although Arbitron doesn't reveal it, I would guess that the average station's TST is less than one hour. So these TST numbers, by Webcast standards, are huge.

So how do they do it?
I talked to owner Al Germond, NSM Mike Perry, BXR PD Kevin Redding, KPLA PD Jim Littrell, and recently-hired Director of Internet Operations Jody Thigpen this week -- and the truth is, no one is sure!

Here are some of the factors we discussed: (1) The stations are good-sounding radio stations (thanks to the Internet, I was able to listen to them, and I agree) and they have solid websites -- especially for a market the size of Columbia. (2) It's a locally-owned operation; Al is a long-time radio guy and his office is right in the building. (3) The company tries to be on the cutting edge of technology. The stations have had websites for several years and have been streaming for a year and a half. (4) They promote their websites regulary -- including in their top-of-hour ID's. (5) Columbia is a major university community (the largest school being the University of Missouri), with students accounting for about a third of the metro's population. (6) The market is Internet-savvy in general and the stations' listeners, according to The Media Audit, have above-average Internet usage.

Okay...but what else?
I'm sure those are all important points, but I suspect there's even more to it than that. There are many dozens of professional-sounding radio stations among the 255 stations that Arbitron measured. Many of those promote their web addressses. And many have been streaming longer than these three have.

There must be something else -- some commonality, some phenomenon somewhat unique to Columbia -- that helps keep these three stations bunched together at the top of the pack every month.

Here are some other factors that, upon reflection, I think might be relevant:

(1) Perhaps surprisingly, NOT being listed on Real Player presets is an advantage. As a result of being absent, the stations avoid getting listening from individuals that listen only once or for only a few moments. Such listeners would bring their cumes up but in doing so would bring their TSTs down.

(2) Between university-affiliated listeners and listeners in the nearby state capitol, the stations may have a lot of listeners using dedicated Internet connections. This could have either (or both) of two different effects:

To clarify the last point above, if Columbia residents are using dedicated connections to the Internet (i.e., not AOL) at a greater rate than people in other markets, and if the server log problem really exists, then this problem might be hurting the other 252 InfoStream stations' TSTs more than it's hurting the Columbia stations'.

One final fact for you to ponder: There are no other small market stations in the top 25 TST stations. The other 24 stations are, with the exception of Albany near the bottom of the top-25 list, all major market stations -- New York, Chicago, L.A.. etc. (Read the full Arbitron press release, with complete rankings, here.) This seems very odd.

We'll return to this issue in an upcoming issue of RAIN. But if you have any opinions or insights on the subject, I'm sure everyone reading this newsletter would love to hear them. You can contribute them here.




From the current edition of Business Week: "AOL and EMI hook up, and the Web looks like music's next leap forward.

"Since America Online and Time Warner announced plans to merge, both AOL Chief Executive Stephen M. Case and Time Warner Chairman Gerald M. Levin can't seem to say enough about the important role that digital music will play in the new behemoth's efforts to dominate New Media.

'''We have the opportunity to create a personal jukebox in the house and the car,' Case told Business Week recently. 'Ten to 20 years from now, we'll think it was a silly notion that music was so tethered to a physical disk.'

Read the full story in Business Week Online here. (Subscription may be required.) (Contribute your comments here.)

From The Industry Standard: "Broadcaster CBS Corp. and publisher Steven Brill said on Wednesday they had joined forces to launch Contentville.com, an online service selling such Internet content as books and transcripts.

"CBS will gain a 35 percent equity stake in the partnership in exchange for $40 million in advertising and promotion over three years. Contentville.com will sell all types of Internet content. They include magazines, books, transcripts, original works, academic treatises, speeches and archives of magazine articles."

Read the story in The Industry Standard here or an even more comprehensive piece in MediaCentral here.

This follows CBS's avails-for-equity investments in such sites as CBS Marketwatch, Switchboard, CBS SportsLine, the contest-based portal iWon, and others. Even if Infinity radio stations aren't streaming, CBS is clearly taking the Internet seriously.




From The Industry Standard: "So there you are, doing whatever it is that you call work on your PC while the radio station you've selected plays in the background. Whoops, there's that song you love, the one from the album you've been meaning to buy but haven't yet. No problem, just hit the record button on your desktop and save it as an MP3 file. Now you can listen to that song all day, or at least until your co-workers scream for mercy.

"Sounds nifty all right, but is it legal? D-Link sure must think so, or it wouldn't be in full production mode of its new USB PC Radio. The Irvine, Calif., company's latest product promises a full FM-band radio receiver, along with software that lets the user capture and record music from any of 200 pre-set stations. The price is right – just $29 – and the hardware requirements are pretty basic..."

Read the full story in The Industry Standard here. To visit the Taipei-based firm's website, click the photo above.

Department of Viral Marketing: If you have friends or colleagues that you believe might enjoy reading this newsletter, please click here and we'll help you them about us. Thanks!

Salem Acquires Reach Satellite Network
From R&R Online: "[We] reported on Jan. 11 that Salem Communications was buying Reach’s two Nashville stations... Now Salem has announced it's taking over the entire network. For a total of $3.1 million, Salem gets the stations, the 115-affiliate Solid Gospel Radio Network, and a website dedicated to southern gospel... Additionally, Reach President and former Disney exec James Cumbee becomes President of Salem’s Internet subsidiary... Salem continues to expand its Internet presence, even though some analysts speculated late last year that Salem’s stock price dropped dramatically because the company had poured too many resources into the Internet..." Read Radio & Records here (subscription required).

Analyst Reiterates Sirius 'Strong Buy'
From R&R Online: "We've actually liked this for a while," William Kidd of CE Unterberg Towbin tells R&R Online. "It is one of the best business opportunities in a long time because of its ability to make money... We've tried to be really, really conservative in the past. I think the business is really bigger than our numbers." Kidd also predicts that while satellite radio "is still far away from being the third band, it will be the biggest entry since satellite TV, and we think it will overtake that and have a larger market penetration."

Also, more on this story tomorrow, too.



Thanks for reading RAIN today!

Day-trade