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BY
KURT HANSON
In one of the first examples of its type, a market-leading radio
station has begun purchasing billboards in a different broadcast
market to promote listening to its Webcast.
KUBE, Seattle's top-rated music station, has unveiled two billboards
in Portland, OR, that feature the radio station's web address, KUBE93.com,
in an effort to attract online listeners outside the station's broadcast
market.
 The
two 14-foot by 48-foot billboards are located on interstates 5 and
84 heading into Portland. The billboard advertising will run through
the end of the month and is expected to generate close to 200,000
impressions per day, according to KUBE marketing director Gus Swanson.
The Ackerley Group, a NYSE-listed media and entertainment company,
owns both KUBE 93 and the billboard company (AK Media/Northwest).
According to Swanson, this is the first time a major radio station
has advertised its streaming audio webcast in traditional media
outside of its market. "This campaign is the natural progression
of our marketing efforts and is a strategic way for the station
to measure how radio and the Internet relate to each other. Portland
was an obvious place to launch this campaign because it has high
internet penetration."
According to Scarborough Research, Portland is ranked 11th in Internet
penetration among U.S. markets; Seattle/Tacoma is ranked fourth.
Does this approach make sense? Would the numbers work if the
same company didn't own both the billboard company and the radio
station? Contribute your thoughts here.
Black Entertainment Television (BET) has launched BET.com
as part of a joint
venture with Microsoft, Liberty Digital, News Corporation, and USA
Networks, the firm announced yesterday.
The portal and content site will include nine channels geared toward
African-Americans, although it will emphasize the artist profiles
and streamed videos of its Music channel, according to a company
press release that was issued yesterday.
.
The site includes seven formats of "BET Radio" -- hip-hop,
R&B, jazz, reggae, blues, acid-jazz/trip-hop, and "Motor
City Sounds."
A Reuters news story (here)
implies that the audio comes from digital radio service DMX Music,
which is a unit of Liberty Digital.
BET.com, which is 51 percent owned by BET, recently closed $35 million
in first-round funding; the company intends to IPO the site by the
end of the year.
The company says that it will spend an estimated $8 million in marketing
over the next few months in major black publications, radio stations,
and sitcoms. BET has also announced plans to make a major push into
radio station ownership soon.
BY KURT HANSON
In addition to the Kerbango radio described here yesterday (see
item below), a second Internet audio appliance also
was announced at the Demo 2000 new products  showcase
in Palm Springs, CA, yesterday.
The company, AudioRamp, debuted what it called a family of five
products. The "iRad" line includes an audio player
(software analagous to RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, called
the iRad-P), an Audio Catalog Manager (essentially, jukebox software,
I believe), their website, a stand-alone Internet radio (the iRad-S,
shown below), and an Internet tuner stereo system component (the
iRad-C).
 The
Internet radio has the ability to play streaming audio, store over
1000 digital audio files, and play CDs. It also has access
to local AM/FM stations. It includes Microsoft's Windows Media Player
and, like the Kerbango radio, can connect to the Internet via a
56K modem without the need for a PC. It uses the HomePNA 1.0 standard,
which uses a home's electrical wiring to transmit signals throughout
the home. It has a estimated retail price of $399.95.
The stereo component version of the player, the iRad-C, contains
all of the features of the stand-alone model except for an AM/FM
tuner, but includes a digital out connection allowing for a high-speed
connection to a home stereo system.
According to the firm's website, "Headquartered in Orange County’s
high-tech corridor, AudioRamp.com was founded in early 1999 by Safi
Qureshey and Dan Sheppard from an idea formulated by Wasi Qureshy.
His vision was to enable immigrants to stay in touch with their
homeland through streaming broadcasts. As the project progressed,
market analysis showed the ability to play music would also be a
major requirement to that consumer."
To learn more, click the company logo above to visit their website.
Reprinted from yesterday's edition:
Cupertino-based startup Kerbango debuted the first-ever  stand-alone
Internet radio appliance yesterday at the Demo 2000 new products
showcase in Palm Springs, CA.
According to its developers, the radio will be commercially available
for $300 this spring.
As predicted, the device is a gorgeous, futuristic-looking, and
yet at the same time vaguely retro appliance...
For the full story from yesterday's edition, click here.
(If you'd like
to review last week's Arbitron InfoStream stories, they're here,
here,
and here.)
Part
Two: 
Radio
stations listed above
include three of the top radio station Webcasts (in terms of different
statistics) in the recent Arbitron InfoStream report -- top-cuming
KPIG/Monterey, top Time-Spent-Tuning station Smooth Jazz WJZW/Washington,
DC, and the apparent top AQH Webcast, ABC's Tom Joyner Morning
Show.
Links are also provided above to two stations that lost their broadcast
status due to format changes but have since been revived as Internet-only
stations -- Groove Radio and KNAC.
BN Radio, Lycos Radio, and Salon Radio are multi-format
operations programmed by third parties. CNET Radio is the station
currently being carried by AMFM's KNEW-AM/San Francisco and
scheduled for a national rollout later this year.
More
to follow.
(Suggest
possible additions here.)
SpikeRadio
hires L.A. music industry execs
From BusinessWire: "SpikeRadio, the world's pioneering
24-hour live Internet radio station,
has appointed two well-known Los Angeles-based music industry executives
to help accelerate promotion of its global music programming: Chris
Monaco as head of marketing and Dave Sanford as head of music programming.
As president of Los Angeles-based PGW Promotions Group and later
as national promotions/media manager for Premier Marketing, Monaco
developed targeted marketing and cross-media planning strategies
for the likes of Universal Studios, DreamWorks, MGM, Paramount and
David E. Kelley Productions. As president of Los Angeles-based marketing
firm Spectre, Sanford worked with The Chemical Brothers, Fatboy
Slim and Portishead among others, helping to re-introduce electronic
music to the USA."
Part
One:
Click on the
logos above to visit various Webcasters. For some screenshots
of various audio players, click here.
For a sample full-page view (about WWW.com), click here.
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! |
Lots of Internet sessions planned for RAB 2000 later
this month
Follow-up story on the Hiwire audio tuner/player
Also, more on this story.
...
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