Last remaining Evergreen founder is leaving; says he plans to start Internet venture
From yesterday's R&R Online: "Jim deCastro, the last remaining executive who started AMFM Inc., resigned this afternoon, in advance of the company’s impending merger with Clear Channel. De Castro was Vice Chairman of AMFM, President/CEO of the AMFM Radio Group, and Chairman/CEO of AMFMi. His resignation caps off a string of recent high-profile departures from AMFM, including that of Chief Programming Officer Steve Rivers a few weeks ago. AMFM Radio COO Ken O'Keefe will assume oversight of the radio group..." Read comprehensive coverage in Radio & Records here.

FMQB adds, "While the official press release says deCastro is 'retiring' from the company, no one anticipates the flamboyant 47-year-old that co-founded AMFM-precursor Evergreen Media in the early ‘80s to sit idle very long. deCastro is expected to announce new, Internet-related plans shortly. The final remaining Evergreen co-founder to exit AMFM, deCastro’s resignation virtually assures Randy Michaels’ reign as Clear Channel Radio President will continue after the two companies complete their merger." Read the full story in FMQB here.

And from Radio Business Report: "deCastro will be leaving radio to start his own company—an Internet company. 'I’m retiring—Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretsky, John Elway, Jimmy deCastro,' he told RBR. 'I’ve done it all. The Internet is the wave of the future. I can’t be 90 years of age, sitting in my rocking chair letting this exciting wave of technology go by. It's like radio was 20 years ago. I’m going to be starting my own company.' As if to make his exit complete, deCastro is leaving the country 2/17 for a Caribbean vacation with his wife, Annie. Read more in RBR here.



Today at 9:30AM at the RAB's Marketing Leadership Conference in Denver, Arbitron Internet Information Services VP/GM Bill Rose and Edison Media Research president Larry Rosin will present the fourth in their semi-annual series of research studies on radio and the Internet.

The study is entitled "Dotcom $: Getting more Internet Advertising on your station -- The buying Power of 'Streamies,'" but the most explosive finding is not really on that topic at all.

According to the new national study of 2,000 diarykeepers -- which I was able to see an advance copy of at yesterday's Gavin Seminar in San Francisco -- in the six months that have elapsed since the last the Arbitron/Edison study, home Internet access has gone up from 37% to 43% of the population and past purchase from a website has gone up from 34% to 43% of Internet users, but past-month listening to Internet radio has stalled out at 10% of Internet users and past-week listening has stalled out at 4%.

(Note that 4% of Internet users translate to about 2% of the general population.)

This finding calls into question every comment you've heard from anyone in the Internet audio field about "We may only have a few dozen listeners now -- but we're on a huge growth curve!"

Nonetheless, the study has lots of useful findings for radio. It documents the fact that dotcom advertisers may be making a big mistake by ignoring midsize and smaller markets. It shows that radio is the top companion to web usage (over CDs, phone calls, and watching TV). It has useful findings on what consumers want on a station's website.

The presentation of the study by Rose and Rosin will be held in the Adams Mark hotel, in the Governors 11 room, at 9:30AM.


From CNET News: "In advance of a proposed initial public offering, MTV's Interactive Group has disclosed that it is in a licensing dispute with two major record companies over its Net radio business...

"MTVi Group, [which] operates several Web sites including MTV.com, VH1.com and SonicNet.com, said it has received letters from two major record companies that disagree over its Internet radio business... The record companies are Sony and EMI, according to The Wall Street Journal...

"MTVi, which did not identify the record companies in the filing for its initial public offering, said the companies are 'demanding that we cease our use of their music in this manner and pay for our past use...'

So, what's their objection? My first reaction was that Sony and EMI were trying to pull their music from MTVi because of corporate infighting between labels. But then I realized, No, it's Spinner that's now going to be in the AOL/Warner Bros. family, not SonicNet...

So what does MTVi do differently? What do those two record companies object to?

Well, one unique feature of SonicNet over the other large multi-channel broadcasters is that the SonicNet player has a "Skip" button. (The BN.com site says their player does not include a "Skip" button because they believe it violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.) Could that be it?

SonicNet also lets users build their own radio stations by selecting a number of genres and then, over time, increasing or decreasing the play of specific artists. Do the labels feel they SonicNet allows so much customization that listeners might feel it's a substitute for record purchases?

If you have any insights on this issue, contribute them here. (For yesterday's RAIN article on WWW.com's new deal with the RIAA regarding the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, click here.) And read the full story that's excerpted above in CNET News here.



From Reuters: "Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio today announced an agreement to develop a unified standard for satellite radios. The standard is expected to accelerate growth of the satellite radio category by enabling consumers to purchase one radio capable of receiving both companies' broadcasts.

"XM Radio and Sirius will jointly fund development of the technology and work together to proliferate the new standard by creating a service mark for satellite radio. As part of the agreement, each company will contribute its intellectual property to the initiative and have agreed to resolve any pending patent litigation..."

The two firms are racing to get into cars with almost identical business plans -- each planning to offer about 100 channels for $9.95 per month -- but each has deals with different automakers. The first generation radios are going to be incompatible -- if you buy a Ford, you'll be able to subscribe to XM but not Sirius. However, the firms have stated before that they expected later-generation radios to receive both systems.

Read the full article here.

Part Two:

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