|
Welcome!
Today's
News
Yesterday
Kurt's
essay
Guest
essay
Site
of the Week
Feedback
form
News
archives
Vendor
guide
Readers'
forum
Internet
101
Internet
201
Who's
Who
Interesting
sites
Fave
bookmarks
Coherent
Design
Chat
room
|
 |
 |
|
 |
Last week, this newsletter wrote about a couple of U.S.
radio stations (including L.A.'s "Groove Radio") that  disappeared
from the broadcast dial as a result of format changes only to eventually
return to life as Internet-only radio stations.
 Today,
in London, for the first time that I'm aware of, the reverse
is happening, as an Internet-only Webcast moves from the Web onto
the airwaves.
National commercial radio station "TalkRadio" was
scheduled to change format earlier today to an all-sports format,
under the name "TalkSport 1089/1053."
Previously, the sports-talk format had been offered by TalkRadio as
an Internet-only Webcast called "TalkSport.net" on
a website that also included comprehensive U.K. sports coverage. (Click
logo above to visit the site.) The Webcast was positioned as "The
U.K.'s first all-sport radio station."
This seems to me like a development with significant implications,
which we can discuss here in coming days. You can read a story on
the new format from BBC News here,
but note that the BBC's Radio Five is a competitor of TalkRadio and
now TalkSports. (RAIN's reader feedback form, via which you can contribute
your comments and insights, is
here. And if I've missed other examples
of this phenomenon in the past, please e-mail me here.)
 BY
KURT HANSON
According to an article last week in Streaming Media News,
"A new consumer study by ZD Labs shows digital music in the Microsoft
Corp.'s Windows Media Format sounds more like CD-quality audio in
half the size of MP3."
 This
issue is particularly relevant to radio stations who want to either
(A) offer archived material or (B) set up an Internet-only
variation of their station (as, for example, KFMB-FM/San Diego and
WRIF/Detroit are doing).
The article continued, "In an experiment reminiscent of Coke
and Pepsi taste tests, Ziff Davis's ZD Labs conducted a study that
compared Windows Media- and MP3-formatted content to original CD recordings.
The study found that when compared to the CD-quality originals, nearly
90% of consumers tested preferred or could not tell the difference
in quality between music in the Windows Media Format and songs
in the MP3 format that were twice the size."
My background as a researcher tells me this: The
language they're using makes it look like they're trying to be deceptive
(or at least misleading).
Let me explain.
You'll notice that they've collapsed two categories of responses into
one:
| |
Prefer
Windows Media format |
90%
|
|
| |
Couldn't
tell the difference |
|
| |
Prefer
MP3 format |
10%
|
|
This is kind of like an SAT test: "Based on the information provided,
can you conclude that consumers prefer Windows Media over MP3?"
The answer is "No." Based
on the information provided, it's theoretically possible that the
findings really came out something like this:
| |
Prefer
Windows Media format |
2%
|
|
| |
Couldn't
tell the difference |
88%
|
|
| |
Prefer
MP3 format |
10%
|
|
If that
was the true set of findings, you'd obviously draw a different conclusion
from the  study
than the person who wrote up the results of the study wants you to
draw. (As near as I can tell, ZD Labs conducts its tests on
assignment from specific companies -- and in this case, I'd assume
the client was Windows Media.)
Of course, the fact that Windows Media files are half the size of
MP3 files is still an advantage. As Dave Fester, director of marketing
for the Streaming Media Division at Microsoft, noted, "Using Windows
Media, consumers can overcome the storage barriers on music devices
and double their digital music storage by getting two hours
of CD-quality music on a 64MB portable music device, compared to only
one hour using the MP3 format." That's a valid point.
Streaming audio test
The above findings
refer to tests of archived material. In a test of live streaming,
the article reported, "Results showed that
97.6% of test participants  responded
that the music created with the Windows Media Audio codec sounded
more like the original than the music created with the RealNetworks/Xing
MP3 codec."
Here, I'm just credulous. That's
an amazingly high number. It's hard to get 97.6% of consumers to agree
to anything! (I don't think you could get 97.6% of consumers
to agree that a steakburger from The Palm tastes better than a hamburger
from McDonald's.)
Feel free to read the source material and judge for yourself: The
article from Streaming Media News is here.
If you have any insights, please feel free to share them with us here.
 Lots
of articles in the press in the past few days have dealt with
AOL's purchase of Time Warner.
Click here
for links to some of the best of them. (Reprinted
from RAIN's weekend edition.)
Arbitron's second InfoStream ratings report for streamed audio Webcasts,
for the month of November of last year, is due to be released today
or tomorrow, according to Joan FitzGerald, director of marketing,
Arbitron Internet Information Services.
InfoStream's first report  measured
listening to the 240 Internet audio channels being streamed by ABC
Radio Networks, BroadcastAmerica.com, LaMusica and Magnitude Network.
This week's report should include measurement of the stations streamed
by streaming provider OnRadio and the 120 channels of InfoStream's
first Internet-only Webcaster, NetRadio.
The October report was met with general cheerleading from the press
-- e.g., "Internet adds 1.3 million hours of radio listening!"
This newsletter put the numbers in context by pointing out that New
York City radio listeners alone contributed 1.5 billion hours
of listening to broadcast radio that month.
 Upon
doing a bit of analysis of the numbers, this newsletter revealed that
the average Webcast measured by Arbitron had an AQH of only 9.7
listeners -- and that dozens and dozens of the webcasts had an
AQH of less than one listener.
Click here
and here
and here
to read the original stories and here
for reader comments on those stories.
Click on the
logos above to go to the corresponding sites. Contribute your
suggestions for additional sites here.
For some screenshots of various audio players, click here.
For a sample full-page view (about WWW.com), click here.
More
coming soon!
Thanks for reading RAIN today. Please check back again later
for more -- or see menu items at top left. And
if you like it, please tell your colleagues
about it!
(See below.)
We've
made it easy! Simply click this button
to access some text that you can cut-and-paste into
an e-mail document and then send to people in your address book.
|
If you haven't
read it yet, there's an excellent new Guest Essay by former WMMS
General Manager Bob Bellin here.
...
.
|
|
|
|
