From Broadcasting & Cable: "The FCC would have to abandon its low-power FM plans under a measure passed by the House Telecommunications Subcommittee yesterday. While the bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), requires the FCC to vacate its recent decision to create a low-power FM service, the panel was amenable to a compromise from Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) that would have allowed the FCC to offer a six-month trial service in 10 cities and then evaluate whether it caused interference.

"Dingell withdrew his amendment, however, because he did not have adequate support... [Subcommittee Chairman Billy] Tauzin said it was important to move Oxley’s bill quickly to send a message to the FCC that they are 'moving much too expeditiously.'

From Radio & Records: "After nearly seven hours of grueling debate over other measures, the House Commerce Subcommittee wasted little time yesterday in deciding to send Mike Oxley's anti-LPFM 'Radio Preservation Act' to the full House for consideration. To date, 154 co-sponsors have signed on to the bill, a staggering sign of support for a bill introduced just four months ago. The bill picked up even more support this week after the FCC said it would begin LPFM license auctioning on Monday..."

Read the full story in Broadcasting & Cable here, R&R's coverage here (subscription requried), or check RBR for coverage here.

BY KURT HANSON
Of the 290 webcasts streamed by streaming providers that agreed to let Arbitron have access to the server logs required to produce the December 1999 InfoStream webcast ratings, Arbitron has released sufficient information to know the "average persons" audience size of only two of those webcasts.

Here's why: As you may have noticed, Arbitron has had a policy to date of only releasing statistics on the top 25 stations in each of two categories (Monthly Cume and "Time Spent Tuning"). But because you need both statistics to calculate a station's audience size, the stations that are strong enough to appear in both "top 25" lists are the only stations you can calculate an audience size for.

In the November 1999 report, 13 stations made both lists, with AQH audiene sizes ranging from a high of 200 listeners (ABC's "Tom Joyner Show") to a low of 37 listeners (WJR/Detroit). (Click here to view table.)

In WPLJ's case, above, you can see that their cume is growing about 15% per month while their TST has been holding fairly steady. (Note that this chart also explains how I've derived an AQH audience size estimate.)

Cume: Short for "cumulative audience." Counting everybody once, no matter how long they listen. Monthly cume: Total number of different people (or, technically, in this case, I believe, different audio player ID #s) who listened at least once during the month for at least a moment. Time Spent Tuning: How many total hours during the month the average person in a webcast's monthly cume spent listening to that webcast. Average persons: (Also known as "AQH persons" or "Average Quarter Hour persons.") How many people are listening at the average moment. (Thus, if you run one commercial or one song at a random/average moment, this statistic tells you about how many people will hear that commercial or song.)

RAIN reader Ken Cuccinelli of UDO Entertainment, LLC writes in to ask, "Kurt, how do Web-only broadcasts fit in here?"

The answer is this: Only two Internet-only webcasters made either of the top 25 lists -- ZDradio.com and 93x.fm -- and they only made the Monthly Cume list. Since all we know about their TST is that it must have been less than 2:20, we can calculate that neither station could have had more than 188 AQH listeners. (This is generously assuming that all their listening occured during the 18-hour broadcast day).

As for all the other Internet-only broadcasters that were in the study (e.g., TheBroadcastWeb's stations, eYada.com, etc.), we know that their Monthly Cume must have been less than 19,500 and their TST must have been less than 2:20. Therefore, their AQH audience size -- at least in December -- could have been no more than 82 listeners per station.

This is true for all of the 240 webcasts -- Internet-only or otherwise -- that didn't appear in either of the top 25 lists: They mathematically could have been no more than 82 listeners at the average moment in December.

  Contribute YOUR feedback here.

If you'd like an easy-to-read set of tables of the Arbitron InfoStream December 1999 results, they're now available for your viewing here in RAIN. Click here for...

           Top 25 stations in Monthly Cume
           Top 25 stations in Time Spent Tuning
           Side-by-side comparison of the above two lists

           Monthly Cume trends
           Time Spent Tuning trends

Thanks very much to everyone who helped spread the word about RAIN in Week #1 of the RAIN Viral Marketing Contest. However, we didn't have a winner (see details here), so we're going to add another prize to the RAIN Viral Marketing Contest Prize Package and try again!

This week, you could win both the Sony Music Clip digital music player (pictured below) and a gorgeous Nextel i1000plus Internet-ready cell phone (pictured at left)!

It's totally packed with features -- including the ability to give you wireless Internet access when Nextel begins that service in some markets next month (see full specs sheet here)...but the best part, in my opinion, is this: It's got an integrated speakerphone.

That means you can use it holding it halfway at arm's length -- exactly like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy used to hold their communicators!   ("Scotty, I need warp power in ten minutes or we'll all dead.")

So, here once again are the rules: You're invited to recommend RAIN to your friends and colleagues. If RAIN gets 100 new "subscribers" this week (i.e., new readers who fill out the "Enjoying reading RAIN?" form above), we'll give away the entire prize package to one lucky winner (chosen randomly from everyone who has sent out an e-mail recommendation to date).  If not, we'll roll over all the entries, add something more to the prize package, and try again next week.

So think of a few people you know who would benefit from knowing about RAIN -- co-workers, subordinates, friendly competitors, clients, vendors, college friends -- and tell them about this fine Web-based daily newsletter. And win!

(Want to write an e-mail to a couple of colleagues right now, but need help composing the e-mail? Click here for some suggested language.)

If you've already recommended RAIN to your colleagues (see list HERE to make sure we've got your name), you really don't have to recommend it to more people, because your name is already in the hat. However, it would be nice if you did. The deal on the cell phone is that when you buy it (and sign up for service), we'll reimburse you for the cost of the phone (which should be about $200). Or if you don't want to do that, we'll buy you some other cool electronic item in that price range instead. And the 100 new subscribers have to be legitimate industry-related people. (No stuffing the ballot box with 40 kids from your daughter's 5th grade class! Thank you.)

More coming soon! Contribute your suggestions here. (Suggestions already in the hopper include CableMusic.com, RadioWoodstock.com, Nerve Radio, Radio Gogaga, and HotCountryHits.)

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Now you can easily click through previous issues of RAIN by using the blue arrows to the left and right of the issue date above. This navigation element has been added retroactively to all of March's issues.