BY KURT HANSON
A New York-based startup called Savos announced yesterday that they've received $2.2 million in first-round funding for a business plan that could begin to bring Internet audio to cell phones as soon as next month.

Savos's plan, according to its website, is to allow consumers to access a web-based audio menu to select the Internet radio choices they prefer, and then use touchtone and voice commands on their cell phones to listen to and switch between those stations.

According to the firm's press release, they hope to raise an additional $10-20 million in venture capital in the next 60 to 90 days and to launch the service during the second quarter of this year. (The website says more specifically, "Savos expects to launch a consumer-based audio portal in late June of 2000.")

This is potential very exciting! Could this actually work?

One problem, at least in the short run, is that current cell phone connections are not as fast as dial-up modems (i.e., 14.4 Kbps?), which would seem to make this service more appropriate for news and talk stations than for music stations, at least in the short run.

Another problem is the high cost per minute of cell phone connections. While XM and Sirius are only going to ask consumers for $9.95 per month, consumers who are past their minimum usage of minutes with their cell phone service provider might have to pay as much as $15 per hour to listen to radio via their cell phones today (at $.25/minute).

(On the other hand, my Nextel service contract gives me free incoming calls through year-end. If I could program the Savos system to call me, my cell phone-based radio listening would be free though December. (On the third hand, if this service was at all popular, it would totally overwhelm the Nextel network, I'll bet.))

In any event, problems or not, the ability to listen to Internet radio via one's cell phone seems to be arriving many months before anyone expected it!

Note that there may be an opportunity here for radio stations (or others) to produce short, on-demand audio segments -- e.g., a two-minute news update from WINS or KFWB for someone who doesn't want to spend 22 minutes on their cell phone to get the world.

Similarly, it might be appropriate for a music station to offer cell phone users a really tightly-formatted version of a music station -- e.g., a version of Z100 or B96 that plays the week's top 14 songs over and over.


What do you think? Visit the Savos site here and contribute your opinions here.

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Broadcast radio has all-news stations, all-sports-news stations, and all-business-news stations -- plus, of course, all-talk stations that spend a lot of time on political issues. Now there's an Internet-only broadcaster that offers an all-political-news station -- Davenport, IA-based Policast.com.

According to its website, Policast is "focused on delivering political and campaign news to elected officials, lobbyists, interest groups, campaign staff and the politically interested in the United States."

The site was founded by staff members from Steve Forbes's recent Republican presidential campaign, although it's designed as a nonpartisan effort.

Policast's Program Manager, Gary Barnett, served as a political reporter for WHO/Des Moines, UPI, and Mutual Broadcasting System’s news operation. For the last four years he has worked as a talk show host on KCRG/Cedar Rapids.

One portion of Policast's business model is apparently a side business called VictoryStore.com that sells buttons, yard signs, bumper stickers, website design services, and other campaign materials. (Audio ads on Policast invite listeners to "Do your campaign shopping from the privacy of your home" at VictoryStore.com.)

Finally, with Indiana and North Carolina holding primaries today, Policast says it will provide the first-ever live Internet radio coverage of election results tonight. Listen to Policast.com by clicking here.

From FMQB News: "Webcast advertising is in an embryonic stage, accounting for only a fraction of current ad dollars, but media buyers see significant growth ahead for the medium. That’s the principal message from an Arbitron survey of 100 senior ad agency executives released Thursday (4/27) at the USC/Inside Radio Internet Conference 2000 in Scottsdale, AZ."

RAIN observations: Arbitron explains that they interviewed executives at tradtional agencies, "interactive" agencies, and buying services. Clearly, the percentages in which the three types of agencies were represented would totally drive the results of the study. (For example, 100% of interactive agencies would advertise on the Internet, right? Put more of those in the study and you drive up all the usage percentages throughout the study.)

"The report found that 77 percent of ad agencies have placed advertising on the Internet, but the percentage of their total ad budgets devoted to online advertising is generally 10 percent or less." (Specifically, according to the respondents, of the agencies that use the Internet, 71% spend 1-10% of their budgets on it, 15% spend 11-100%, and 14% don't know.)

On the one hand, it's astonishing to think that by the first quarter of the year 2000, 23% of ad agencies have never placed any advertising on the Internet. (Could this be because those agencies have interactive divisions that handle such buys?)

On the other hand, the radio medium has been around for decades and it gets 7% or 8% of ad spending, so it's no big surprise that Internet spending would be "10 percent or less."

But note that interactive agencies would logically spend 100% of their budgets on the Internet. Therefore, all this finding really says is that Arbitron must have had about 12 interactive agencies in their study (i.e., 15% of the 77% that use the Internet).

"Banner ads are the most popular type of online advertising, used by 83 percent of agencies that place ads online, followed by sponsorships (43 percent), e-mail (21 percent), pop-ups (14 percent) and buttons (13 percent). Only 21 percent of agencies that have placed online buys have used Webcast advertising, and they largely tend to be interactive agencies.

This is unbelievable! Webcast advertising is as popular as e-mail advertising and more popular than pop-ups and buttons? It's so unbelievable that Arbitron left the finding out of their press release. (The press release says, "Overwhelmingly, banner ads are the most popular type of online advertising, used by 83 percent of the agencies who place advertising online. Others were sponsorships (43 percent), e-mail (21 percent), pop-ups (14 percent) and buttons (13 percent)." With no mention of Webcast advertising at 21%.)

"The size of Internet budgets earmarked exclusively for Webcast ads is negligible: 62 percent of agencies say they put five percent or less of their Internet ad dollars into Webcasting. But that’s likely to change. Sixty-nine percent of Webcast-using agencies expect to spend more on it this year, and 56 percent of Webcast virgin agencies say they are likely to try it this year..."

Of course. It's a new advertising opportunity; therefore people would be using it more this year than last. No other answer would make any sense.

Perhaps the most valuable findings of the study, which were covered in Arbitron exec Bill Rose's speech but not in the press release, were the verbatim comments from agency execs about how they perceive the potential strengths of Webcast advertising -- e.g., "Heightens immediacy and impact of Web message," "Delivers message to specific individual," "Allows you to reach light (TV/radio) media user," and "Have person's full attention better than TV and banners."

Read the FMQB piece here (click appropriate headline in right-hand column) or Arbitron's press release here (which includes a link to the full presentation of findings, including those verbatims), and contribute your thoughts here.

If you're hiring for a position that's radio- and Internet-related this week, we'll post it -- free! Simply e-mail the job description here. If you're looking for new opportunities that involve the Internet, you can take a look at the first three available positions here.

Try it out! Explore the wide world of Internet audio by clicking the screenshot above.

May 15-18	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Boston
May 22-26	Real [Networks] Conference 2000, San Jose
June 12-14	Streaming Media East 2000, New York City
June 14-17	R&R Convention 2000, Los Angeles
June 14-17	PROMAX & BDA, New Orleans
July 13-16	Upper Midwest Conclave, Minneapolis
August 3-5	Morning Show Bootcamp, New Orelans
September 20-23	NAB Radio Show, San Francisco
October 5-7	Billboard/Airplay Monitor Seminar, New York
November 5-7	NAB European Radio Conference, Berlin
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