RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter

From the company press release: "Big City Radio announced the launch of TodoAhora.com, making it one of the first radio companies to use a full-service, bilingual Internet portal to complement its broadcast assets.

"TodoAhora.com, which translates into 'Everything Now,' provides an eclectic mix of

news and information with its complete range of channels, including finance, sports, fashion, health, politics, entertainment and children's programming. All of the site's content is available in English and Spanish."

The site includes links to the live streams of all Big City Radio properties in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Phoenix, including their Country station in the New York City market, their Eighties and CHR properties in Chicago, and their alternative station in Phoenix.

It also includes a "TodoAhora Radio," which consists of 200

channels of co-branded content from WWW.com.

"Rollover" effects translate all of the menu buttons from Spanish to English and virutally all the elements include both English and Spanish translations.

Read the full press release here or visit the website here.

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Over the weekend, some more reader feedback was contributed by RAIN readers...

"Conjecture and platitudes will not resolve this debate..."

All kidding aside, Mel is probably too high up on the food chain at CBS (now Viacom) to be messing

with anything that might net a station $100,000/year. Someone else (don't ask me who) is more than likely empowered to make that decision at this point. Besides, Mel probably has his hands full lining up someone who'll trade the F+B for Sumner Redstone's retirement party.

On the subject...Conjecture and platitudes will not resolve this debate. Beta testing will.

One advantage of owning so many operating companies is that you can test different concepts without impacting the numbers measurably. Someone should buy some reliable bandwidth, stream and promote it in a market with reception issues (lots of tall buildings and/or terrain problems) with above average net orientation and see if it can be viable there. San Francisco or Seattle would be ideal, as they have terrain and building issues that impact reception. If it can't work under those conditions, it can't work at all, at least for now. If it does work, then you can expand the test. In the meantime, some experience and research-based tweaking could improve things. The only way to find out is to try it.

Using CBS as an example, if this is a big disaster and it costs the station $200K in a year, how much impact will that have on a company that does (pre-Viacom) roughly $1 billion in cash flow? Believe me, it won't impact the stock price!

I am shocked that with Wall Street estimating that radio revenue growth will for 2001 will be half of this year's that someone isn't looking for possible bet hedges. Can it be true that not one station has even tested (by that I mean giving it at real shot with some on-air promotion) the concept of streaming as a profitable enterprise?

I honestly don't know whether streaming a station's audio is or isn't in a station's best interest. I do think it's a question that should be put to the test.

-- Bob Bellin, MP3Player.com

"Your essay...should be a wake-up call to the entire broadcast industry..."

Your essay is not only a very powerful argument to Mel, it should be a wake-up call to the entire broadcast industry. Radio has so many overwhelming strengths when it comes to webcasting. Years of experience of selling ads that work, years of experience at programming compelling content, established brands that are known and loved by listeners, and the ability to promote webcasts at a fraction of the cost(?) of Internet-only players. If broadcasters don't jump in now, another "Ted Turner of the Internet world" will fill the vacuum.

Bravo, my friend.
-- Bill Rose, VP/GM, Arbitron Internet Services

"You can use the net for far more than just webcasting your signal..."

I found your piece great. I think it exemplifies how those in power of the radio monopolies don't understand how the net can be an additional revenue stream and save them money.

Case in point: In 1998, we rented out Infinity's WCKG here in Chicago. Our idea was to show the industry that you can use the net for far more than just webcasting your signal. We wanted to show how the net can be used to deliver, CD audio quality live and on air (not to mention the other applications it has), just like satellite. We tried to convince the station that you can use the net to save you money as a radio station which in effect, raises profitability. It fell on cadaver's ears because no one in power understood the power of the net.

What was most comical was that when we approaced the station, an engineer told us they had a policy that wouldn't allow the station's signal on the internet. We told them, "We're not putting your signal on the internet, you're putting our signal on the radio." His answer was "Why would you do it that way?" and "How good can that sound?" (or words to that effect).

You know how much a live remote costs to do. What if you could do one for about 90% less and still get the same amount of revenue out of it? Doesn't that money saved transfer into additional profits?

How did we do it? Lots of R&D, and a computer built to do exactly what we needed it to do. Each Saturday night at 8PM we broadcast from our studio in Brookfield, IL. At times, Frankie Hollywood would host the show at the station; he had a script to follow so that he knew where his breaks were. The music was fed from our studio. We had back-up programming in case of a massive buffer or line break (at the radio station) for protection. This was all a beta test, on a 56k dial-up. We brought one of our proprietary computers to the station, attached an rca cord from the sound card of the computer to the station's board, we dialed up, pressed "Click here to listen" [on our site] We delivered CD audio quality live from the internet to the radio on a 56k dial up, with two little buffers in the 8 week beta test. That was December of 1998 to January of 1999. If you don't think the net's ready for this, you're wrong -- we did over a year and half ago.

Infinity and other radio stations shouldn't run from a technology that will barrel them over, they should run into it head first and embrace it.

With that in mind, many of the big corps appear to continually hire those who may not be very qualified to run their sites or their interactive divisions. Ungodly amounts of money are spent and in the end they have created a product that the average user can't even figure out. Perhaps hiring people who actaully know what they're doing would be a great start.

-- Sal Lepore, Interactive Broadcasting Network

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.

Reprinted from Friday's issue...

BY KURT HANSON
Here's an interesting one: An Internet-only broadcaster that's not trying to put up dozens of jukebox-like channels, but rather is in

the process of putting up a single, live radio station that intends to broadcast from studios around the world!

Although right now the station's only studio is on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, the website says that they intend to broadcast "live from exciting, exotic cities...to include New Orleans, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Rio de Janeiro, Bangkok, and Sydney."

The current version of the station is nonetheless pretty cool. (According to the station's liners, it's "New Music for a New Millennium." (And they're "Changing the World One Song At a Time."))

The station's music mix is hard to describe, but I think it would be fair to call it an eclectic blend of indie rock, Brit Pop, and world music. And they've got a tight-enough playlist that when they

play a song you like, you have a chance of hearing it again.

Unlike many Internet-only operators, the station has a line-up of professional-sounding, articulate air personalities, perfectly capable of reading and commenting on news items, conducting artist interviews, and more.

The site offers visitors their choice of two different versions -- one for low-bandwidth connections, one for high-bandwidth (i.e., if you have a DSL line or a cable modem.) The high-bandwidth version is pictured above.

One thing I like about the site design is that it incorporates a webcam in the upper-right-hand corner.

It's aimed at the air personality when the mike is open and at street scenes outside the studio during songs. It's a nice feature.

The top half of the page shows a "What's playing" that includes a CD cover. It also contains a link to a bio that pops in the middle third of the bottom half of the page, which is very helpful (for both the listener and the artist, probably).

The site also includes a chat room where listeners can communicate with the on-air jock. (This is a much better approach than request lines or e-mailed requests, I believe.)

Is it perfect? Well, not for my tastes: (1) My impression is that the music mix of the station seems to vary wildly from one air personality to another. Personally, for my comfort as a listener, it's too inconsistent. (2) It also strikes me that some of the jocks seem to enjoy having the mike open too many minutes per hour -- e.g., reading news headlines for a few minutes(!), playing just a few songs, and then reading more news headlines. (3) And while I've heard plenty of recorded promos, I don't think I've heard any audio ads yet, which suggests it might not be a perfect business yet.

But I suspect that FastBand GlobalCast will be really cool -- and will get a lot of press -- when the morning show comes from Singapore, the midday show is from Rio de Janeiro, and so forth. (This would be pretty meaningless to the consumer, I think, without the webcam --but the webcam makes it work.)

Visit www.fastband.com (a/k/a/ www.fbgc.com) by clicking here.

If you visit the site and listen to it for a while, share your opinions about it here. (Also, contribute suggestions for "Sites of the Day" here.)


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
Did we miss a major conference? E-mail us here.

New and improved!

xxx

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

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