BY KURT HANSON, reporting from Los Angeles
It's not a live stream. And it's not an on-demand archive either. Nonetheless, CBS-owned Infinity Broadcasting apparently started taking its first steps toward webcasting this week, offering some of the programming of KLSX/Los Angeles on the website www.fmtalki.com.

In an odd hybrid of live and archived programming, KLSX is offering Internet users a two-hour streamed webcast of (apparently) prerecorded programming each night from 8PM to 10PM.

What I heard on the radio station's top-of-hour ID is that the station is "now available worldwide" at the aforementioned URL. Which I guess to some extent is accurate -- although I'm sure what they're offering is not what a listener who hears that top-of-hour ID would expect.

The live streaming of archived programming apparently began Monday, one week after the debut of a new KLSX website from L.A.-based Feed The Monster design firm.

As you can see from the schedule of on-line programming at left, it's not exactly made clear whether each night's webcast is being produced live for the Internet audience or is a rerun or "Best of" program (although some, like Johnny B's, are clearly the latter).

Also atypically, the streaming is done in neither the Real Audio or Windows Media formats, but rather in Apple's QuickTime format. (The player is shown at right.)

The site includes a message board for listener comments about the website. Here's what some of the visitors had to say:

"You should stream the station live online. I have a computer at work and I listen to radio through the internet. I've been waiting for you guys to put this station online so I can listen during work. I then realized your not streaming the station live. You really should do live streaming."

"Is there any where on your web site you can listen to the current radio program for 97.1? I would like to listen to howard when I get to work via the internet via my computer."

"If you have a cable modem this site is great...otherwise, it is a hog."

"The FMTalk player is the 'big feature' but you can't get the right shows. This site needs a lot of work. I hate to say it but I liked the other site better too. It seems to be the consensus here. I still like the fm talk station though."

"I love your new site! It looks great. I can't wait to see it grow into something every listener will log on to! Keep up the good work.

KLSX PD Jack Silver posted several responses on the message board, noting that the site is a work-in-progress and promising that "the streaming audio weeknites will get better and more diverse" over time.



What do you think about this new development? Contribute your opinions here.

May 15-18	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Boston     -- SOLD OUT!*
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
* The Radio Ink Internet Conference East is sold out, but if you're thinking about attending, fortunately for you, RAIN anticipated your needs! Last week, we purchased a small block of seats for those RAIN readers who make decisions at the last minute. Want to know more? E-mail us here for details.

From FMQB News: "Over 66 percent of 5,200 online music shoppers have not paid -- and would not expect to pay -- for digital music downloads, according to Greenfield Online's e-Merging Music II research report.

"Forty-five percent of respondents have downloaded music from the Internet. The study found that MP3.com was visited by 20 percent of online music shoppers in the study, up slightly from the e-Merging Music study in 1999. Other interesting findings: MP3 music files have nearly the same penetration level (22 percent) as music videos (23 percent)...

"Online music shoppers are not willing to spend more money to get additional features. One-third of respondents believe features such as sharing music or portability of downloaded music is important, but they aren't willng to pay for it....

Read the full piece in FMQB here.(registration required).

This is good news for Internet radio, in that if consumers won't pay cash for digital music, then the obvious business model that's left is advertising-supported music -- i.e., radio!

(Also, note that this study looked at active music consumers; the average consumer is even less likely to be willing to pay for downloaded music.)

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Reprinted from yesterday's issue:
Austin, TX, calls itself "The Live Music Capital of the World," and it's got a website that's appropriate for a town with that billing in ClubCastLive.com, which features live webcasts of numerous concerts every night from various local clubs, plus an archive of hundreds of past shows.

According to the website, "ClubCastLive is the world's leading Internet broadcaster of live music. Using a technique called 'streaming,' ClubCastLive sets up shop in local venues and brings the music from each one, every night, home to you over the Internet. Concerts are broadcast live, in real time, and then available for on-demand playback within 12-24 hours.

"ClubCastLive's proprietary technologies let users from 28.8k modems to T1 and higher speeds listen to high-quality audio broadcasts. The 'feeds' come in 2 varieties: the first, 'high bandwidth,' is a CD-quality stereo feed catering to users with a broadband connection (Cable/DSL/T1/ISDN); the second, 'low-bandwidth,' sounds similar to FM radio and caters to our modem users.

It's a good-looking, well-designed site, and particularly if you've ever thought of doing anything with archived concerts, it's a site you should visit, which you can do by clicking here. (Comments? Contribute them 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.

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