BY KURT HANSON
Six major broadcast groups are in the process of solidifying their plans to create a national Internet portal that will use each of their local radio station websites as their entry points, Emmis Radio President Doyle Rose told RAIN yesterday.

Although Rose has previously revealed certain details about the plans for the "consortium" -- dubbed the Local Market Internet Venture (LMIV) and "The Industry Solution" -- that Emmis has been attempting to put together, he revealed more in yesterday's conversation than ever before.

Rose explained, for example, that each of the participating broadcast groups -- which may include Emmis, Susquehanna, Bonneville, Citadel, Jefferson-Pilot, Greater Media, and possibly others -- will each be asked to contribute $1 for each individual in each of their stations' weekly cumulative audiences, which would capitalize the new venture at $60 to $70 million.

In addition, each participating radio station will be required to broadcast a minimum of 13 announcements of various lengths per day for the new venture, which, Rose said, would provide the equivalent of $1 billion a year in promotional support for the portal.

Consumers will not see a national portal
A good analogy for the consortium's plans, Rose explained, is a TV network: "TV networks provide an expensive, high-quality product, and then local TV stations build a customized and localized product around it." Similarly, Rose envisions the consortium negotiating major content deals that would be accessed via each of the individual station website. "We'll have quality, great content that no individual group could afford."

Emmis-owned Q101/Chicago, for example, "has got a great website today, and what you see won't be a lot different, except that it will be a lot deeper, with a lot more things available." Rose mentioned news, weather, traffic, e-commerce, and classifieds as content elements "that will be at least as good as what's offered by any of the major portals."

The key to the success of the venture, Rose believes, is that the radio stations can leverage the relationships they have with their listeners -- and their promotional muscle -- to bring users to their sites on a daily basis.

"By the end of the year, when all the stations are up and running, we should have 1,000 stations with a reach of 100,000,000 people," Rose said. "I believe a station has the ability to convert 10 to 15% of their total cume into registered users. And with 15 million registered users, we wouldn't be that far from AOL," which has 23 million users today.

Founding partners get board seats;
venture may eventually go public
Rose envisions that after the first set of broadcast groups (the "founding partners") launches the venture, other groups and stations will be invited to join in as either affiliates or owner/affiliares.

Groups that join the consortium later will be allowed in on the same financial and ownership terms as the founding partners (a capital contribution of $1/cumer), Rose said, but only the founding partners will have board seats in the venture.

He notes that affiliated stations will also receive a variety of other services from the venture, including website design services, streaming services, and ad sales (both banners and audio ads). Rose added that CMGI Solutions has been as a consultant to help us create a platform -- the technology, the backroom, and to begin to line up content partners.

"The initial company will have a least 200 employees -- $60 million will go a long way," Rose noted. The location of the venture and staffing for the venture is yet to be determined. "And if the conditions are favorable, we'll eventually take it public."

"We're way ahead of CBS and Clear Channel"
"My guess is that this model is going to work and there are eventually going to be three networks like this," Rose said, "and we're all going to be fighting for affiliates.

"But we're going to have two advantages -- first, we're way ahead of CBS and Clear Channel, and second, who would a smaller broadcaster prefer to affiliate with?"

"You know," Rose noted, "when we started working on this, I called group heads and asked, 'What's your Internet strategy?' Everyone was stymied; they didn't know what they were going to do. I think this is going to be great -- I think there's going to be sharing of other things as well between our companies as a result of this."



What do you think? Will this work? Contribute your feedback here.

May 15-18	Radio Ink Internet Conference, Boston     -- SOLD OUT!*
* The Radio Ink Internet Conference may be sold out, but if you were still thinking about attending, fortunately for you, RAIN has anticipated your needs! You're in luck! Before it sold out, we purchased a small block of seats for those RAIN readers who make decisions at the last minute. Interested in attending? E-mail us here for details.
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

From Radio & Records: "Internet/e-commerce radio advertising for January-February 2000 totaled $16.4 million -- that's 14% of the total and a 387% increase over January-February 1999, according to Miller, Kaplan, Arase & Co.'s New York Radio Market X-Ray. The dot-com sector usurped the top spot from automotive advertising, which experienced 51% growth to come in at $13.9 million.

"Rounding out the top five were TV stations/networks ($8.8 million, up 34%), communications/cellular/public utilities ($6.2 million, up 18%), and health care ($4.8 million, up 41%). The categories with the largest percentage increases, following dotcoms, were political (up 352% to $501,000) and personal fitness (up 100% to $682,000)."

Read more of today's news in RROnline.com here.

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