From The New York Times: "Many conventional broadcast stations simultaneously transmit their programming on their own Web sites. Among the most popular, said MeasureCast, a company that measures streaming audiences on the Web, are Jazz fm, a London station; two classical stations, WQXR-FM in New York and KING-FM in Seattle; and KKDA-FM, an urban adult contemporary station in Dallas.

"But there are plenty of Internet-only radio stations with Web sites as well, including Beethoven.com, a classical station; KNAC.COM, which plays rock; and BlueGrass Country.

"Many other sites function as station directories, including Shoutcast (shoutcast.com), Live365 (live365.com), Live-radio.net and RadioTower.com. These sites will link you to broadcast and Web-only stations, including live and recorded broadcasts, from around the globe. Major portals like Yahoo and MSN have radio links too...

"For those interested in a specific type of music, sites like Spinner, Musicmatch, Echo and PenguinRadio offer their own "stations" in genres like classic rock, pop, hip-hop, classical and blues. Spinner and Musicmatch require that their own players be downloaded; Echo and PenguinRadio immediately start up RealPlayer...

"A common complaint among Internet radio listeners is sound quality, particularly among those who don't have a broadband Internet connection. If you are using a 28.8K or 56K dial-up connection, chances are you will hear a fair amount of pauses and skipping in the audio streams because the connection is too slow to handle the amount of data being sent to your computer. To get around this problem, many Internet radio sites recommend looking for stations that are broadcast at bit rates that are slower than your modem's rate.

"Choppy sound can also result from having too many programs open on your computer. Processing streaming audio can tax your system's resources, so limiting the number of programs you have open to one or two may help improve the radio transmission...

Payback Time:
Royalty Fees Threaten Web Stations
"This could be the golden age of Internet radio, with thousands of stations offering music to satisfy any taste, all just a mouse click away. But it may soon turn to lead.

"Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Internet radio stations will soon have to pay royalties to the recording industry for the use of songs. Since many stations are shoestring operations — often just a hobbyist with a record collection, generating little if any income — the cost could force most out of business...

"Webcasters, who have set up sites like saveinternetradio.org to muster public support, say that if royalties must be paid, they should be a percentage of stations' revenue, not a per-listener rate. Theirs is a fledgling industry, they point out, and the proposed fee structure could eliminate all but a few stations, owned by companies with the deep pockets to subsidize money-losing operations. They say that such a concentration of ownership would run counter to the decentralizing nature of the Web that spurred the growth of Internet radio to begin with."

This article was published in yesterday's New York Times. Read the main story here and the sidebar on the CARP crisis here. (The print version of the article included the huge, 1/3-page photo of the jukebox which you see above. The available selections within the jukebox included webcasters like KPIG.com, ChoiceRadio.com, Virgin Radio, and MEDIAmazing.)

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AllAccess.com is reporting that Las Vegas-based Citadel Communications' anticipated cost-cutting measures are not expected to affect the streaming of the company's stations -- at least not yet.

Several news sources over the past few days have speculated that Internet streaming might be halted at the company's 140 stations.

Citadel did, in fact, downsize staff. AllAccess reports that the Internet Division was closed down, resulting in about 14 layoffs. In addition, Exec. VP/Programming Ken Benson, President/Far West Region Jerry McKenna, President/East Regional Ken Mannes, VP/Sales Training Bill Parshall and his staff have all been let go.

Last November, Yahoo! announced a two-year deal (here) with the broadcast company to stream all of its stations.

From Time Magazine: "Here's how democracy works in the digital age. Just before Apple unveiled the iPod last October, the Internet rumor mill was rife with speculation that the device would be some kind of personal organizer -- Steve Jobs' answer to the Palm Pilot. The iPod turned out to be a palm-size music player with a five-gigabyte hard drive (a 10-GB version was released two weeks ago). But now, six months later, that original speculation doesn't seem too wrong. That's because Apple's hard-core users quickly figured out how to hack the device and write new software for it. It's as if they told Jobs, Very nice, Steve, but what we needed was an organizer, and we've decided to turn the iPod into one.

"The upshot is that last week I used my iPod for half a dozen more things than it was intended for. I read my horoscope, skimmed the latest news and sports headlines, sent little memos to myself, checked my appointment calendar and uploaded my entire address book...

"First, go to www.apple.com/ipod, and make sure you have version 1.1 of the iPod software. This will let you export your address book from programs like Palm Desktop and Microsoft Entourage. Check out iPoding.com or iPodhacks.com for other address-book formats. Then go to VersionTracker.com, and search for iPod (specify Mac OS 9 or OS X) to see which of the following goodies are available for your machine.

"Want a datebook? Check out K-Lendar, which will list all your appointments, by day and start time, under the "artists" category of your iPod. For a notepad, try Podtext. Need a news fix with your music? Pod News has an abbreviated choice of headlines and horoscopes, updated from the Web every time you recharge your iPod. PodNotes also has headlines and, amazingly, downloadable driving directions from any location..."

Read this entire article online here.