x

x NAB supports principles of IREA bill In the flurry of news yesterday (most notably SoundExchange's "offer" to small webcasters, see RAIN coverage here), the National Association of Broadcasters announced it had adopted a resolution, recognizing the harm CRB-determined royalties would cause, and advocating legislation vacating the determination and establishing interim rates. See coverage in today's issue here. In other CRB-related news, since we last reported (here), seven new House members have become co-sponsors of H.R. 2060, the Internet Radio Equality Act. See coverage in today's issue here. x

From Forbes.com: "Sprint Nextel Corp. has teamed with Pandora Media Inc... to deliver personalized streaming radio to its mobile phone  users...

"Pandora's Internet radio service now will be available beyond computers — on Sprint beginning Wednesday. It will be free for the first 30 days of use but will cost an additional $2.99 per month with a Sprint data plan. The service will work initially on five phone models but will expand to all high-speed data phones sold by Sprint by the end of June, the company said.

"Sprint is the first mobile carrier to offer Pandora, the companies said. But if the Oakland-based startup has its way, other cellular networks will follow suit.

"'We knew that if we wanted to be radio with a capital "R," we have to be everywhere, and not just on the Internet," said Pandora founder Tim Westergren. 'We knew we had to make it mobile.'

Read the entire article at Forbes.com.

Branded Wi-Fi player revealed
From TechCrunch: "Pandora made a number of announcements tonight at a press/user event at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco,...

"They also made a pre-announcement, however, of an upcoming Wi-Fi music player to be built by SanDisk and powered by Zing. The working prototype that CTO Tom Conrad demo’d tonight was physically similar to the Sansa Connect device launched last month with Yahoo [previous RAIN coverage here], although it was slightly longer and thinner...

"Few details were revealed, such as whether the device would include a hard drive,... [which] would also allow music caching for periods when the user was outside of Wi-Fi coverage."

Read the entire article at TechCrunch.

BY DANIEL MCSWAIN
Growing concern over the impact of the CRB rates on various broadcast media has prompted the National Association of Broadcasters to adopt "by a unanimous vote" a resolution that supports objectives laid out in the Internet Radio Equality Act and likewise seeks to help webcasters overturn the CRB ruling.

According to a statement, the NAB "recognizes that the new streaming rates established by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) will cause significant harm to broadcasters that stream over the Internet," [previous RAIN coverage here].

Previously, the NAB stated plans to support webcasters by "work[ing] with Congress to craft a solution that helps ensure the survival of a fledgling audio platform."

New statements from the trade group support "a comprehensive approach to addressing the CRB rate determination, including legislation that vacates the CRB decision and establishes an interim royalty rate structure."

This latest vow of support for webcasters comes on the heels of the NAB's vigorous opposition against a performance royalty on terrestrial broadcasts, a change currently being sought by a number of recording industry groups, including the RIAA and SoundExchange [previous RAIN coverage here].

David Oxenford is an attorney with the Washington, DC-based Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, and represents the "small commercial webcasters" to which yesterday's SoundExchange offer was directed. Here's his response to RAIN:

From Emmis.com's "Q&A with Emmis Communications CEO Jeff Smulyan":
"Q: You recently announced increased investment in the Interactive division. What are your plans for the group?

"A: Well, we're ramping up, both in service to our radio stations and in new consulting services for the industry. We think our people lead the industry in expanding radio brands into other platforms and leveraging the relationships with advertisers and audiences.

"Our Emmis Interactive VPs, Deb [Esayian] and Rey [Mena], recently made a presentation to the Radio Advertising Bureau which made me as proud as anything I've seen recently. The RAB decided it was time to look at new avenues of growth for the radio business, and they specifically invited us to make a presentation on what we're doing. It was the first time the RAB has ever done this at their board meeting, and they were really blown away by some of the things we've learned. Now they're asking, 'How can you help us?” We're getting that kind of response from many others in the industry, too. Our goal is to build up the staff to accommodate the interest. This is all a new area, and we think we've found answers faster than anyone else.

"Q: Are you concerned that sharing the Emmis Interactive approach will reduce the company's competitive edge in this area?

"A: The more we can leverage this medium and make it attractive to advertisers, the better it helps all of us. If thousands of stations can provide these kinds of solutions, it drives people back to the radio industry...

"Q: Many radio industry leaders are wary of partnering with Google. Why is Emmis offering inventory to an outlet others find so threatening?

"A: Number one, it's an experiment. We still have the right to refuse business that isn't favorable to us, so I don't see how it's a bad thing that these people want to buy time on our stations. Google has staggering reach — I believe they reach ten times as many total advertisers as the entire radio industry.

"Our theory is that this is simply a supply and demand business. The more demand you put on your inventory, the higher your prices rise. If a portion of Google's current advertisers have a new focus on our industry, it should be good. We're in the very early stages of this — it's less than one percent of anyone's business. We merely said we can't stand in the way of an idea whose time has come. Our industry needs to be redefined, and foreclosing any option doesn't make sense to us."

Read this entire Q&A session with Jeff Smulyan on the Emmis Communications website here.