Stay tuned to RAIN for more updates on various parties' performance royalty rate proposals for 2005-2010, as well as more analysis on the news as it breaks.

From Billboard Radio Monitor: "To monetize radio's investment in the Internet, programmers and managers must first pull back from the logic that has guided them for years. Their basic broadcasting DNA has to be completely rewritten.

"Simply put, they need to be deprogrammed. While radio can successfully extend its brands online, the two are entirely different mediums. Merely replicating radio for the Internet negates all the characteristics that make the Web so powerful: interactivity, customization, on-demand capability and the like.

"Such was the consensus among the four Web gurus who gathered Oct. 20 at Billboard Radio Monitor headquarters in New York... While the execs who oversee the online efforts for Clear Channel, Infinity, Emmis and National Public Radio agree there is money to be made in cyberspace, there are stark contrasts in their Internet strategies...

"How different is the Web business model from radio? So different that 'success is a punishing experience on the Internet,' NPR executive VP Ken Stern said. 'The more people listen, the more bandwidth costs you have,'...

"No longer does NPR, perhaps the most aggressive radio entity on the Web, think of its sites as an extension of the on-air experience... NPR sorts its robust podcast offerings by topic, by editorial choice and by number of requests received. Served in bite-size portions, they run in six- to 13-minute bursts rather than radio's standard longer forms...

"Round-table participants agreed that radio is playing catch-up on the Internet. Case in point: station Web sites. Visitors to Clear Channel sites were not getting the quality online experience they had grown accustomed to from other sites, the company concluded. So its online unit systematically overhauled station sites...

"'Our sites were terrible,' Gerrit Meier [senior VP/GM of Clear Channel Online Music & Radio] said...To woo at-work listeners, the company also increased the number of stations streaming on the Net from less than 100 at the beginning of the year to 400-plus now. Meier said, 'Audiences told us, 'We don't have radios at work anymore. We have computers.' "

Read the full article at Billboard Radio Monitor.

From FMQB: "Bridge Ratings has released a new study examining the effect of podcasting on station listenership. The results show that recall of a station is improved due to listening to podcasts.

"For the survey, 4000 radio listeners ages 16 and up in six major markets were studied between January and October of this year. Listeners to commercial stations had a seven percent increase in their cume, with a 15 percent jump in TSL per week after becoming a regular listener to podcasts.

"Fans of NPR and other non-commercial stations showed a five percent increase in cume listening, with 10 percent more TSL after regularly listening to those stations' podcasts.

"'It's apparent that a regular schedule of podcast listening is a key element in order for a radio station to receive the benefits of increased listening,' added Dave Van Dyke [Bridge Ratings President]. 'In this study we found that a frequency of listening to two podcasts per week over the course of a month was the minimum exposure to a station's podcasts which would yield the perception of increased listening.'"

Read this article at FMQB.

"Cingular Wireless unveiled a new radio service for mobile phones, the latest effort by a mobile carrier to expand beyond voice service.

"Cingular... said Monday it would offer the service with MobiTV Inc., a closely held provider of streaming video and radio services. Cingular is charging $6.99 a month plus airtime charges for the MobiRadio service, which offers about 40 channels of commercial free music...

"Cingular said Monday the MobiRadio service is currently available on three of its phones: the Nokia 6620, and Sony Ericsson's S710 and Z500a. It will be available on additional handsets soon, the company said."