Harry is a decent portion of what an investor needs to know-----
NetRadio bills itself as the first Internet-only radio network, and is
currently one of the largest on-demand "Webcasters" of originally
programmed audio content, with more than 120 channels of music and
information.
NetRadio gets in excess of 20 million page views per month, Paulson told
analysts, and the average time on the site is between 30 minutes and 40
minutes.
NetRadio sells advertising on each of its channels, and it also sells
software and music.
The product sales are a natural fit with Navarre , a supplier of music and
software to retailers and other online merchants.
NetRadio will face stiff competition from other established music retailers,
such as CDNow and Amazon.com. It also will inevitably be compared to
Broadcast.com, which carries other broadcasters' programming and
which has seen its stock rise from $72 to more than $140 since the end
of 1998.
But Axxel Knutson, a New Jersey-based Internet analyst, thinks
NetRadio's combination of highly targeted content and electronic
commerce capabilities should make it an attractive offering.
"Their technology is way ahead of everyone else's," Knutson said. "The
key two, three or four years out will be building market share."
But building NetRadio's presence has been expensive for Navarre . It
lost almost $4 million in its third quarter that ended Dec. 28, and
attributed most of the loss to NetRadio.
Navarre , which currently carries NetRadio at no value on its balance
sheet, previously has indicated that it wants to reduce its stake to less
than 50 percent.
Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. to know---it is from the
Minneapolis-St.Paul Star Tribune 2/3/99 |
