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Technology Stocks : Audio and Radio on the Internet- NAVR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: OpusX who wrote (15893)	5/3/1999 12:11:00 AM
From: Marketeer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27722

From the Economist archive, "Internet radio" dated 2-13-99 economist.com Robert, I think this is what you are looking for... How well is net radio fulfilling its early promise? RADIOS at work used to have an authentically blue-collar feel associated with dented black plastic boxes blaring AM music in repair shops or postrooms. The worker-hearer nowadays is as likely to be a young lawyer or banker sitting in apparent quiet and listening with tiny earphones to the radio on a computer. To enthusiasts the Internet opens new worlds for an old medium. Gone are broadcast radio's difficulties with waveband congestion. On the net, there is virtually unlimited space for content. Small alternative stations can thrive alongside mainstream powerhouses. Screens supplement radio sound with song titles, liner notes and banner advertisements. Yet thanks to low overheads (no radio towers, for example) spoken advertisements can be kept to a minimum. On net radio, as webcasters are keen to point out, audio ads usually take up less than three minutes an hour, a fourth or fifth as much as traditional commercial stations normally run. And net radio, unlike the old sort, is interactive: listeners can chat to each other, rate songs or click on a banner ad to buy a disc of the music they've just heard—all while listening to the radio. It is an attractive vision and many exciting new stations are taking advantage of web technology. But the novelty seems greater in places like Europe, where radio was more regulated, than in America, where college and other local FM stations have long broadcast alternative fare to small audiences. And even in America, the net has yet to free radio entirely: webcasters there are currently negotiating a statutory licensing fee with the Recording Industry Association of America. And, however low their costs, net stations everywhere are still having to struggle to make money. The progress so far is nevertheless impressive. In its short life, Internet radio has had to overcome several technical barriers. Streaming technology had to improve: this allows studio servers to send a continuous flow or stream of data through (but not to) a desktop computer, where it is converted into sound. Streamed sound is usually no better than AM radio. Webcasters hope soon to send FM-quality sound. On the receiving end, listeners need a multimedia co-processor and a 28k modem or better. Many of the 1,700 stations in America and Europe that stream audio (another 4,300 stations have websites but no audio) are standard broadcasters that simulcast sports, music and news over the internet. A baseball fan in Bucharest or a cricket fan in Cincinnati can listen to their teams' home matches. More exciting are the start-ups that exist only on the Internet. While most web-only radio companies offer a selection of traditionally programmed channels (“All Eighties”, “Soul Food”, “Baroque”), there are variations. Listeners at ImagineRadio (www.imagineradio.com) choose which music they want to hear and how often by rating artists. At Sonicnet (www.sonicnet.com) Flash Radio neatly pairs animation with music. The money-making side is also varied. Many music webcasters get payments for generating music sales. Rather more money comes from advertising. Banners (often hidden behind at-work listeners' spreadsheets and documents) back up audio ads with, for example, telephone numbers or links to the advertisers' sites. Ads are priced, in principle, according to the number of individuals who read them. Because net listeners divide up fairly neatly into groups, the advertisements, again in principle, can be tightly targeted. As Josh Felser, president of the 100-station Spinner (www.spinner.com), puts it, “We can deliver the right message to the right segment of listeners”. By contrast, NetRadio (www.netradio.com) focuses on e-shopping. Its 150 news, music and entertainment channels draw to the site customers who spend real money for real goods at NetRadio's virtual music and software stores. George Burr, director of marketing, compares the radio programming to the indoor amusement park that attracts customers to Minneapolis's Mall of America: “Radio”, he says, “is our amusement park.” Like almost everything else associated with the net, e-radio has come up so fast nobody can be sure what will happen with it next. To boosters it is a direct-marketer's dream, as listeners pick the music and the sort of ads they want. But direct marketing does not need radio (think of Amazon.com). And for serious music listeners, sound quality is still a problem that net radio has yet to deal with. Marketeer