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Bye Bye Music Format Radio - the Beginning of the End
- Thread starter congsec51
- Start date
Zach said:
The reason for the lack of unlimited data plans is not because of costs of offering it, but rather the idea that overages bring in far more revenue. Data caps have been proven time and time again to have little to no effect on "peak" usage times, therefore invalidating the argument that they save carriers money. Increasing the size of the pipe is what costs carriers money, not how much goes through it. Throttling can actually help carriers handle the load, but there should be no need for it unless you have a small regional carrier. The big companies have plenty of spectrum, and anyone who says otherwise is full of it.
"Mobile" data costs for the time being are on the rise, but as Sprint, Verizon, At&t and USCC all get their LTE networks rolling, the costs per-byte will drop once again. It will be a while before that happens, and it will no doubt go up before it comes down. In the mean time, Slacker and most on-demand services allow off-line caching, which makes the mobile costs irrelevant. That is one of strong advantages to having licenses directly with the labels. The other being that the royalties set forth by sound exchange have much less of an impact when the majority of the content you offer is licensed separately.
Mobile data costs are a set-back for everyone else, and this is unfortunate. But as I said, with AAC+ and Ogg Vorbis, this should not be as big of a problem for services as it is being made out to be. 32-48 kbps is possible and does not sound too bad with these codecs.
Zach, is your carrier USCC? They advertise having "plenty of data" for their offerings, but indeed have a 5GB cap in the fine print with STEEP overages.
I can afford to purchase & run an internet radio station off of donations, and I have listeners in the UK, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and all over the United States and Canada.
I can NOT afford to buy OR run an AM to cover 36 states (only at night), an FM to cover 90 miles, or a LPFM to cover most of my hometown.
I also can't afford to put a satellite in space to reach mainly listeners in specially-equipped cars.
I've been streaming live since December of 1999. I was posting pre-recorded shows four years before that. My bandwidth prices are FALLING, my royalty prices are BETTER managed today than 10 years ago, an my audience numbers continue to CLIMB. The economics of my station are IMPROVING, not worsening.
You guys can continue to scream "the sky is falling" as long as you want... I'm going to continue to ride the coat-tails of companies like Pandora and make myself (eventually) a very comfortable living doing what I love to do.
That is something I can NOT afford to do in broadcasting.
You assume wireless providers aren't continuing to build out their systems, but that's just not true. They know the more bandwidth they can provide, the more money they can made from bandwidth-hungry subscribers.
Car & truck manufacturers like Ford wouldn't be putting tools to access the internet (including internet radio) in their vehicles unless they saw a market and a future.
How have iPhones done in sales? How have Androids and all the rest done?
Have there been bumps in the road? Absolutely! But how did those Model T's originally perform? How hard did a person on horseback laugh as he rode past a broken down "Tin Lizzie?"
Thomas Edison famously said once, "I have not failed; I have simply found 10,000 (TEN THOUSAND!!!) ways to not make a light bulb.
One of the best silent films of all time (Fritz Lang's "Metropolis") was released a year AFTER "The Jazz Singer." See "Singin' In The Rain" for evidence of messed up synchronization on soundtracks, silent stars who sounded like dying cattle... who the heck is gonna pay to see such ridiculousness?!?
It took THIRTY YEARS for movies to go fully from black and white to color. Even Hitchcock was still filming in black and white in 1960 (Psycho)!
If you're old enough that you'll be out of radio in the next five to ten years, then laugh away... you'll likely be out of the biz before internet radio dominates. Don't be surprised, though, in your retirement if you find that to listen to your favorite shows, you're having to go online... and that the broadcast stations are becoming fewer, and fewer, and fewer because of how un-economical it is to own all that land and maintain all that tower and spend all that electricity to cover a few hundred-thousand people.
Let's revisit this thread in 20 years, shall we? It should be QUITE entertaining reading, hearing all the "naysayers" squawk, after net radio (in a likely modified form) is the norm. ;D
I can NOT afford to buy OR run an AM to cover 36 states (only at night), an FM to cover 90 miles, or a LPFM to cover most of my hometown.
I also can't afford to put a satellite in space to reach mainly listeners in specially-equipped cars.
I've been streaming live since December of 1999. I was posting pre-recorded shows four years before that. My bandwidth prices are FALLING, my royalty prices are BETTER managed today than 10 years ago, an my audience numbers continue to CLIMB. The economics of my station are IMPROVING, not worsening.
You guys can continue to scream "the sky is falling" as long as you want... I'm going to continue to ride the coat-tails of companies like Pandora and make myself (eventually) a very comfortable living doing what I love to do.
That is something I can NOT afford to do in broadcasting.
You assume wireless providers aren't continuing to build out their systems, but that's just not true. They know the more bandwidth they can provide, the more money they can made from bandwidth-hungry subscribers.
Car & truck manufacturers like Ford wouldn't be putting tools to access the internet (including internet radio) in their vehicles unless they saw a market and a future.
How have iPhones done in sales? How have Androids and all the rest done?
Have there been bumps in the road? Absolutely! But how did those Model T's originally perform? How hard did a person on horseback laugh as he rode past a broken down "Tin Lizzie?"
Thomas Edison famously said once, "I have not failed; I have simply found 10,000 (TEN THOUSAND!!!) ways to not make a light bulb.
One of the best silent films of all time (Fritz Lang's "Metropolis") was released a year AFTER "The Jazz Singer." See "Singin' In The Rain" for evidence of messed up synchronization on soundtracks, silent stars who sounded like dying cattle... who the heck is gonna pay to see such ridiculousness?!?
It took THIRTY YEARS for movies to go fully from black and white to color. Even Hitchcock was still filming in black and white in 1960 (Psycho)!
If you're old enough that you'll be out of radio in the next five to ten years, then laugh away... you'll likely be out of the biz before internet radio dominates. Don't be surprised, though, in your retirement if you find that to listen to your favorite shows, you're having to go online... and that the broadcast stations are becoming fewer, and fewer, and fewer because of how un-economical it is to own all that land and maintain all that tower and spend all that electricity to cover a few hundred-thousand people.
Let's revisit this thread in 20 years, shall we? It should be QUITE entertaining reading, hearing all the "naysayers" squawk, after net radio (in a likely modified form) is the norm. ;D
NightAire said:
Keep in mind you're speaking as an owner/operator. Most people in broadcasting don't own businesses, and don't aspire to. They work for others.
The others DO have the resources to buy OTA radio stations, AND they have the resources to stream all formats of programming 24/7, and they have the resources to develop technologies none of us know.
So you have your piece of the pie. But some people have different goals. Some of them have lots of money, lots of lawyers, and lots of high powered connections. Next thing you know, the rules of the game change, and the world as you knew it is gone. It's happened before. The one thing I've learned is things never stay the same.
Now, wait a minute... you can't have it both ways! If internet radio is such an expensive, losing game... why would I ever be competing against the Big Boys?
And if it IS worth corporate broadcasting trying to manipulate with their money... then perhaps there IS something to this streaming audio, after all?
Which is it?
And if it IS worth corporate broadcasting trying to manipulate with their money... then perhaps there IS something to this streaming audio, after all?
Which is it?
I don't know about anybody else, but I don't buy stocks that are stable. I buy stocks that are poised for huge growth. And unless Pandora has some secret plan they haven't announced yet, I don't see a huge profit coming from them right now. I think the ML guys just want to drive some sales after a couple of very bad days. Stock in Pandora may be more sellable than GE. But that's not the point.
I would buy stock in Pandora before I would in Cumulus.
Internet radio growth is explosive. If Pandora can make the right moves and stay on the top, then Pandora will be a very good investment. Pandora's leading internet competitors have proven they do not know how to win over the market.
A lot of people claim Spotify will take down Pandora. Spotify is not a threat to Pandora at this point because unless you want to subscribe for $10 per month, you cannot have Spotify on your phone. After 6 months you will end up with a pathetic free version for your desktop, making Spotfy even less competitive.
Internet radio growth is explosive. If Pandora can make the right moves and stay on the top, then Pandora will be a very good investment. Pandora's leading internet competitors have proven they do not know how to win over the market.
A lot of people claim Spotify will take down Pandora. Spotify is not a threat to Pandora at this point because unless you want to subscribe for $10 per month, you cannot have Spotify on your phone. After 6 months you will end up with a pathetic free version for your desktop, making Spotfy even less competitive.
Agreed! One is nothing more than hype and the other is a poster child for an over-leveraged operation.
While Pandora is a lot of hype, it is the most heavily used internet radio service by an overwhelming margin. Unless the internet advertising market completely crashes, I don't think they are going down anytime soon. I have no doubt that they will be profitable by mid 2012, if not sooner.
I think I have mentioned this before, but I don't like Pandora. I think the service is unpleasant, the gnome project is crap, and I don't like the company as a whole. I do realize though, that many people really enjoy the service and many don't care that Pandora is rather poorly run. Despite what I think about the company, I do believe that it will continue to grow and gain listeners rapidly for the foreseeable future.
I think I have mentioned this before, but I don't like Pandora. I think the service is unpleasant, the gnome project is crap, and I don't like the company as a whole. I do realize though, that many people really enjoy the service and many don't care that Pandora is rather poorly run. Despite what I think about the company, I do believe that it will continue to grow and gain listeners rapidly for the foreseeable future.
Well, nobody in radio is playing Roxy Music these days. Pandora actually gives people marginalized by today's radio stations some comfort in an, otherwise, unfriendly world.
TheBigA said:
The nice thing about Pandora is that any artist, no matter how successful or unsuccessful, can receive a fair-share of plays. The idea that you must be immensely popular with radio, top the charts, is no more. This allows for artist discovery and helps drive music sales.
Some of the best artists do not get airplay on broadcast radio. The charts have absolutely nothing to do with talent. Pandora and similar services are able to take care of this problem.
Casey said:
Ah, you mean Pandora apes the Top-40 DJ's of the 50's! The two Top-40 stations in my town growing up both had dayparts where they would play "unknown" or new music and ask for calls to rate the new songs. They would also survey local record shops to find which songs were selling. Those that got the positive vibes were the ones that got the most play.
Amazing concept! ;D
How many stations do that today? Not very many.
Pandora actually takes it a step further, allowing you to hear any song on an album or any song they have available. How many broadcast stations do this? For every genre? Whenever you want? They allow you to hear artists who maybe don't even have a label. How often does broadcast radio do this?
Pandora/Slacker slaughter today's broadcast radio when it comes to variety.
Pandora actually takes it a step further, allowing you to hear any song on an album or any song they have available. How many broadcast stations do this? For every genre? Whenever you want? They allow you to hear artists who maybe don't even have a label. How often does broadcast radio do this?
Pandora/Slacker slaughter today's broadcast radio when it comes to variety.
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