Demise of Mom and Pop radio

[fussbudget]

I applaud owners like Art Sutton who know how to keep local AM radio alive and thriving. It can be done. The question is how long? Technology will eventually overwhelm terrestrial radio. We may not know exactly when terrestrial radio will die but it will happen, just as sure as death and taxes.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I am coming across more (should be left daytime) AM stations transmitting battery power at night that are streaming live. It almost seems like they have to broadcast - even at such low power - to be able to stream. (Sometimes actual call letters will get more attention on a streaming directory than a group of words identifying a station.)

When you see how low the night time power is for some stations, it does raise the question.... why do it? Is it worth the hassle?

I haven't researched this, but I suspect the music royalties for a licensed broadcast station streaming may be more favorable that for a pure-play streamer.

This one is weak, particularly for anyone who considers himself/herself a killer salesperson: Customers and potential customers in small communities may be more receptive to doing business with someone with a "real" radio station (in the eyes of the merchant) than doing business with someone with a "mr microphone". A properly run, well implemented Internet-only operation will overcome that phobia over time.

When it comes to zoning, obtaining press passes and being included on some invitation lists for civic events, having an FCC license may move you up the list a few notches. If your operation is based only on music.... more music, lots of music, nothing but music.... who cares.

 

[atlradiofan2]

Seems to be much discussion about the merits of the method the content gets delivered to the customer. Be it traditional licensed radio frequencies received by an AM/FM receiver or be it packets delivered to a smartphone or computer somewhere on someone's desk at work in the end doesn't matter. People listen to interesting content. I would argue that increasingly that isn't music. These discussions regarding listening audience numbers needs to include podcasting because increasingly it is traditional radio personalities (such as Adam Carolla and even Rush Limbaugh) that have developed a very large podcast audience. Streaming internet radio stations aren't nearly as interesting because you have to work your schedule around the show. Podcasting allows me to listen to a show I'm interested in from beginning to end, pausing when necessary.

There is a ton of mom and pop podcasts out there that are really good, many of them have quit their day job and podcast fulltime. Anyone can start one. Just have something interesting to say. And the best thing about packets is that there is no geographical limitation to audience. I think a well done local Atlanta podcast would be great and I would listen. One hour a day please.

 

[CompleteGame]

I'm a dinosaur, but I just cant imagine small-town residents giving up Glenn Beck on 1490 for Glennbeck.com.

Atlanta maybe...Vienna, Cuthbert, Clarkesville and Metter, no.

 

[jabba17]

2) Internet Radio will not take off until wireless broadband takes off.

One of the reasons why this won't happen is that ISPs also own telecom. They would rather people stream over their cell phone rather than wimax or wifi. So universal wifi is dead.

You have companies like Clear, which sells a standalone WiMAX product. Sprint is a part-owner.

Sure, AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint would rather you do it on a cell phone or cell network device. But they also know that the government wants someone to do wireless broadband, so they know better than to stand in the way.

The biggest challenge with that is that the places that need it the most are the least likely to get it. They will get stuck with satellite radio much as they are stuck with pricey satellite broadband.

Not so long ago dropped cell calls due to the lack of cell towers was common. Now, it's not that common unless you really get out in the boonies. The same will happen to wireless broadband, which will make Internet radio possible.

One other thing about Internet radio--it puts both the big players and the little players on equal footing. That means a little guy can hit the big time from his living room. But it also means that the "theaters in garages" will have to compete with the "Broadways" from out of town, where they didn't before.

 

[TheBigA]

Sure, AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint would rather you do it on a cell phone or cell network device. But they also know that the government wants someone to do wireless broadband, so they know better than to stand in the way.

Government wifi is dead in Philly and San Francisco, the only two cities I know of that proposed it. The feds are a trillion dollars in debt, and telecom isn't going to spend their money on something the government can't fund. This is DOA. There will be lots of Pandora radios in cars that no one will be able to hear, except in their own garage.

One other thing about Internet radio--it puts both the big players and the little players on equal footing. That means a little guy can hit the big time from his living room. But it also means that the "theaters in garages" will have to compete with the "Broadways" from out of town, where they didn't before.

Oh come on. You're believing your own PR. Name one internet radio show that has any impact on anything that happens nationally. Especially from a living room. Darryl Hall's webcast, "Live From Darryl's House," reached 498 people last month. Wow! As I said, NoShoesRadio, funded by multi-platinum act Kenny Chesney gets 5K hits a week. That's not equal footing with anyone. He plays in front of more people on his club tour. There are too many internet radio stations for any of them to have an impact. More voices isn't better. It means fewer listeners for everyone.

Here's the dirty secret: The music industry built a time bomb in their royalty deals. IF internet radio becomes successful, even higher royalty rates kick in, that will require those more popular operations to either charge monthly subscription prices to cover the bill similar to satellite), or increase advertising to the point where it's about the same as terrestrial radio. This is a big problem that no one is addressing.

 

[taylorengineer]

Sure, AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint would rather you do it on a cell phone or cell network device. But they also know that the government wants someone to do wireless broadband, so they know better than to stand in the way.

Government wifi is dead in Philly and San Francisco, the only two cities I know of that proposed it. The feds are a trillion dollars in debt, and telecom isn't going to spend their money on something the government can't fund. This is DOA. There will be lots of Pandora radios in cars that no one will be able to hear, except in their own garage.

One other thing about Internet radio--it puts both the big players and the little players on equal footing. That means a little guy can hit the big time from his living room. But it also means that the "theaters in garages" will have to compete with the "Broadways" from out of town, where they didn't before.

Oh come on. You're believing your own PR. Name one internet radio show that has any impact on anything that happens nationally. Especially from a living room. Darryl Hall's webcast, "Live From Darryl's House," reached 498 people last month. Wow! As I said, NoShoesRadio, funded by multi-platinum act Kenny Chesney gets 5K hits a week. That's not equal footing with anyone. He plays in front of more people on his club tour. There are too many internet radio stations for any of them to have an impact. More voices isn't better. It means fewer listeners for everyone.

Here's the dirty secret: The music industry built a time bomb in their royalty deals. IF internet radio becomes successful, even higher royalty rates kick in, that will require those more popular operations to either charge monthly subscription prices to cover the bill similar to satellite), or increase advertising to the point where it's about the same as terrestrial radio. This is a big problem that no one is addressing.

Internet isn't creating much impact NOW.....but give it some time. I remember clearly the days where FM radio had absolutely no impact.......
Regarding the streaming fees - I expect to see wholesale change in the whole music delivery structure in the next 10-20 years. It has already begun with bands marketing their music directly over the internet and bypassing the labels.
Radio(and internet radio) should simply bypass performers who want "compensation" for use of their material. There are plenty of very talented, beautiful people who will be happy just to have their material exposed to the masses. Let the ones who want performance royalties pay the costs of exposing and marketing their new material out of their own pocket - they will soon learn the "value" of radio.
The media can take ANYONE....regardless of talent or beauty.....and make them a star. Madonna is proof of this - a career created in record company offices with complicity from MTV. Limited talent - at best, average looks, and a very mediocre first "music video." But it was played every 5 minutes on MTV and heavily marketed as the "new cool."
Someone once said that Walter Cronkite had more power than the POTUS and it was true. Today, the media sets the agenda for every one of us every day. The media decides what is news and what isn't.....it also decides who is a star and who isn't. The best thing to come from the internet is that the traditional media's (radio/tv/print) power to set the agenda, both social and financial, is being diluted. Even the "little guy" can have a blog, website, or internet station. Yes.....you need readers/listeners to be successful and that usually takes lot's of money but I give you these examples: EBay, CraigsList, DrudgeReport. Not a dime of advertising spent - no major network/corporate backing - yet hugely successful ventures. There will be many more to follow.......
The internet is changing the way the whole world works. Maybe it hasn't made a huge impact on your daily ride into work YET.......but buckle your seatbelts....it's coming. The "killer apps" are numerous and they will be tremendously positive and beneficial.

 

[jabba17]

Sure, AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint would rather you do it on a cell phone or cell network device. But they also know that the government wants someone to do wireless broadband, so they know better than to stand in the way.

Government wifi is dead in Philly and San Francisco, the only two cities I know of that proposed it. The feds are a trillion dollars in debt, and telecom isn't going to spend their money on something the government can't fund. This is DOA. There will be lots of Pandora radios in cars that no one will be able to hear, except in their own garage.

One other thing about Internet radio--it puts both the big players and the little players on equal footing. That means a little guy can hit the big time from his living room. But it also means that the "theaters in garages" will have to compete with the "Broadways" from out of town, where they didn't before.

Oh come on. You're believing your own PR. Name one internet radio show that has any impact on anything that happens nationally. Especially from a living room. Darryl Hall's webcast, "Live From Darryl's House," reached 498 people last month. Wow! As I said, NoShoesRadio, funded by multi-platinum act Kenny Chesney gets 5K hits a week. That's not equal footing with anyone. He plays in front of more people on his club tour. There are too many internet radio stations for any of them to have an impact. More voices isn't better. It means fewer listeners for everyone.

Here's the dirty secret: The music industry built a time bomb in their royalty deals. IF internet radio becomes successful, even higher royalty rates kick in, that will require those more popular operations to either charge monthly subscription prices to cover the bill similar to satellite), or increase advertising to the point where it's about the same as terrestrial radio. This is a big problem that no one is addressing.

I can listen to Pandora on my Android phone anywhere I can get a 3G OR a WiFi signal. That includes much of the ATL metro, TODAY.

Just because government-sponsored public WiFi has failed (usually because someone tried to break the TANSTAAFL rule), doesn't mean that a paid WiMAX service will. Several people I know have dropped their landline (cable or DSL) broadband ISPs and hooked up with Clear, because for just a little more than home broadband they can take it with them.

When I said the government wants mobile WiFi, I didn't say that they would pay for it--merely that they would make spectrum and licenses available for someone who wants to do it, and they don't want some incumbent cell telecom hogging it all. I would guess that the government--even under a very conservative leadership--is going to make (e.g.) Verizon hand over the spectrum it won to Google (second highest bidder) or someone if Verizon doesn't do something with it directly.

Moby does his morning show out of his living room. And who the heck knows where Rush is doing his show anymore on any given day. People don't care--if they even know. People want good production values and content but don't care where they come from. I said before, you can't make chicken salad out of chicken scratch or sell people something they don't want. Regardless of how you broadcast it--AM, FM, or Internet.

I do agree with you partially on the issue of music royalties--again, TANSTAAFL (but that goes both ways for both radio and labels). But something is likely to give, as IMNSHO the record labels have gotten greedy. Who the heck is going to play music--especially new music--if the rates are too high?

 

[TheBigA]

Internet isn't creating much impact NOW.....but give it some time. I remember clearly the days where FM radio had absolutely no impact.......

The problem with internet radio isn’t that it’s new, but that everyone can do it. So instead of having five new competitors, you have an infinite number. Millions of competitors means no one attracts a large enough audience to have an impact. That isn’t a problem that gets fixed. That is the new reality.

What makes American Idol work is not the fact that everyone is a star, but that 34 million people watch this one single show. There are lots of other talent contests, and none have had the impact of Idol. So just turning the media into the new A&R doesn’t guarantee lots of Carrie Underwoods. There needs to be consensus, and the internet doesn’t create consensus. It creates the opposite.

Radio(and internet radio) should simply bypass performers who want "compensation" for use of their material.

Great idea, but once again, it assumes the people are lemmings and will listen to anything the media hands them, and the internet is such that they don’t. That’s bad if you get your money from advertisers, who want large numbers. If you operate on the internet, and there are millions of radio stations, all playing different indie artists who the public’s never heard of, you once again have no impact, and you’re just another blogger with a POV.

The internet is changing the way the whole world works. Maybe it hasn't made a huge impact on your daily ride into work YET.......but buckle your seatbelts....it's coming.

The reality is that there’s nothing we can do about it. The genie has been released, and we’re all screwed. It’s a brave new world where everybody’s in radio. It will take much bigger resources to differentiate oneself from the pack. If you’re in radio now, you need to have enough money to compete on multiple platforms. That ain’t cheap. All the more reason why the days of mom & pops are gone.

 

[TheBigA]

I can listen to Pandora on my Android phone anywhere I can get a 3G OR a WiFi signal. That includes much of the ATL metro, TODAY.

Yes I know. That’s what I said. Telecom is pushing the internet off computers and onto the phone. That’s good for them. They can charge more that way. You’re playing on their turf.

When I said the government wants mobile WiFi, I didn't say that they would pay for it--merely that they would make spectrum and licenses available for someone who wants to do it, and they don't want some incumbent cell telecom hogging it all.

No one will want to do it unless they can make money with it. That’s the problem. And we’re starting to see that ad-supported wifi isn’t the panacea everyone thought it would be. The government wants free wifi, and it costs money to do it. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking for ways to cut my monthly bills, not add to them. I bet I’m not unique. I also suspect that more people want internet in the car so they can get email, not so they can listen to internet radio. The transmission system that radio operates with is actually still the easiest and best. The only real problem is it’s limited and the content is a bit mundane for some people. But that part of it could change too. If we’re talking blue sky, the current owners are all teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. All we need is for Google to buy Clear Channel, and the whole game changes. Not that I expect that to happen, but you see what I mean.

 

[jabba17]

The transmission system that radio operates with is actually still the easiest and best. The only real problem is it’s limited and the content is a bit mundane for some people. But that part of it could change too. If we’re talking blue sky, the current owners are all teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. All we need is for Google to buy Clear Channel, and the whole game changes. Not that I expect that to happen, but you see what I mean.

Radio still is, and that's why I made the much-earlier comment about cleaning up the AM band so the remaining players could remain viable signal-wise (they would still have to deliver quality content). I had also mentioned on another thread taking TV channels 5 and 6 and expanding the FM band (adding 78-88MHz), perhaps for migrating AM stations to LPFM and small (classes C3, B1, A) FM.

Google+Clear Channel. That's interesting. I'm surprised that Cox hasn't done something like that, since they have most of the pieces already and the money to do it (or do they have too many parts for the government's comfort?). Clear's (Clearwire, not CC) owners include Sprint (51%) and a consortium including Comcast, Time Warner, BrightHouse, and Google (and others) owning 22%.

 

[TheBigA]

I had also mentioned on another thread taking TV channels 5 and 6 and expanding the FM band (adding 78-88MHz), perhaps for migrating AM stations to LPFM and small (classes C3, B1, A) FM.

My response there is the same here: The government doesn't want to do it. And they're the only ones who can do that.

Folks forget the real deal in the 96 Act. The government said: You can buy as many FMs as you want, but you also have to buy a certain percentage of money-losing AMs. The thinking was that the profits from the FMs could cover the losses from the AMs. We now see that they couldn't. The longterm costs can sometimes hurt the short term benefits, and that's the lesson we now know. That's why companies are looking very carefully at deals the government tries to make.

 

[swmaphox]

3) AM will be hamstrung by the inability of many smaller stations to deliver meaningful night signals. But IP radio can serve as a supplement.

This already happened with WIMO. Their online presence at night, especially during HS football season has to beat out over the air listenership by atleast 100:1. 7000 people streaming a mill creek game is no big deal to them (altho initially their servers would crash every week from all the HS football traffic....they carried atleast 4 teams (Winder, Dacula, Mill Creek, Appalachee).

 

[wxman99]

I'm a dinosaur, but I just cant imagine small-town residents giving up Glenn Beck on 1490 for Glennbeck.com.

Atlanta maybe...Vienna, Cuthbert, Clarkesville and Metter, no.

Not now. But wait 10 years when all cars come equipped with internet-available radios that download and/or stream glennbeck.com. Radio, just like tv and just like newspapers (um, er....) won't die because a new technology comes along that trumps it.

However, radio stations need to find quality content, develop it in-house, and find ways to monetize it over as many platforms as possible. After all, if I have an internet streaming radio in my car and my home, who cares if I'm getting Glenn Beck from WGST in Atlanta or from KFNB in San Diego?

Radio stations will have to find a niche that will cater to a certain audience. Whether that be (gasp) doing local news/talk that (double gasp) deals with local issues, or something else, that remains to be seen.

 

[jabba17]

I'm a dinosaur, but I just cant imagine small-town residents giving up Glenn Beck on 1490 for Glennbeck.com.

Atlanta maybe...Vienna, Cuthbert, Clarkesville and Metter, no.

Not now. But wait 10 years when all cars come equipped with internet-available radios that download and/or stream glennbeck.com. Radio, just like tv and just like newspapers (um, er....) won't die because a new technology comes along that trumps it.

However, radio stations need to find quality content, develop it in-house, and find ways to monetize it over as many platforms as possible. After all, if I have an internet streaming radio in my car and my home, who cares if I'm getting Glenn Beck from WGST in Atlanta or from KFNB in San Diego?

Radio stations will have to find a niche that will cater to a certain audience. Whether that be (gasp) doing local news/talk that (double gasp) deals with local issues, or something else, that remains to be seen.

KTRH 740 out of Houston is the station that's #1 for Jabba to listen to at work...because it sounds better (and streams better) on IHeartRadio on my Android phone than does WGST, plus I can listen to Beck, Limbaugh, and Hannity all on one station, plus the WSB app is iPhone only.