That sounds familiar, although I'd expect it was a problem here too. The music industry wants people to BUY music from them, not record it off the radio. The DMCA is filled with language that was designed to prevent people from recording audio from digital streams. The whole inspiration was to prevent people from getting "CD quality audio from the radio."
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Free Music, No Commercials... How's It Viable??
- Thread starter DrJerry
- Start date
That sounds familiar, although I'd expect it was a problem here too. The music industry wants people to BUY music from them, not record it off the radio. The DMCA is filled with language that was designed to prevent people from recording audio from digital streams. The whole inspiration was to prevent people from getting "CD quality audio from the radio."
Not only that, the pre-roll ads often mask the intended ads.
Yes, speaking of HD subchannels playing music without commercials... why do they? I recently disovered a good commercial-free classic rock HD subchannel. So now it's mostly what I listen to when driving around. How is that good for commercial stations which are already struggling to attract and retain listeners?
Asheville NC has an oldies HD station with a translator. At first the only commercials I heard were classic commercials that would have aired when the songs were popular, but I have heard a few actual commercials in more recent years.
It used to be better in my opinion, playing even Johnny Mathis and Nat King Cole, but there seemed to be more louder 70s music this year when I listened. Still not as bad as Good Time Oldies which ventures into the 80s and can be quite loud.
This happened when I was working in a vintage record shop. I found in the new stock a near mint A&M promo of Amy Grant's Unguarded LP, originally sent to a local radio station. There were three large jewelry bags of said controlled powdery substance that that neatly fell out of the sleeve. Flattened to fit neatly in the sleeve.Except for that one episode of WKRP In Cincinnati where it was a controlled powdery substance instead ...
Ep, 14 - Welcome Home Johnny
January 23, 2015 Writer: Blake Hunter Director: Asaad Kelada Original Air Date: February 26, 1979 This is a strange episode to be the ...wkrp-relived.blogspot.com
Some iHeart channels are commercial-free. They include Classic American Top 40 (Casey Kasem years, not sure of the Ryan Seacrest years) and I think the iHeart Cafe is also commercial free. Some weekends the Yacht Rock channel is commercial free.
As said above, I don't know how iHeart makes any money from these channels, other than the commercial we sometimes must watch when first starting the channel.
As said above, I don't know how iHeart makes any money from these channels, other than the commercial we sometimes must watch when first starting the channel.
Just turn your hearing aid volume down 😄
How do you expect them to pay royalty fees like from Sound Exchange if they don't sell commercials or charge a subscription? Just eat the expense?
Doesn't sound like a very good business model to me.
You mean like charge a subscription fee or sell ads?
TuneIn used to be my go-to app for College Football broadcasts. But ever since they moved CFB streams behind their "premium" subscription, I've uninstalled the app. Why pay for something that is already free in other places? The Varsity App from Learfield already provides most games for free. And the ones that are missing can usually be found on every University's website free of charge. Someone at TuneIn is high if they think I'm going to pay for something that is free.
I too had the "pro" version of the TuneIn app just to record streams. But now I use VRadio from the Android store to record streams. Just grab the direct link to your favorite stream and save it on the VRadio app
My understanding is that all they do (or at least used to do) is aggregate streams from different sources into the TuneIn platform. They don't actually host any of streams on their own servers, which means they shouldn't owe royalty fees. TuneIn predates the iHeart and Radio.com (now called Audacy) services, so they were ahead of the ballgame when it came to Mobile streaming. They made their money through visual ads on their app/platform and by playing their own audio and before any stream.
Several years ago, iHeart forced them to take down all "Clear Channel" radio streams since TuneIn was profiting from their "work" and obviously taking away users from the iHeart app. But they settled that dispute and now iHeart stations are back on the TuneIn platform.
The problem I have with TuneIn is that they want a subscription for services they once promised under their "Pro" app that was sold on the Apple/Google store.
They also have put services that are free elsewhere behind their subscription wall. I'm not sure why anyone with a brain would pay for their premium service when you can have on-demand subscriptions for a few bucks more per month.
That was my understanding, too. Other than its own channels (which it now offers), TuneIn doesn't pay royalties. I suppose, however, that might've changed now that it has a paid TuneIn On-Air listing for clients. According to what some of my former co-workers at Cumulus have told me, Cumulus was responsible for its own royalties from listeners on iHeart.
From what I understand, iHeart handles some of the sales for TuneIn. Adding its stations to the app made sense as it's getting a percentage of the sales.
I agree with you on this. I got the TuneIn Pro app before the free version was available. It was either that or WunderRadio, which is now defunct, and TuneIn was on sale at half-price. It was either $0.99 or $1.99 full price at the time. So, I paid less than $1 for it. I think it's almost $10 now, which is totally not worth it. The one thing it does seem to offer that the free version doesn't is the ability to add custom links for streams that aren't on the app. That's a nice feature to have, but I'd use fStream for that if I had to pay what it's charging today. The operations of the app have improved a lot from when it was new. Those early versions were rough, especially once the iPhone 4 came out and had background running apps. TuneIn would deplete your battery quickly if you didn't force quit the app back then. Today, I can use it on my desktop machine at work and continue listening to the same station on my phone if I leave my desk. Granted, Audacy and iHeart offer that, too, but station websites don't.
I added the free version, too, for a brief period because the Waze integration only worked with the free TuneIn app when that feature was first announced. That got fixed pretty quickly, but, of course, I had a two hour drive a day or two after Waze integration was announced.
I read that Amazon Echo (AKA Alexa) lost $25 billion in the last 5 years. While Bezos can afford the loss, I find this loss amazing. I just listened to 45 minutes of the late Waylon Jennings singing his biggest hits commercial free on Alexa. Much as I like good radio with talented hosts, it’s hard for music stations to compete with Streaming as everyone who reads RD probably knows.
It's called an investment. The devices lost money, but they generated new business.
So they're raising prices on other services, and will offer paid Alexa at $10 a month.
Amazon’s paid Alexa is coming to fill a $25 billion hole dug by Echo devices
Amazon wants to charge for a better Alexa on top of Prime.
www.theverge.com
Meanwhile, broadcast radio is still free and easy.
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