Internet radio to be subscription only? My Opinion

[Tiger1983]

With all the debate going on in Washington about the future of Internet Radio and how CARP and the RIAA is against streaming music online, would major radio companies like Clear Channel, Yahoo, and others require a subscription fee for its listeners to listen to their stations? Think about it, having a "premium" Internet radio service is similiar to XM or Sirius where you can get hundreds of channels and to listen to out-of-market sports games or like an iTunes where you pay a fee of $9.95 per month to download unlimited tracks.

At this time, Internet radio is free, but if the debates keep going on, then it may change.

 

[4dude]

Remember METALLICA STARTED THIS CRAP!!!!!!

 

[Tom Wells]

If I pay for a subscription, will I hear full "off air" streams with local market ads,or will it still be the truncated stuff like
broadcast radio streams are now? I won't pay for anything less than a full air equivalent service.
That means 128k streaming or better. The lower bitrate stuff isn't worth paying for.

 

[jcolletta275]

If the Big Boys™ want to charge end-users to listen to streams of their OTA stations, they'll fall flat on their backsides. And who are we to stop them? It'll just drive more traffic to Internet-only stations. People will not pay to listen to Internet radio... no matter how high-quality it is.

 

[William_Yeager]

Their will always be a spot for donation-supported but freely accessible Internet radio (religious broadcasters, public radio, etc.).

 

[DHMRadio]

Some Internet Radio stations already have a full subscription setup i.e. (BoxRadio)

But other people like DI.FM, Depot Hill Media, and Sky.fm have an optional Premium Service. Premium services help offset the cost and allow the listeners to support the radio station and get something in return they offer a 192kbps stream which is a High-Definition sound, and often times an AAC codec. I believe as of September 1,2007, Sky.fm had around 925 subscriptions and Depot Hill Media had 1012. With the growing costs in running an Internet Radio station, the networks need a way to reimburse them selves for their exspenses to SoundExchange and other royalty companies. ???

 

[jcolletta275]

This is why I believe that, ultimately, Internet radio stations will become a visual advertising medium (and many of them already have). It just depends on how creative they are with it as to how successful they are. Nobody is going to mind creative visual advertising when their stream is commercial-free.

And before anyone brings up cable as a comparison, just remember: even cable TV, which is a pay service, carries it's own advertising.

 

[dbdigital]

This is why I believe that, ultimately, Internet radio stations will become a visual advertising medium (and many of them already have). It just depends on how creative they are with it as to how successful they are. Nobody is going to mind creative visual advertising when their stream is commercial-free.

And before anyone brings up cable as a comparison, just remember: even cable TV, which is a pay service, carries it's own advertising.

People are so used to getting content free it makes it hard to justify a subscription service. From what salesmen have told me, online advertising (including video) as Josh says, is where it's at for monetizing internet radio with some ad insertion, but not much.

And this is where it gets interesting for satellite radio. As the Wi-Max rollout gains steam and as the iPhone "residual effect" seduces more consumers to buy smartphones (of various makes), internet radio will take on greater acceptance and use. An internet station can offer almost as many streams as satellite can channels. So what if such a station offered a subscription price of 5.95 per month, same content, same number of channels as satellite? Or what if they offered it free? This is one reason why terrestrial radio has nothing to fear from satellite.

I think satellite radio will get deeper into web radio and eventually use their birds for broadcasting internet data streams instead of music or other content.

We know the money being spent for online advertising is growing, but as more web stations and other web media outlets go online, will their be enough ad dollars to go around?

The next 5-10 years will be interesting.

db

 

[SuperRadioFan]

And this is where it gets interesting for satellite radio. As the Wi-Max rollout gains steam and as the iPhone "residual effect" seduces more consumers to buy smartphones (of various makes), internet radio will take on greater acceptance and use. An internet station can offer almost as many streams as satellite can channels. So what if such a station offered a subscription price of 5.95 per month, same content, same number of channels as satellite? Or what if they offered it free? This is one reason why terrestrial radio has nothing to fear from satellite.

I think satellite radio will get deeper into web radio and eventually use their birds for broadcasting internet data streams instead of music or other content.
We know the money being spent for online advertising is growing, but as more web stations and other web media outlets go online, will their be enough ad dollars to go around?

The next 5-10 years will be interesting.

db

I've been thinking about that for quite some time. I briefly subscribed to XM but I did not like the selection because many of the channels were TOO narrow for my tastes!

IF satellite radio offered a cafeteria-style selection of the most popular and established Internet stations I'd be back to pay for it if I could receive it in my car! Stations like RadioParadise.com and WOXY.com come to mind.

Here is part of an e-mail I sent to Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith, those wonderful operators of Radio Paradise.com. I sent it over 2 years ago ....

----- Original Message -----
From: JN
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 9:45 AM
Subject: RP on Sirius in the future???

Bill and Rebecca... I posted this in the forum and got ZERO responses. Not sure if ppl thought it needed a response.
What do you guys think?
JN
Mission Viejo, CA

Jimmy Buffets's Internet radio staion Radio Margaritaville is now available on Sirius satellite radio. I sure would love RP to be part of that as well. I know a while back Bill was trying to negotiate with XM, maybe Sirius would be a better fit, as Howard Stern is to join next year, Cousin Bruce Morrow (formerly with WCBS-FM and WABC NYC) just joined, and Sirius is now available in many autos (including Mazda and Toyota) as an option and/or standard equipment. Here's a link about the parrothead's deal with Sirius.

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/061505/index.asp


Hi J,

Sorry - I saw that post & meant to respond. Here's the deal:

XM & Sirius are both committed to doing all of their music programming in-house. The one exception to that is when there's a big-name celebrity involved, like Eminem, P. Diddy, or - now - Jimmy Buffett. It's not a matter of them deciding to carry an Internet station, it's a matter of them creating a new Sirius channel branded with Buffett's name. So it doesn't mean they're any more likely to consider RP than they were before.

thanks
-bg

 

[dbdigital]

And this is where it gets interesting for satellite radio. As the Wi-Max rollout gains steam and as the iPhone "residual effect" seduces more consumers to buy smartphones (of various makes), internet radio will take on greater acceptance and use. An internet station can offer almost as many streams as satellite can channels. So what if such a station offered a subscription price of 5.95 per month, same content, same number of channels as satellite? Or what if they offered it free? This is one reason why terrestrial radio has nothing to fear from satellite.

I think satellite radio will get deeper into web radio and eventually use their birds for broadcasting internet data streams instead of music or other content.
We know the money being spent for online advertising is growing, but as more web stations and other web media outlets go online, will their be enough ad dollars to go around?

The next 5-10 years will be interesting.

db

I've been thinking about that for quite some time. I briefly subscribed to XM but I did not like the selection because many of the channels were TOO narrow for my tastes!

IF satellite radio offered a cafeteria-style selection of the most popular and established Internet stations I'd be back to pay for it if I could receive it in my car! Stations like RadioParadise.com and WOXY.com come to mind.

Here is part of an e-mail I sent to Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith, those wonderful operators of Radio Paradise.com. I sent it over 2 years ago ....

----- Original Message -----
From: JN
To: [email protected]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 9:45 AM
Subject: RP on Sirius in the future???

Bill and Rebecca... I posted this in the forum and got ZERO responses. Not sure if ppl thought it needed a response.
What do you guys think?
JN
Mission Viejo, CA

Jimmy Buffets's Internet radio staion Radio Margaritaville is now available on Sirius satellite radio. I sure would love RP to be part of that as well. I know a while back Bill was trying to negotiate with XM, maybe Sirius would be a better fit, as Howard Stern is to join next year, Cousin Bruce Morrow (formerly with WCBS-FM and WABC NYC) just joined, and Sirius is now available in many autos (including Mazda and Toyota) as an option and/or standard equipment. Here's a link about the parrothead's deal with Sirius.

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/061505/index.asp


Hi J,

Sorry - I saw that post & meant to respond. Here's the deal:

XM & Sirius are both committed to doing all of their music programming in-house. The one exception to that is when there's a big-name celebrity involved, like Eminem, P. Diddy, or - now - Jimmy Buffett. It's not a matter of them deciding to carry an Internet station, it's a matter of them creating a new Sirius channel branded with Buffett's name. So it doesn't mean they're any more likely to consider RP than they were before.

thanks
-bg

Without a doubt, Radio Paradise is wonderully programmed. An exceptional internet station. I could see them getting picked up on an FM station's HD2 channel, much like WOXY is doing with their local non-com.

But I think satellite radio's days are numbered, in terms of its present business model. WiMAX and the utilization of the television band white spaces for internet data transmission are just around the corner, all of which mean that XM and Sirius' true competitors will be web radio. I'm sure they see this and are planning accordingly (merger or no).

Did you see the article on Yahoo about the 17 year old girl who became a millionaire with her web business? She gives her content away for free and makes money selling ad space.

This is what I see for internet radio as well, not a subscription model...that is, unless the content was so unique that it couldn't be gotten anywhere but on that web station.

db

 

[jcolletta275]

Did you see the article on Yahoo about the 17 year old girl who became a millionaire with her web business? She gives her content away for free and makes money selling ad space.

This is what I see for internet radio as well, not a subscription model...that is, unless the content was so unique that it couldn't be gotten anywhere but on that web station.

Bingo.

 

[FightingIrish]

Without a doubt, Radio Paradise is wonderully programmed. An exceptional internet station. I could see them getting picked up on an FM station's HD2 channel, much like WOXY is doing with their local non-com.

But I think satellite radio's days are numbered, in terms of its present business model. WiMAX and the utilization of the television band white spaces for internet data transmission are just around the corner, all of which mean that XM and Sirius' true competitors will be web radio. I'm sure they see this and are planning accordingly (merger or no).

Did you see the article on Yahoo about the 17 year old girl who became a millionaire with her web business? She gives her content away for free and makes money selling ad space.

This is what I see for internet radio as well, not a subscription model...that is, unless the content was so unique that it couldn't be gotten anywhere but on that web station.

db

That was a great article. Nice to be inspired by the young 'uns. She did very well creating a web site featuring MySpace templates and graphics (her creations) and was able to parlay it into a very lucrative business. I salute her.