Internet "radio" vs. REAL radio

[TheBigA]

As far as a guy in his basement playing all B sides all the time, he may get a very small niche audience but not one you can monetize.

The bigger the audience, the more royalty he has to pay. And he has to pay it regardless if he's able to monetize it.

A few years ago, a lot of basement broadcasters shut down their streams because they were doing it for the wrong reason: Love of music. That was no excuse when SoundExchange and the PROs sent their bill.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

No logic needed. If you're looking for Buffalo news, how is someone programming his stream in a basement in Topeka going to provide it for you? Or why would they even try?

Terrestrial still has its place in a snowstorm or other emergency situation (or just for finding our what's available on "Tradio"). Come to think of it, even that advantage is fading with all the alerts available on wireless devices.

Yes, using the Internet for a local source to reach a local audience does seem a bit like using a sledge hammer to swat flies.

But why can't a guy operating from his basement in Topeka reach a Topeka audience or maybe a specific Topeka neighborhood?

Some lady sitting in the basement in Buffalo could reach Buffalo residents, maybe even only selected neighborhoods in Buffalo.

Doesn't seem very practical today. But I come nearer to seeing it as do-able today than I did a couple of years ago. Ten years ago? Unthinkable! I was asking around my community recently about the possibility of a non-traditional communication concept and a person I was talking to pointed me to someone I had not heard of. In the next couple of weeks I will attempt to reach that person. An ex-radio guy now working for the local newspaper. I looked him up and looked at what he is doing to develop creative new venues for the newspaper company. NOT just the print version of the paper on line.

So the question becomes: Do we develop a local mechanism to disperse news and information (maybe even Tradio) to a local audience. Then the question becomes: Do we use audio or do we write it up Blog style.. The answer is.... YES. All of the above.

 

[TheBigA]

So the question becomes: Do we develop a local mechanism to disperse news and information (maybe even Tradio) to a local audience. Then the question becomes: Do we use audio or do we write it up Blog style.. The answer is.... YES. All of the above.

That's the easy part. The hard part is paying for it.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

So the question becomes: Do we develop a local mechanism to disperse news and information (maybe even Tradio) to a local audience. Then the question becomes: Do we use audio or do we write it up Blog style.. The answer is.... YES. All of the above.

That's the easy part. The hard part is paying for it.

A lot of radio stations never got into making local news part of their operation. It is expensive. Supposedly, done right, it generated enough revenue to offset the expense with some left over for the owner.

In a very crude sense, we are seeing "local news" carried by the Internet. We tend to look past it because it does not fit our preconceived ideas of what it should look like.

One of my children (make that Adult children) lives in a northern climate where ice boating is an activity. They don't do it with voice report (yet) as in radio but they run a Local News for Ice Boaters in Madison WI that is a precursor of things to come.

My church has gotten out of the snail-mail business. We run an on-line journalistic effort for our "little local community".

One of our families is in the newspaper business. They must publish a dozen different community newspapers. When I look as their efforts on the Internet I see something innovate. There could come a day when they have to decide whether it is time to quit grinding out wood pulp layered with ink. They don't put their newspapers on-line... they are inventing a new form of news delivery. I'm sure they would rather not, but I am also sure they know they had better do it or someone else will... and steal their franchise if you please.

Let me throw a thought-starter into the mix. Radio news as we have known it is a highly one-way exercise. Yes, we awarded weekly prizes for the best news tip of the week, etc, but stations who chose to do local news had to dig it out on their own about 99.5% of the time. The Internet is a delightful TWO-WAY mechanism. It may turn out that the people who figure out how to do "Internet Radio" will find they get a lot more audience contribution (content, not money) that traditional radio and print have. I could see in my community finding 35 people who have or would acquire either a computer head-set mic or a USB mic and suddenly become "domestic correspondents" making little audio bits which get FTP'd to a central point where someone called "editor" grades them like fruit in a packing plan and stuffs them into what is called an automation machine in radio. The "audience" can be picky and decide whether they want streaming or download for their iPod. Technically it is doable today. Mentally we will get there (or somewhere) very slowly.

 

[Lee Rust]

Radio news as we've known it is no longer financially practical, except at the most established stations, in the very largest markets or at the national network level. The price tag for the professional time spent gathering news in the streets and processing it in the studio is just too high.

However, the idea that a bunch of unpaid or low-paid local 'stringers' might willingly & reliably contribute to a central 'editor' who assembles a broadcast is a very likely development. It's a logical combination of the interconnectivity of the internet with the wireless reach of radio. This kind of networked newsgathering is already happening in the newspaper business.

The internet is not without serious built-in limitations. As mentioned earlier, internet and cellular traffic congestion, plus the rising cost of bandwidth, will eventually impose a practical ceiling on universal access, especially wireless. If everything ends up on the internet, then the digital superhighway of the future certainly will be a very slow one. We'll be right back to the halcyon days of the 'World Wide Wait".

No radio broadcast has ever 'crashed' because too many people were trying to listen at the same time.

 

[listener-in]

Several perspectives here.
1. Average listeners (your mom, uncle, grandmother, neighbor...i.e. not one of us) find the internet is just too complicated, even with a wifi radio - the enduring simplicity and reliability of broadcast radio is too often underestimated by technology and media pundits. Average listeners want familiarity and relevance. Having a choice of 20,000 internet stations available is like taking a kid to the world's largest candy factory - he'll still choose the Tootsie Rolls. Research from mature on-line countries (like the UK, France) tells us that almost all internet radio listening remains to simulcast or time shifted traditional broadcast radio.
2. For the broadcaster, which platform would you rather compete on - a 'walled garden' of 20-30 radio stations available on the FM dial, or 10,000 on the internet?

There's quite a bit of validity to your observations. But, regarding your point 1: when I can't find Tootsie Rolls locally, I can and therefore I will find them elsewhere, to the detriment of my local stations and their advertisers. And on a continent with several time zones, I have no trouble time-shifting to a program I missed that's being aired "live" in another time zone. By the way, as a grandpa who is not "one of us", I am just a tad offended by your implication that the internet is "just too complicated, even with a wifi radio". Once you have a wireless router, the wifi radio is simplicity itself. Even if one were to grant your point, a more tech-savvy generation will inevitably take the place of us old geezers, and woe betide any station manager who relies on current demographics to plan even 2 years ahead, let alone 5 or 10. Point 2 is moot, since the choice will not be the broadcasters' - it will be in our hands, the listeners'.

3. The technology. Right now internet radio is like the early days of Ike's freeways - 6 lane highways with hardly any traffic. But as soon as you get more than a few thousand people trying to access streamed content all at the same time, the freeways become like LA or NY in rush hour. And it's worse for mobile listening - each 3G cell site can support - wait for it - about 15 simultaneous streams. When more than ~15 people try to listen to wireless radio in the same location what happens? The phone company throttles bandwidth to ensure revenue generating voice traffic, not 'all you can eat' data, gets thru. At a radio conference a guy was heard saying the BBC (the largest broadcaster in the world) can't deliver more than a quarter of a million simultaneous radio streams. The UK population is 50 million and the BBC gets about 35 million of these, plus another 150 million World Service listeners. Something doesn't add up here. The real cost of internet broadcasting is not good for broadcasters - it's the most expensive distribution method. Period. (Ignore all those Shoutcast broadcasters with up to 10 streams, we're talking about something that scales up to hundreds of thousands or millions of listeners as reliably as over air broadcast).

Agreed, for the most part. However, fast-forward a few years. Capacity and speed will be greatly increased despite the best efforts of your friendly phone or cable company to resist customer pressure for improved infrastructure. The US is currently way behind other nations in keeping up with the technology.

4. Content. Traditional broadcasters just have to up their game now.....

They will indeed. There may still be some technical limitations on audience size, so the big boys may have to get used to smaller audiences than they would like. We may see an equalization between the small and large players, which would be a thoroughly good thing. At a time of few certainties, one thing is certain: current radio managements must adapt to the internet, or go the way of American Motors, TWA, Bethlehem Steel, Gimbels, the Washington Star......

 

[SirRoxalot]

How many of you have cable or satellite TV, with hundreds of channels? Out of those hundreds of channels, how many do you watch? Ten? A dozen? Throw in the oddities that you watch for special events, and I'd bet that you'd be hard pressed to hit 20.

What do you watch the most? For most people, the answer is the local network affiliates, with their mix of network programming and local news, sport, weather, and local interest programming. Add half a dozen personal interest channels, and you've got 90% of cable & TV viewing.

How does this relate to radio? It's simple. Most people listen to a handful of radio stations - even in markets with dozens of signals. If you add Internet radio, you'll likely find a handful of local streams, with a few "special interest" streams for formats or niche content that's not available on general interest local stations. Another major use of streaming is for time-shifting. More and more people are attuned to getting their programming "on demand".

There are significant issues with bandwidth. The telecoms are spending millions and millions to lock down bandwidth for their customers - both wired (or fibered) and wireless. Broadcasting a stream to multiple users is far more productive than having multiple users download a program for personal use.

So, what does it mean? Formats that deliver something that you can't get from a generic stream are likely to survive. Local content, "personality", or other value-added content will determine how widely popular it will be. Generic jukeboxes, or generic content won't need local radio as a delivery system. Niche content will likely live on the Internet. More mass-appeal, or shared interest audio content, will likely use radio as a delivery system to avoid bandwidth bottlenecks.

Once again, TV may be a harbinger of radio's future. Many people see today AM and FM analog as a huge waste of bandwidth. Multiple digital streams could occupy the current bandwidth. HD radio is an attempt to optimize bandwidth without making today's receivers completely obsolete. Bandwidth-hungry telecoms would love to get their hands on that bandwidth, and are willing to pay for it. Anybody think the the FCC isn't listening?

 

[Mike Sheridan]

The sheer number of internet music streams makes it hard for any single or collection of them to dominate as much as your local radio stations. Now having said that let me say that I believe anything is possible. I say that because I missed some things in the past.

I saw the inside of a local ISP before browers came out and thought who would pay for this? I mean how many people are in to news groups, etc.? Then along came browsers and the internet took off.

I heard my first .wav music file (Axel F) on an engineer's PC hard drives were small and the files were big. Too big I thought to be useful, then came bigger hard drives and of course mp3 and AAC files.

I used to watch TechTV on cable but then it was sold and became a gamer channel. Not very interesting to me anymore. Now the people who were on TechTV are doing video on the internet producing content I used to watch on TV. They even have sponsors.

So since I have missed a few big trends in the past I think anything is possible. Radio needs to look toward new programming ideas to stay relevant.

 

[superset weekend]

the means for getting "radio" is what matters here. the traditional physical radio is being phased out, it has been for a while now. Online radio is going to be very relevant, which is why all radio companies are streaming. They are just getting ready for what is going to happen. The content is another story

 

[TheBigA]

So, what does it mean? Formats that deliver something that you can't get from a generic stream are likely to survive. Local content, "personality", or other value-added content will determine how widely popular it will be.

Only if that's what the public wants. If they want to know what's going on elsewhere, without interruptions from a "personality," and without all the so-called "value-added" stuff that usually doesn't actually add any value, then your three items will fall on deaf ears.

 

[SirRoxalot]

So, what does it mean? Formats that deliver something that you can't get from a generic stream are likely to survive. Local content, "personality", or other value-added content will determine how widely popular it will be.

Only if that's what the public wants. If they want to know what's going on elsewhere, without interruptions from a "personality,"...

Who's supposed to deliver "what's going on elsewhere". A computer converting text to vox? There are non-audio options, but they're just not as effective as good audio.

...and without all the so-called "value-added" stuff that usually doesn't actually add any value...

If it doesn't add value, it's not being done right. What the Alan Burns study says, and what most listeners have observed, is that radio isn't offering content of value to the listener, it's mostly offering content of value to the station.

... then your three items will fall on deaf ears.

If you deliver nothing but music, you'll fail. There are better services out there that deliver music more efficiently (although with lower fidelity), and with individual customization. If music is the whole package, you'll lose. If music is part of the total entertainment experience, you have a chance to compete.

 

[TheBigA]

Who's supposed to deliver "what's going on elsewhere".

The network. It worked in the Golden Age of radio, didn't it? Someone in Buffalo could listen to live in Hollywood. It's why they listened. They don't need the radio to know what's going on in Buffalo.

If you deliver nothing but music, you'll fail. There are better services out there that deliver music more efficiently (although with lower fidelity), and with individual customization. If music is the whole package, you'll lose. If music is part of the total entertainment experience, you have a chance to compete.

The most popular services deliver nothing but music, and the only reason they're not doing as well as radio is because radio is available everywhere for free. But the people have spoken. We know what the majority want. They tell us every day.