Making money with internet radio... How?

[radioboy]

Bid4spots is using the model that talkback13 is describing.

My internet station partnered with several sponsors - Amazon, Mall of the World, and a number of others -
and received a portion of the sales from these sites. However, as a "personal" broadcaster on Live365, I
can't air any ads without going to the "pro" level - which costs a great deal more every month.

WJJD has received donations, but we never ask for them. It has a classic country format that is deeper
than the normal playlist..and I've had a streaming station now for 6 years.

With the royalty issues, through, I've found that I'm looking more and more at doing a local LPFM or LPAM
station. I'm running a "part-15" AM with a different format, that I just started in September.

The local talk/jazz model described above...is very interesting, and has a good chance of success. The secret is to just pick a model and do it. You won't get rich..but if you can cover expenses and break even, you're already out in front of the pack.

Good luck!

 

[dbdigital]

Auctioning spots may or may not work. If you'll recall, several posts back, there was an internet station operator who tried Bid4Spots. The final bid was so low, way under a dollar (I think it was 0.28 per spot) that, as he indicated, it just wasn't worth the trouble to put the ads in rotation.

So while an auctioning service has some promise, there is danger in letting a client set the ad rate. The station operator has got to maintain control over that.

BTW, should anyone think that mobile internet use should not be taken seriously, here is an article to dispel that notion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/automobiles/11WEB.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

db

 

[talkback13]

Re: Making money with Internet radio... How?

The radio oligarchy is dissolving for many reasons. You can feel it. Radio is a utility -- what happens when 1000s of utilities compete for the same business?

You do not need to wait for Wi-Max. You can enjoy mobile Internet radio in your car today. All you need is a Windows Mobile Smartphone and a new car radio -- one that has Blutooth Audio.

I love all the new (to me) Internet music that I can now listen to in my car.

The quality is excellent. Most music streams are at 128kbs. I live near NY - we have allot of cell towers.

http://talkstreamlive.wordpress.com/

 

[Radioman100]

Of course, we're talking online ads here and it's all very common stuff. You can put it down, but your brethern over at Clear Channel are doing just this with their radio station websites. Check some of their sites out, you'll see. And I don't see any of them refusing to sell web advertising because their broadcasting over the air. What they are doing is encouraging listeners to visit their websites and offering incentives to do so.

Jeez, where is your sense of salesmanship?

db

Yeah, they've been selling click through ads on their websites for years. It's not just Clear Channel either.

People go to station websites for a lot of different reasons. Streaming is just one of them.

One of the big selling points of web radio is its (for the most part) commercial free nature. How do you make money off click through ads that nobody sees? You don't. If you ad radio style commercials, will your listeners stick around?

 

[streamer]

One of the big selling points of web radio is its (for the most part) commercial free nature. How do you make money off click through ads that nobody sees? You don't. If you ad radio style commercials, will your listeners stick around?

Some stations make heavy use of their own player, which had ads come and go during the listening session. One station I know of, a fairly major player started to introduce 30 secs PSA's, then built them slowly up to 2-3 mins/hour and then replaced them with ad spots. Audience didn't seem affected in the long run. Bottom line - content is king.

The Bid4spots scheme mentioned early worked for a couple of stations, but for many of us, didn't warrant the effort. The bottom-feeders came out to play, I saw rates of 24c/CPM, and the choice/quality of advertisers was limited, so if you strived for a professional sounding station, you blew that away in 30 secs!. The other issue, was that a few stations, like mine, would require extra royalty payments to SESAC (to cover extra revenue) and the simple financial math was that I would have to play 3 minutes per hour 24*7 at 30c/CPM to cover the additional SESAC costs alone. Now that would p*## off my audience!

 

[vsa]

One of the big selling points of web radio is its (for the most part) commercial free nature. How do you make money off click through ads that nobody sees? You don't. If you ad radio style commercials, will your listeners stick around?

Some stations make heavy use of their own player, which had ads come and go during the listening session. One station I know of, a fairly major player started to introduce 30 secs PSA's, then built them slowly up to 2-3 mins/hour and then replaced them with ad spots. Audience didn't seem affected in the long run. Bottom line - content is king.

The Bid4spots scheme mentioned early worked for a couple of stations, but for many of us, didn't warrant the effort. The bottom-feeders came out to play, I saw rates of 24c/CPM, and the choice/quality of advertisers was limited, so if you strived for a professional sounding station, you blew that away in 30 secs!. The other issue, was that a few stations, like mine, would require extra royalty payments to SESAC (to cover extra revenue) and the simple financial math was that I would have to play 3 minutes per hour 24*7 at 30c/CPM to cover the additional SESAC costs alone. Now that would p*## off my audience!

Money is being made in major markets such as Los Angeles. Terrestrial stations sell Internet-only packages of spots combined with email blasts and graphic/video ads. It's nothing to sell a monthly package to an advertiser/agency for $10,000/mo.

 

[jcolletta275]

If you ad radio style commercials, will your listeners stick around?

If you have the content they want to hear, yes. That's what will make Internet radio truly exciting: everyone will be forced to program well if they want to survive.

 

[Radioman100]

Money is being made in major markets such as Los Angeles. Terrestrial stations sell Internet-only packages of spots combined with email blasts and graphic/video ads. It's nothing to sell a monthly package to an advertiser/agency for $10,000/mo.

Yeah, we do that here too, but I'm pretty sure we'd rather have the millions we can make with the PPM numbers we might lose to the stream.

 

[DHMRadio]

Google AdSense for audio is now available to FM stations

 

[i_work_in_radio]

I just posted this in a different thread, but it applies to this discussion as well...

There's a new company called TargetSpot that helps internet broadcasters monetize their streams, whether they're internet-only stations or terrestrial stations. Basically, they sell a percentage of a radio station's streaming commercial inventory. Makes a lot of sense for station operators who are wasting that commercial time on their internet streams instead of selling it. And you'll never hear commercials for out-of-town advertisers because they can set up geographic parameters. Advertisers do everything on TargetSpot's website... create commercials, set budgets, set up targeting, generate reports, etc. All the station owner has to do is collect the money from the commercials. I can't imagine why anyone with an internet radio stream wouldn't take advantage of this. Their website is www.targetspot.com.