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Saga to limit streaming to local markets

T

Tiger1983

I heard that a radio company Saga Communications is beginning to limit many of their stations webcasts to only local markets. This means that you must be living in within their market area in order to listen to a station online.

If this gets successful, would this put a dent on streaming, and if so would this have a major impact on Internet radio platforms like IHeartRadio?

Would this means that I must be in the NYC metro area to listen to for example, WCBS-FM online in the near future?

I made a prediction here on this message board a few years ago that listening to out-of-market radio stations online, whether it's through mobile, would someday require a monthly subscription just like Sirius XM does.

This might be the beginning of the new trend.
 
SAGA's plan could hurt them in the long run.... The chief reason SAGA's doing so is because they don't want to cover the ad breaks with alternative content and their advertisers are complaining about the ads being heard "out of market".
 
xmusicmatt said:
SAGA's plan could hurt them in the long run.... The chief reason SAGA's doing so is because they don't want to cover the ad breaks with alternative content and their advertisers are complaining about the ads being heard "out of market".
Click to expand...

Really? The advertisers are complaining the ads are being heard out of market? That's about the dumbest thing I've heard. If they're national advertisers such as Macy's, Sears, or McDonald's what does it matter when those businesses are everywhere? And if I'm listening online say to Saga's Rock 102 out of Springfield, Mass and I hear a commercial for XYZ Bar & Grille in Downtown Springfield maybe I'll check it out if I'm going to be on vacation or visiting the Springfield area.
 
On a positive note, it allows more of a market share for independent webcasters. I would think folks would prefer a major brand, in general. If they are out of market and their fave station stopped streaming, we would be the alternative...
 
MarcB said:
Really? The advertisers are complaining the ads are being heard out of market? That's about the dumbest thing I've heard.
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Well, not really. For most ads it probably doesn't matter but consider that a significant number of ads are tailored to a specific market. Things like regional discounts, sale dates and special operating hours. It could cause heartburn for merchants outside the intended region should they be deluged with calls when irate customers find out the ad details don't apply in their area.
 
Doesn't Saga use Katz as its national sales rep, and Katz has a streaming division? Or, don't they want to spend money on the technology that could cover up the local spots?
 
I'd be curious to know how they are doing that (limiting Internet broadcasts to local areas)? I suppose you write a program to block all IP addresses out of a range, but that sounds like much more trouble than it is worth. Just wondering....
 
This was supposed to go into effect quite a while ago. I believe at the time they used the excuse that royalties were too high to justify streaming (in general) but were going continue and restrict it to local markets to keep the price down and help keep advertisers happy.

Chuck said:
I'd be curious to know how they are doing that (limiting Internet broadcasts to local areas)? I suppose you write a program to block all IP addresses out of a range, but that sounds like much more trouble than it is worth. Just wondering....
Click to expand...

Probably, but it won't work well.
 
Casey said:
Chuck said:
I'd be curious to know how they are doing that (limiting Internet broadcasts to local areas)? I suppose you write a program to block all IP addresses out of a range, but that sounds like much more trouble than it is worth. Just wondering....
Click to expand...

Probably, but it won't work well.
Click to expand...

It isn't that big a deal....or that much work. You can generally and easily limit access by ISP as IP addresses are assigned by ISP. Damn Canadians do it on CBC so I can't watch Coaches Corner. :mad:
 
Casey said:
It's easy enough to block addresses by country, but it is not so easy to block addresses by city.
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Easy enough. Most cities have only a few ISP's. A unique IP address has an ISP identifier which identifies both the ISP (corporate entity) and geographical location. Therefore it is usually not a big deal to block an entire city with the use of just a few IP masks.
 
And easy to use a vpn or proxy to circomvent it. another way for big wigs to shackle you to chart rock. i'll never cave and go corporate with my station.
 
Casey said:
It's easy enough to block addresses by country, but it is not so easy to block addresses by city.
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Through databases like NetAcuity and Maxmind, this is relatively easy to do. The responsibility lies in the ISP to make sure their IP's are properly listed. On wired ISPs, accuracy at the zip code level is very good.

The wireless side is another story all together. :) At present, most mobile sites and apps ask for permission to use your lat/lon data.
 
stewie said:
Casey said:
It's easy enough to block addresses by country, but it is not so easy to block addresses by city.
Click to expand...

Through databases like NetAcuity and Maxmind, this is relatively easy to do. The responsibility lies in the ISP to make sure their IP's are properly listed. On wired ISPs, accuracy at the zip code level is very good.

The wireless side is another story all together. :) At present, most mobile sites and apps ask for permission to use your lat/lon data.
Click to expand...

If you have an ISP like Mediacom in the area though, the stations would have an impossible time tracking the location of users. It's not uncommon for a predicted geolocation of a Mediacom address to show up halfway across the country. Business users can often times be difficult to trace as well due to their more complex network infrastructure which may involve routing traffic through an office in another city, and I am sure Saga gets plenty of office listeners. It only takes one time of denying someone access to the stream incorrectly to potentially turn them away forever.
 
MarcB said:
Really? The advertisers are complaining the ads are being heard out of market? That's about the dumbest thing I've heard. If they're national advertisers such as Macy's, Sears, or McDonald's what does it matter when those businesses are everywhere? And if I'm listening online say to Saga's Rock 102 out of Springfield, Mass and I hear a commercial for XYZ Bar & Grille in Downtown Springfield maybe I'll check it out if I'm going to be on vacation or visiting the Springfield area.
Click to expand...

As landtuna points out, some advertisers run different specials in different cities. Also, in many cases, ad agencies don't want their clients' spots to be heard out of market because there are higher union talent fees. Keep in mind that big agencies may even represent a competitor a few hundred miles away who could be hurt by listeners hearing about better deals in markets just a few hours away. So, streaming worldwide can easily put ad agencies in a bind.
 
Tiger1983 said:
If this gets successful, would this put a dent on streaming, and if so would this have a major impact on Internet radio platforms like IHeartRadio?
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First of all, what Saga is doing is nothing new. About 10 years ago, WRAL in Raleigh put a geographic limit on its streaming. It was done with a postcard. If you wanted to listen to WRAL online, you had to register, including providing your address. They'd check your zip code to see if you were in the area or not, and, if you were, you got a postcard with a username and password you used to listen. This didn't work so well for WRAL, and it's been available at least nationwide, if not worldwide, for several years now. Saga's likely to see similar results.

Second, I don't see this happening with platforms like iHeartRadio and Radio.com, though it could happen with smaller broadcasters. The whole purpose of iHeartRadio and Radio.com was to repackage broadcasting from being a transmitter with an antenna to being a content provider. The idea was to keep up with, and possibly overtake, Pandora, which is gaining notice because it has more listeners in major markets than many of the terrestrial stations. Limiting the reach of your product won't help overtake Pandora. If you see any kind of change at iHeartRadio and Radio.com, it's more likely to be limiting listening like Pandora has done with mobile listening. I suppose you can never rule out a wholesale change, but it doesn't seem likely that iHeartRadio and Radio.com will impose similar limits, especially not in the short-term and not with the current management in charge.

Finally, Clear Channel owns Katz, which gives it a leg up on monetizing the streaming audience. CBS has an interest in TargetSpot, which means the same. I can't imagine them limiting streaming since ad replacement and national ads should be easier for both.
 
It all comes down to SAGA not wanting to properly cover ad breaks on a stream.. so to appease their advertisers their limiting streaming .. That's all.

Clear channel has no problem with running alternate content during ad breaks .. and in most cases it's seamless and you hardly notice the switch unless the timing is slightly off (and most major clusters actually keep an eye on things and fix it if the timing gets off for whatever reason).

I do not see Clear Channel making any changes with the push for iHeart.. As others have said.. iHeart is about packaging AM/FM as a part of a content platform.

I am guessing SAGA will eventually have a change of heart -- When their audience online flees to other streaming choices.
 
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