I've noticed the same. Other stations, of course, seem to do it the right way. "Listen now" button easy to see, schedule easy to peruse via drop-downs, But one would think that those two items would be no-brainers.
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Seeing how all these radio company stock prices are tanking how’s that gonna effect Seattle radio stations?
- Thread starter Cobra14
- Start date
If that's the case, Twitter needs it's algorithms altered. Like most websites, YT has directed advertising. You can opt out of its tracking you, but you still get ads that either are for everyone, or they go along with the motif or viewpoint of the videocaster. If it's a religious video, you'll see religious spots or spots for items aimed at religious people. YT channels like Democracy Now, naturally, have different advertisements. The wacky YT conspiracy / the sky is falling / etc. channels have the spots for survival food and all that. I don't see many of the fringe spots on mainstream YT channels, if any.
One would think Twitter would be the same.
That 'listen live/now' on a webpage is a link to this thing called a stream, where you can listen to the station audio via a PC or smartphone. But streaming music is expensive. Stations in smaller markets or small to medium market groups typically can't afford to stream their music stations.
Most on-line use anymore, by other than seniors, is mainly via smartphone. The apps allow a much more targeted and personalized experience in a mobile or portable environment. Instead of the old style website 'banner ads' that radio used to provide their prized clients as a bonus for advertising on the radio, stations/groups sell ads specifically based on number of downloads and usage of their app. Unlike early websites that loosely counted page views; the app allows for interactive contests, partnerships with other potentially useful (sponsor-able) information like weather, traffic, group chat, etc. And yes, an app allows for a ton of data harvesting, depending on how much privacy the user is willing to give up. Most popular apps today also get a portion of their app-revenue from selling that user data.
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That's because not all stations can afford to stream music. Some stations that carry syndicated programming are prohibited from streaming those shows.
That is how Twitter's algorithm worked, which was fine until the advertisers that were feeding it bail out because they want no part of unmoderated cesspool.
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"More than half of Twitter’s top 1,000 advertisers in September were no longer spending on the platform in the first weeks of January, according to data provided to CNN by digital marketing analysis firm Pathmatics by Sensor Tower, in a striking sign of how far reaching the advertiser exodus has been following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the company".
^^^^ Yeah, looks like a lot of the remaining advertisers are pulling back on their Twitter advertising budgets as well, at least according to the graph in the article. I wonder if the general malaise in advertising is also contributing to the decline. Which would mean a double whammy for Twitter. Not really a good time to alienate advertiser.
How much does streaming cost a station per song streamed? The royalties to the artists are fairly low (an average of half a cent per song streamed). But I'm guessing that the cost to the station is higher than that? I read on a FB post made by a radio station operator that it's around 18 cents a stream?
There are a lot of variables. Stations already pay copyright fees to ASCAP, BMI, and SESCAC for the rights to play the songs on radio.. Those copyright-royalty fees increase if the station streams too, and will go higher if the station doesn't make the best effort to 'geo-fence' their stream to only inside their market. (which costs even more money toward the streaming provider)
Then you add in the additional copyright-royalty cost directly related to on-line streaming; a Sound Exchange membership, which averages roughly that .18 per 100 songs played: Radio Streaming Rates Likely To Remain In Limbo Until Next Year.
And all this is on top of the base cost of your programming via a streaming provider, which may charge a flat rate fee, or by number of consecutive active listeners per minute/hour/24 hour period. When it comes to paying streaming providers; the more popular your stream is; the higher this particular expense. (monthly flat rate plus a rate for each listener/stream)
Unless the station/group sales department sells ads specifically on the stream, the cost of streaming can be a back-breaker for smaller stations. Most smaller radio groups can barely keep their sales department going just selling traditional OTA radio, let alone have a separate individual or sales group selling spots on just streaming. The other downside; is your streaming sales potentially cannibalizes your radio sales, as they're either selling against each other, or throwing streaming spots in as a 'loss leader'-bonus to prized clients.
Oh, and don't forget one needs an automation system capable of covering the local radio spots with streamed spots or filler. That alone is an additional expense typically spread out over five years, plus it takes someone to schedule filler or sold spots on the stream.
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Then add all the documentation required. Stations must provide fully annotated song lists that specify writers & publishers, including any syndicated shows. Some automation systems can do that, but there's also the time involved in compiling that information.
Given all that, why aren't we seeing more stations either pulling their streams or geofencing? In February 2012, I pulled a list of stations that weren't streaming at the time from another board on this site and began adding to it. The original list was around 240 stations, and I created a couple lists of my own which I merged into a single streaming list in 2018. In total, this ended up being about 500 stations. Fast forward to 2021, when I decided I didn't want to maintain these lists anymore, so I began listening to the stations on the list one by one. If I could not find a stream for them, they either stayed on the not streaming list or were put back there. If they either had gone or were already a talk station, they were deleted. The other factor that could get a station deleted from the list without a fresh listen is if they had switched to programming in a foreign language. I finished this massive listen about a month ago, and the list is now down to about 120 stations. Of the rest, about 220 were on the streaming list in 2012, and the rest of those were added to the list when I combined the two lists and investigated what was and wasn't streaming from the not streaming list in 2018. Of the stations that were streaming in 2018, I only had to move a couple back to the not streaming list, and one was geoblocked. Additionally, there were many that weren't streaming in 2018 that now are. We're talking owners of every size here. How can you explain that. Bill, if you're curious, yes your stations were on my list, but Sunny and Y107 still had streams when I got to them. Unfortunately, you had pulled the streams by the time I got back to the not streaming list, so Bigfoot is still on the list.
Stations in Seattle are either owned by iHeart, Audacy, Bonneville, or Hubbard, and they each own national streaming platforms that insert local ads based on the ISP of the listener. There are other national streaming platforms that smaller stations can jump on. But they have to either pay or give up some commercials to the streaming platform. Sometimes those inserts are less than pretty, if you know what I mean.
The reality is that if a radio station wants to be heard today, it has to have some kind of streaming strategy.
As BigA already mentioned; groups with stations streaming have already been in the game for a while, and are able to take advantage of bulk discounts negotiated in royalty and technology charges. Many smaller groups or individual stations don't have the scale to negotiate discounted/bulk streaming costs. That includes everything from back-office costs, royalties, and streaming tech, including geofencing where needed, and Internet bandwidth. Most larger groups also have the sales teams specifically for selling streams.
All of that makes sense. I think it would make huge waves if one of the big companies decided to pull its streams over the cost, but I doubt that's going to happen. The companies Big A mentioned plus Cumulus, Townsquare, and Alpha are likely to have that kind of scale. I'm sure some smaller companies, Bicoastal, Midwest and Stevens come to mind, also have that kind of leverage. However, what about Ohana, which actually did pull its streams for a couple years, or the company whose name I can't remember that owns two stations in Valdez AK, or the company that owns a group of stations in Sheridan WY, or name any other town of a similar size? Many of the stations that weren't streaming in 2018 but now are are either owned by one of those companies I just asked about or are in a similar situation, yet they somehow manage to make it work. Specifically the Sheridan group does insert separate streaming adds, but many smaller companies do not.
There's an argument that Audacy or iHeart ceasing streaming would be suicidal. It may not be super profitable, but the brand extension is useful.
Put another way: If iHeart stopped streaming, what ratio of their listeners would buy portable radios, versus the risk of losing listeners to Apple Music or Spotify?
My bet would be less than 1%,
Essentially what everyone is saying is that streaming is essential in 2023, so why are there so many stations particularly in small markets that don't stream or even have websites? I find it hard to believe that it's not possible for anyone to make streaming work when year after year the number of stations not streaming shrinks.
Why does the ostrich put its head in the sand?
Did you even read my, or BigA's explanations? To keep it in simple terms for you Bob: Because likely it would cost more than they would ever have a chance of recovering, let alone making money.
And that's what I can't get my mind around. If, as you say, it would cost more than a station could ever recover to stream, why is it that the number of stations that do not stream shrinks every year, and those that pull there streams are likely to be streaming again within a few years?
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