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Music Media Communications The Almighty Buck The Internet

Internet Radio Failing to Find Support? 354

Posted by Cliff from the what-a-shame dept.
K Fox asks: "WOXY, one of the Internet's larger radio stations, has announced that it will soon implement a monthly subscription fee, to support operations. When the Cincinnati based station went from terrestrial broadcast 97.7 to Internet only, they vowed to keep their streams free to listers. Now, they are saying that increased broadcast taxes, falling advertising revenue, and the overall uncertainty in the market (local or global?) has pushed them to change their business model. Is this a sign of things to come for the other radio stations, that broadcast over the Internet? Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?"
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Internet Radio Failing to Find Support? More

Internet Radio Failing to Find Support?

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  • KCRW (Score:2)

    by mesach ( 191869 )
    Seems to be working pretty well for KCRW, even Steve Jobs seems to love them.

    • Re:KCRW (Score:5, Informative)

      by gEvil (beta) ( 945888 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:34PM (#14688082)
      KCRW is one of the larger NPR affiliates, so they are in a completely different league than a small commercial station. One of the joys of being a non-profit publically funded entity...

      • Re:KCRW (Score:5, Informative)

        by jdunlevy ( 187745 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:56PM (#14688303) Homepage
        Also, critically KCRW's webcast is a simulcast of their over-the-air signal. WOXY.com is now internet-only.
        • I guess it should also be mentioned that they have multiple webcasts, some covering their musical programming from previous hours/days, and some covering their NPR and talk programming.

        • Re:KCRW (Score:2, Interesting)

          by skoaldipper ( 752281 )
          I agree that an internet only audience hurts. If you're like me, I soak up SportsRadio 1310 (The Ticket) [theticket.com] all day long like a kitchen sponge, in the car, office, and home.

          I don't know how huge WOXY.com's market is, since all I get is mysql errors (at present) from their site. However, The Ticket once had a subscription internet pay service too, but quickly abandoned it, maybe in part to my email responses and others. I told them in no uncertain terms there were other internet sports feeds I could listen

      • Well, they'll get a taste of being one of the small guys soon, what with the public broadcasting budget being gutted in the most recent budget.

      • SomaFM (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Philip K Dickhead ( 906971 )
        Rusty [sfgate.com] has it figured out. He fought the fights [wikipedia.org] - and almost bowed out. But plucky SOMA survived and thrived. They are non-commercial, and have my 50 bucks, [somafm.com] which is more than I can say for KQED!

        SOMAs "bottom line" is not profit - it's loving what they do and listen to. Otherwise, there'd be no beloved "Secret Agent". [somafm.com] You won't find that on XM!
    • I love KCRW, but they are a unique case. Every major, minor and wannabe Hollywood producer, director, agent, band, and screenwriter listens to KCRW. As a musician, getting your music heard on KCRW is a surefire way to land lucrative placement deals in films and TV. Many of these wealthy and influential listeners donate to the station, giving them a healthy flow of cash directly from their target audience.

  • I'm not convinced about internet radio... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dougjm ( 838643 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:30PM (#14688043)
    Radio over the internet is great untill the conection goes "a bit funny" and it stops streaming or drops to a lower sample rate.
    Also how do you listen to it on the move - I can't listen to it in the car or on my portable device.
    Then there's the problem whereby you can't go to your local comet (or other electronics store) and buy a radio for the office that has an ethernet port on the back - and no i'm not going to connect my computer up to the stereo becase evry time someone IM's me or I get an email or windows breaks you get horible alert noises that would drive everyone insane!

    Surley these problems are why these broadcasters are having problems.
    • and no i'm not going to connect my computer up to the stereo becase evry time someone IM's me or I get an email or windows breaks you get horible alert noises that would drive everyone insane! Surley these problems are why these broadcasters are having problems.

      You need to setup a dedicated computer in the office for that. You don't use your personal system for such things!

      And stop calling me Surley!
      • > You need to setup a dedicated computer in the office for that. You don't use your personal
        > system for such things!

        So you're saying that once the problems the OP identified are overcome, on a second system `in the office` (or indeed at home) then you'll have something roughly comparable with a radio costing £/$10?

        Ok, but apart from that, why has it failed to take off?

        • Re:I'm not convinced about internet radio... (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Anonymous Coward
          1. to legally broadcast music, you need to pay a royalty
          2. the more listeners, the more expensive it is for the broadcaster. Bandwidth is not free, despite common opinion.
          3. internet ad revenue is horrendously bad because internet adverts don't really do much for sales. Advertisers know this and don't pay what they used to.
          4. there is a broadcast tax levied now, in addition to royalty costs.

          It's possible that it's a simple matter of economics. I love internet radio and listen all the time but I get the feel
        • Ok, but apart from that, why has it failed to take off?

          Because Internet radio is a silly idea. Seriously.

          The other reason is that Internet radio is hitting a much smaller group of users and as such can not get the advertising dollars that support your typical radio station. It's all about the money. Standard radio stations generate reports indicating they reach so many hundreds of thousands of people in their area which translates to money paid by advertisers. Internet radio probably boasts hundre

          • Re:I'm not convinced about internet radio... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by lowrydr310 ( 830514 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:10PM (#14688421)
            I am surprised that the satilite radio services are surviving as well as they do

            Neither XM nor Sirius are making any money yet so 'surviving as well as they do' doesn't mean much.

            I subscribe to Sirius and I'm happy with it. I always hear the argument "why pay to have some stranger play a bunch of songs that he/she selected when you can load playlists on your ipod and play what you like to hear"

            The reality is that I hear lots of new music on Sirius that I wouldn't be exposed to if I didn't subscribe. Streaming audio (internet radio) is blocked at work so that option can be ruled out. I can play the thousands of songs I own over and over, but I like to hear new music. Listening to regular FM radio for new music is a horrible experience (littered with annoying ads and stations pushing particular songs because of payola).

            Even when Sirius is playing not so new music, I enjoy most of the shows. It's worth the price for now. If I didn't have the money I could easily live without it, but it's a nice convenience that I can afford right now. The only thing I don't like about Sirius is the horrible sound quality of most channels. The classical channels are good and Howard Stern is good, most other music channels are mediocre, and all talk stations (except for Howard Stern) sound worse than AM. I wish they would get rid of twenty or thirty stations that I never listen to and use that bandwidth to improve the quality of their other channels.

          • Internet Radio is only a "silly idea" when it's restricted to a wired network. It doesn't require a gaze that far into the future to see most electronics devices (where it makes sense - I'm not talking fridges here) to be internet connected.

            Early in the previous century my granny (in the UK) had what I think was called I think "radio relay". It worked because a radio receiver was unfeasibly expensive for many people, but a box with a loudspeaker in it connected to a cable was a lot cheaper to rent. I thi
    • There are wired and wireless appliances for the house. Philips have a load like this [philips.com] and you can pick that and this from Dlink [dlink.com] up from your local PCWorld. At home I have an Airport Express plugged into my stereo and Airfoil [rogueamoeba.com] feeding every kind of audio media into it. Even Sky have got into the act with their Skygnome [sky.com] (needs Java, isn't really worth it). The hardware is there, basically.
    • Radio in general is great if you have no other options - when you're driving, when you're in an office without { TV , computers }, and so on. Once you have an internet connected computer, you've opened yourself up for more information - online streaming video.

      Connection / bandwidth issues aside (because they're mostly solvable given sufficient interest), internet radio is just extending traditional radio and relies on great hosts to carry you over into another realm (there are no other real advantages - tra
    • You just need to use a tool such as RadioLover on the Mac, that lets you rip an MP3 stream to individual, tagged tracks. It's not even re-encoding, just pulling from the stream. The tracks get sent to iTunes automatically, and thus onto my iPod when I sync it. Viola, portable internet radio. I have it set to rip 2 hours worth of Indie Pop Rocks every night and that gives a pretty much endless supply of "internet radio" to listen to on the go. What's really sweet about this is that not only can you skip back
    • Mobile devices can listen to many of these streams of course. Caveats are you need adequate IP bandwidth (say 40K) and a streaming player on your phone. Some Nokia phones have this, and also all WinCE and SmartPhones. There are mobile websites that can help - one I use is radioshowlinks.com, another is virtualtuner.com, though of course there are many out there... Lots'o'caveats:
      • many streams for desktops fail on mobile devices - from version conflicts to overly complex ASX files to ...
      • WiFi seems to

    • Also how do you listen to it on the move - I can't listen to it in the car or on my portable device.

      Cellular internet is getting faster. Soon we should be able to listen to 128kbps streams while on the move. T-Mobile offers unlimited GPRS for $19.99/mo as do other providers; that's fast enough for a crap-quality stream :)

      Then there's the problem whereby you can't go to your local comet (or other electronics store) and buy a radio for the office that has an ethernet port on the back

      Sure you can [amazon.com]

    • I love internet radio. I sit here in Canada listening to hours of radio from the UK. I can listen live, or listen to my choice of the last week's programmes at my own pace (i.e. pause it for meetings, lunch, etc). Why would I listen to crappy local radio stations (presumably inundated with adverts) when there's the BBC? Of course when I'm away from my computer I don't listen to local radio stations either as they're full of irritating adverts and presented by idiots suffering from some form of moronic v
    • This explains why my music podcast has 10x the listeners as my live broadcast

    • Internet broadcasters have problems because bandwidth cost money. For an internet broadcaster, the more popular you become, the larger your overhead in bandwidth costs.

      In my experience in running and internet radio station (idobi Radio [idobi.com]), i have to weight advertising the station against our ability to support new listeners. A successful campaign means we double our listeners, but it also means we have to allocate bandwidth to support those listeners. Advertising income does not yet match internet radio lis

    • nd no i'm not going to connect my computer up to the stereo becase evry time someone IM's me or I get an email or windows breaks you get horible alert noises that would drive everyone insane!

      Airtunes [apple.com] is your friend. I stream to two stereos from my machine in the office remote controlled [coverbuddy.com] by the PSP [playstation.com] and no alert noises (e.g. incoming email) interferes with this.

      If you use Airfoil [rogueamoeba.com] you can use pretty much any application that processes audio.

  • Internet radio is not radio (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:32PM (#14688058) Homepage
    Its simply a glorified PA system. Radio is wireless so unless you're
    using wi-fi to listen to the radio station it doesn't have the
    flexibility as a normal radio station (can't listen walking down the
    street , in the car or anywhere not near a cable or dial up line).
    Even with wi-fi , who wants to walk around with a laptop switched on
    under their arm?

    Internet radio is fine for the home and work markets , but it fails
    miserably for the on-the-move market where a large proportion of
    people listen to the radio.
    • The only Internet 'radio' I listen to is Podcasts.

      The idea of using it for background noise doesn't work with me for a few reasons.

      #1- I hate the idea of wasting all of that bandwidth. If every person started listening to Internet radio, there would be so much traffic that the latest virus wouldn't even be able to spread.

      #2- Sound fidelity is usually not very good.

      #3- If I am at my computer, I have a huge library of music already available to me. And possibly some standard radio stations if I want somethi
      • #3- If I am at my computer, I have a huge library of music already available to me. And possibly some standard radio stations if I want something new.

        I primarily listen to radio stations from distant places over the net, so I get a taste much different from my mostly-horrible local stations. Plus, it's nice to not know what you're going to hear next, and I don't mean "shuffle mode".
    • Have you considered any of the wireless services?
      Clearwire is looking pretty good these days (although my house is outside the local coverage area).
      Using Wireless internet (not WiFi, not wireless networking but wireless internet service) you can drive around and be connected the whole time...

      In fact one of the people signed up for the mailing group of www.bsdg.org was actually broadcasting video from his car just to prove how cool it is.

      I'd guess eventually there will be an overlap of services and we may al

    • Podcasts are taking that space for many people now.

      I know, I hate saying "podcast"--sounds like some bad '60s sci-fi movie--but canned programming distributed over the 'net for consumption on the go in portable players....much more flexible than streaming radio for most users."

    • I actually listen to "internet radio" on my pocket PC PDA. It has 802.11b and bluetooth built-in and WOXY's streams are available in mp3 (as well as aac+ and windows media).

      At one point I was listening to WOXY in my car. I connected to WOXY via the internet connection available from my cell provider and then hooked that into my PDA. It worked pretty well but took too much effort to set up each time.
    • Give it a few more years. When 3G cellphone service prices drop, then you'll be able to use Internet radio like you'd use a standard FM receiver today. As long as you have passable cellphone coverage, you'll be fine.
  • When I try to read TFA, I get "policy denied: Try another URL - The web site that you have attempted to visit: http://www.woxy.com/ [woxy.com] is categorized as Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies;Internet Radio/TV" I wonder how many other companies block this kind of site - hard to get listeners to justify ad revenue if your packets can't make it through the firewall.

    OTOH - I can get XM or local broadcast from my desk just fine, or just use my iPod.

    • I worked at a company where WOXY had been blocked as "pornography". Perhaps a song by the New Pornographers had been on the playlist when the company crawled the site. Or perhaps the filters are clueless and easily flummoxed. ... does anybody else remember when censorware [censorware.net] was a big deal [peacefire.org]? What happened?

  • Crystal Ball (Score:5, Insightful)

    by overshoot ( 39700 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:34PM (#14688081)
    Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?

    It will if the RIAA has any say in the matter. The last thing they want is Internet radio. Consider that they pay broadcast radio to play songs but demand to be paid for the same songs going over the Internet.

    We can speculate on why (greed doesn't explain it, since they don't stand to gain any revenue from strangling the baby.) My own guess is that Internet radio is cheap enough to run that independent artists might build listeners and escape from the RIAA plantation.

    • Well, now that I again have an automobile that has a CD player I have stopped listening to the radio all together, but for the last few years I have noticed that radio is truly dead. Yeah, there are the small and private stations that play stuff that's "different" but I find them to be usually too far out for even my tastes.

      XM radio, something that a lot of people hail as the "greatest thing", is another medium I just don't care for. I really enjoyed DirecTV's own music stations but when they moved over t

    • Re:Crystal Ball (Score:5, Informative)

      by shark72 ( 702619 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @03:08PM (#14689330)

      "It will if the RIAA has any say in the matter. The last thing they want is Internet radio. Consider that they pay broadcast radio to play songs but demand to be paid for the same songs going over the Internet."

      I am not sure I follow your logic.

      With terrestrial radio, licenses are paid only to the societies run by and for the composers and songwriters -- ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and the like -- that is, the representatives of the copyright holders of the words and music. The record companies see none of ths money.

      With Internet radio, the RIAA successfully pushed for the owners of the copyright on the recording (that is, the record companies) to get paid, as well.

      Here is how the RIAA puts it on their own site:

      Terrestrial radio stations don't pay sound recording copyright owners. Why should webcasters be treated any differently?

      The lack of a broad sound recording performance right that applies to US terrestrial broadcasts is an historical accident. In almost every other country broadcasters pay for their use of the sound recordings upon which their business is based. For decades, the US recording industry fought unsuccessfully to change this anomaly while broadcasters built very profitable businesses on the creative works of artists and record companies. The broadcasters were simply too strong on Capitol Hill.

      However, with the birth of digital transmission technology, Congress understood the importance of establishing a sound recording performance right for digital transmissions, and did so in 1995 with the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act ("DPRA"). In doing so, Congress "grandfathered" the old world of terrestrial broadcasting, but required everyone (including broadcasters) operating in the new world of digital transmissions to pay their fair share for using copyrighted sound recordings in their business.

      In short: with Internet broadcasting, the record companies get a cut of the royalties. With traditional radio, they do not. My guess is that they do not want Internet radio stations to go away any time soon.

      This gives Slasdotters three groups of people to hate:

      • The composers and songwriters, for being greedy and demanding to be paid for radio broadcasts. Popular consensus seems to be that they should be happy just playing coffee houses.
      • The broadcast conglomerates (Clear Channel), for being greedy. Oh, and for playing sucky music.
      • The RIAA, for being greedy.
      • Greedy programmers, coders, and IT people who could get by on $50,000 a year, yet who take $70K/year salaries because that's what the job market will bear. (Kidding! Don't worry... that's not greed at all... it's just looking out for your best interests. If you wanted to scrape by on the bare minimum to live on, you would have become a musician or something.)

  • I only listen to radio when driving (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:34PM (#14688085)
    I suspect it's the same for most people. That would explain the difficulty of being a 100% internet-only radio station.

  • No, it'll stick around... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by benjjj ( 949782 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:37PM (#14688115)
    ...but not in the WOXY/broadcast model. Two types of stations will persevere: (1) stations that stay off the royalties radar. (2) sites like pandora and last.fm that use personalization and social aspects to attract throngs of listeners and maximize ad revenue. WOXY made the mistake of trying to keep a high profile, i think. charging a subscription doesn't stand a chance. there are just too many other choices.
  • How do they have broadcasting taxes? If they are Internet Only, last I checked, they were not technically broadcasting. Any one have any idea?

  • Nah, it means something else. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:38PM (#14688121)
    It means that they realized people don't want to listen to advertisment and if you are listening to internet radio, you might as well listen to non-crap non-commercialized radio.

    The problem is that radio stations have to fool advertisers that people are listening to them with contests and call in campaigns and sheer speculation. There is no way to prove how many people are listening at any given time. Just a big assumuption. With internet streaming, you have stastics and logs of who is actually listening. As with the problem with click through ads, people discovered that people ignore ads and have been for years.

    I've personally never bought or been influenced by an add on a TV or radio. Mostly because 99% of the products don't apply to a geek other than laughing at Geico commercials.

    However, I have bought plenty of things because of Adsense and searching on google because it interests me or I was actually looking for comparable products. Brute force advertising is just a waste of money.
    • I've personally never bought or been influenced by an add on a TV or radio.

      Sorry to break it to you, but advertising influences you, whether you want it to or not, and whether you think it does or not.
      • It does influence me quite a bit. Actually I'll refuse to buy several things if I've seen it overly advertised. I seem to have a very negitive reaction to 90% of all sales stratigies out there. The only time I usually buy things is either based solely on price and direct handling feel (for most things in the grocry store,) convinece (it was present when I wanted it,) or after a lot of research either online or through friends famaly or other people. Almost all other sales techniques have a negitive effe

    • Re:Nah, it means something else. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by corbettw ( 214229 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:56PM (#14688310) Journal
      I've personally never bought or been influenced by an add on a TV or radio.

      Who's your auto/home/life insurer? How did you choose that company?

      What kind of car/truck/motorcycle do you drive (if any)? What makes you think that car/whatever is better than another (better enough to buy, at least)?

      What's your favorite breakfast cereal?

      What kind of shoes are you wearing?

      What's your favorite soft drink?

      Do you own an iPod?

      Chances are, if any of the above apply to you, you've been influenced by advertising, either on the radio or TV or somewhere else.

      • Chances are, if any of the above apply to you, you've been influenced by advertising, either on the radio or TV or somewhere else.

        This statement is patent, marketing bullshit. This is the type of assertation that marketers use to justify their existence and budgets.

        I bought and ate a Subway sandwich yesterday. Was I"influenced" by advertising or was I just hungry, lazy and a Subway happened to be close by? Within a 10 minute walk there is a Quiznos, Mike's, Mr. Submarine - I went to the one that was cl
      • Who's your auto/home/life insurer? How did you choose that company?

        The same one I got in 1995 with state farm. I got them because my parents had me under their policy before that. They haven't given me any greif and my payments are cheep so I keep them on.

        What kind of car/truck/motorcycle do you drive (if any)? What makes you think that car/whatever is better than another (better enough to buy, at least)?

        It is a used honda. I got because it was cheap (free). It gets me to place A and B and has high gas mile

    • Re:Nah, it means something else. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by planetmn ( 724378 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:01PM (#14688347)
      I've personally never bought or been influenced by an add on a TV or radio

      While it's possible true, I'd doubt that you've never been influenced by an ad. A ton of money is spent on research and advertising, and it's done because there is a return on investment. Sure some people are affected a lot more by advertisers (just look at QVC and other similar stations) and some are less so. While I can't think of a particular product I've purchased based on an advertisement, there are obvious times when an ad will get an idea in my head. Maybe I'm looking for something that I'd normally buy at Home Depot, but I see an ad for a local hardware store that I didn't know about previously (having just moved to the area). So now knowing about this new store, regardless of the specific item they are advertising, I might check them out. Same thing happens with local restaurants.

      Brute force advertising is just a waste of money.

      I think you'll find a lot of people who have "wasted" that money who would disagree. There is a reason they advertise. There is a reason why they invest so much to produce and air a commercial. It's for return on investment. Does targetted advertising have a higher return on investment? Probably. But the only way to currently do targetted advertising is on the web (well you could advertise on certain shows/channels/times on tv/radio), whereas the vast majority of people still use the tv and radio for entertainment.

      -dave
      • "Half of the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The problem is: I don't know which half."

        According to a quick google often (but not solely) attributed to Henry Ford.

  • This station is great (Score:4, Informative)

    by bemenaker ( 852000 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:39PM (#14688125)
    WOXY was one the premiur stations in the US until they went off the air. (Personally, for the short time afterwards that Matt Sledge was still running the Broadcast station that was left, was the best the station had ever been!)

    WOXY has long been an independant station that played what the DJ's and fans liked. They never sold out to corporate rock, and their motto always has been "Corporate Radio SUCKS!" Their selection varies so widely, and they try their bests to honor requests from everyone. Even when they were on the air and internet at the same time, they took email request around the world.

    Gonna have to buy a subscription and support this incredible station.

    • I admit I've never heard of WOXY before this. But I like them, I really do. They seem like my kind of radio station. Except that they're not a radio station, which is too bad. It's unfortunate they haven't figured that out yet.

      I think they've blown it. I don't know the backstory, so I won't speculate why they jumped conventional radio for internet broadcasting, but it seems like it was probably not a particularly smart move. I'm going to assume maybe they were forced to do it for financial reasons.

      Internet-
      • WOXY.com does offer podcasts where licensing allows. The contract that artists sign when they come preform live sessions, and the one agreed to by unsigned artists when they submit work to the Unsigned@woxy.com show gives WOXY.com the legal right right to redistribute those particular works in the form of podcasts.

        The people at WOXY.com are very savvy about such things, but for regular programming it won't work because of licensing restrictions and ultimately copyright. See my other post for more of my o
    • This is by far the best station I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. I had already subscribed before the on-air announcement was over.

      I highly encourage anyone with an interest in good music (especially of the modern rock variety) do themselves a favor and have a listen on the currently free stream.

      The people are really what make the station. The DJs know everything about the music they play and add a very personal element to the station. They are also a huge force in discovering new interesting m

  • Learn from your competitors (Score:3, Informative)

    by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:40PM (#14688139)
    Seems like these guys could learn a thing or two from "large but independent" stations like Digitally Imported [digitallyimported.com]. DI provides free streams in Mp3, WMA, and AAC+, but also offers higher quality streams in the 3 mentioned formats for a fee.

    DI can support up to 40 to 60 thousand listeners simultaneously during peak loads (thrus afternoon), and still make a profit.

    DISCLAIMER: I worked for them previously

    Sunny Dubey

    • I pay for di.fm premium - and gladdly too - why? 'cause they play the kind of music I like, *and* its about the only place I know where I can hear new material to consider purchasing. I stopped listening to the radio in the 90's when grunge took over - our local "new music" station plays crap now.

  • Biggest problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheNoxx ( 412624 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:41PM (#14688151) Homepage Journal
    If you have access to a computer with all of your mp3's on iTunes or whatever digital music player, why chew up bandwidth to listen to someone else pick songs you don't really want to listen to?

    The only online radio stations I ever listen to, and barely at that, are playlists from David Byrne on his website cast as streaming audio.

  • Why I stopped listening to any radio IMHO (Score:5, Insightful)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) * on Friday February 10, 2006 @12:42PM (#14688166)
    1. The music is usually bad

    2. The music is the same playlist shuffled differently for each new day

    3. There are no deejays that will actually play obscure requests

    4. Too many annoying commercials / fake deejays

    5. Too many stations are owned by the same companies

    6. Companies have been doing 'pay to play' illegally - big surprise

    7. I buy my own music to hear the artists I enjoy - I am in control
    • It would be worth your while to check out WOXY, then. Before they were Internet-only, they were an actual, physical, independent radio station; their DJs do actually play your requests; they actually announce the names of the songs they've played; and you hear more songs than the same 20 over and over.

      Of course, you still may or may not like the music that they play, I guess.
  • While many consider the PC the center of their worlds, sitting in front of a PC to listen to music or watch videos is not my cup of tea.

    My PC at home is in my home office, and I do listen to internet radio when I am working there, but I don't generally spend my entire day there. Internet radio needs to find solutions to make the content available on any home media device.

    I am anxiously waiting for the TuneDock from Griffin Technology, which will allow both iPod playback on your home theater system (with on
  • Internet radio doesn't work because radio doesn't work.

    If radio worked Howard Stern wouldn't need to be on Sirius.

    And internet radio fails because they don't/won't have Howard Stern.
    • >And internet radio fails because they don't/won't have Howard Stern.

      Funny, I consider that an internet radio success.

    • Internet radio doesn't work because radio doesn't work.

      If radio worked Howard Stern wouldn't need to be on Sirius.

      And internet radio fails because they don't/won't have Howard Stern.

      At ~$30M/yr, I don't think Stern was starving, it seems to have worked well enough for him. I think Stern's move had more to do with the FCC and the fact that he was constantly running into censorship issues, understandably.

      Also not to blatently plug or anything, but people keep saying that internet radio doesn't work and there

  • From TFA

    And for those of you who just can't afford to pay one more bill each month, we're keeping a low bandwidth stream. It may not be the best quality, but you can still tune in for free.

    They are only charging for CD quality streams. It seems they're moving more towards a donation (with perks) scheme rather than a subscription only service. And moving to such a system certainly doesn't mean support isn't out there. I'm a fan of KEXP [kexp.org] which has done very well with membership drives while keepi
  • If a couple of giants take over and end up playing the same crap as your monolithic FM broadcasters, I think we'll have plenty of pirate stations. Used to be you had to have broadcasting equipment and you could get caught easily. Now all you need is a server and it is slightly less difficult to get caught.
  • If I could, I would listen a lot more. I do occasionally at home and at work but most of my
    "radio" listening is in my car.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Who really wants to be able to listen to the same tired filler that happens to be broadcast over the radio spectrum on an IP-connected device? Maybe a few people, but not many.

    What is much more interesting are internet-only stations like the ones run by Soma FM [somafm.org], which provide fantastic music, no ads, no DJ, and since you're already online, you can instantly look up the musicians via google. This type of stream totally changed my world in the last 2 years; I used to be a 40 year old guy whose passion for

  • Uh, no ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kitzilla ( 266382 ) <paperfrogNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:01PM (#14688348) Homepage Journal
    > Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?

    Uh -- no. But internet radio is in its infancy. It will take off with the deployment of wireless broadband and a new class of devices capable of pulling streams without being connected to a computer.

    The first show will drop when Apple makes available a wireless version of the iPod. I bet this will happen before Christmas.

    After that, it's just a function of wireless rollout. According to Bridge Research, a research company that does most of its work for commercial radio, There will be something on the order of 130 million wireless broadband users in 2010. Wired users will make up another 150 million or so. This should be enough critical mass to make internet radio commercially viable.

    Of course, all advertising-supported media is changing. The day of mass-media supremacy is coming to an end, and wirelessly delivered entertainment should further democratize content delivery.

    In the meantime, internet broadcasters will have to find clever business models to stay afloat. Applying old-school models to new media won't be effective.

    By the way, Bridge projects XM and Sirius to be at a combined market of less than 50 million subscribers in 2010. Sat broadcasting could become quite profitable at that level, but hardly dominant in terms of ears. Look for major satelite entertainment brands to migrate to internet radio as it grows.

    • I would not be surprised if internet radio over Wi-Max ends up seriously hurting XM and Sirius. Right now they have a stranglehold on the market due to the cost of entry (satelite systems). However Wi-Max enabled car "radios" open up a whole new realm of possibilities, for both competing subscription channels and free alternatives.

      Instead of paying $X for access to a whole bunch of stations, you could instead pay smaller amounts for the stations you actually want to listen to. The WiMax providers themsel
      • > I would not be surprised if internet radio over Wi-Max ends up seriously hurting XM and Sirius.

        You make some good points. I don't see why XM and Sirius can't be profitable, though. I wouldn't want to have to replace their sat fleet, but the footprint of both services has some advantages over WiMax. Cellular telephone service is still localized (though obviously well-deployed). It took us 10 years to get to this point. And a lot of money.

        WiMax or whatever braodband wireless becomes will level the fi

    • The first show will drop when Apple makes available a wireless version of the iPod. I bet this will happen before Christmas.

      Next you'll be telling me that it will have more space than a Nomad. Lame.
  • is the fact that terrestrial radio is a public "good" (in economic terms) which cannot be impeded upon by other radio station listeners, barring call in listeners who request crap. No matter how many people listen to your favorite station, you can listen to is just as well, with no degradation in service.

    Alternatively, many internet radio streams that I listen to have a predetermined max # of connections. Fortunately, the stuff I listen to (limbikfrequencies.com) does not present this issue. If you can o
  • Internet radio stations have to buy more broadband for each listner - unlike convtional radio stations. Multicasting never happened but what about a broadcast torrent-type thing? Where you reciever is also re-broadcasting. I'm sure there must be thing like this out there but since I've never heard of it, it cann't be widely adopted.

  • WOXY.com "What's next [the long term outlook]?" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jdunlevy ( 187745 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:14PM (#14688462) Homepage

    From the announcement on woxy.com's home page [woxy.com]:

    Our goal is to keep this ship afloat until we can find a business model which allows us to go back to being free, but in the meantime, we need you to come on board.

    Really it seems their hoping the rest of the world -- advertisers, primarily -- will catch up with what woxy.com is doing.

    Basically, woxy.com's business model is: traditional (but independent) commercial radio but over the internet instead of over the air. You would think that advertisers who would be willing to buy commercials on traditional over-the-air radio would be able to easily make the transition to internet-only (especially if they realized that audience measurement online should be much better than the wacky Arbitron [arbitron.com] and other sampling-based metrics for over-the-air radio). Further, it seems that internet radio's audience has to be growing, while over-the-air's audience overall can't be growing -- sure people listen to over-the-air in their cars, but how many people with desk jobs listen to over-the-air radio at work instead of plugging their headphones into their computer? I just don't get it that adevertisers (inc. the agencies) that have dealt with radio for ages just don't seem to understand that commercial internet radio is basically the same thing.


  • ...someone has to pay the bills. If ad support isn't working then the listeners have to pay. I though this lesson was learned about 5 years ago (though judging by Vonage's IPO filing [com.com], maybe not)...
  • >Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?

    Yes and no. Legal Digital music distribution will become a pay model, no doubt. But if you are going to pay, you might as well pay for what you want, rather than a random stream. This is why I cancelled my XM subscription. I decided I'd rather pay for music that I want to hear.

    Steve
  • Yes I've noticed decline in web radio station. A couple years ago there were lots of ShoutCast streams dedicated to electronic music and other specialist non mainstream genres. It's a shame many have thrown in the towel (www.tranceairwave.com) or gone subscription (www.di.fm) the remainder have consolidated (www.etn.fm). As always I like to blame the RIAA, in this case for the high licensing fees which small hobby stations cannot afford, as internet radio stations are charged per listener as opposed to a pe
  • We have a local station the broadcasts both over the airwaves and on the internet. When I am in the car I will listen to them and if I really want to I can listen at home. The problem is that the stream is only 35k, which sounds like crap. The small town in which I live is like a radio dead zone. We are between two radio heavy cities about the same distance away, 40 miles or so. A few miles away the signal is great but here it sucks. So at home I can choose between a crappy FM signal or crappy internet audi
  • Maybe Internet radio stations should openly tell people that streaming music can be legitimately recorded for personal use. Audacity (an open-source free sound editor), for instance, can record streamed music; in fact, it teaches you how to do it: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=record i ng&i=streaming [sourceforge.net].

    Radio music is about "surprises" -- it plays new music you wouldn't have the chance to hear about otherwise. Like the old cassette days when you simply pushed the record button and recorded

  • Radio Paradise (Score:4, Informative)

    by jone_stone ( 124040 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:36PM (#14688644) Homepage
    The internet radio station I listen to, Radio Paradise [radioparadise.com], seems to be doing all right, and it's run entirely on user contributions and affiliate programs (iTunes, Amazon, etc). There are no commercials and it isn't even a non-profit. In fact, they recently topped ten thousand simultaneous listeners for the first time. The only minus is that they occasionally mention being listener-supported and ask for donations. Nowhere near as obnoxious as NPR pledge drives, though....

    I know this is just one example, but it shows that it's possible to have an internet radio stations with free streams be a successful business.
  • I've been running a 50+ plus station for the last 4 years. 4 years ago Shoutcast was up to 5,000-6000 stations. Looking at the directory now Shoutcast stations are now pushing 14,000 stations. More variety, More hobbyists. The corporate air based stations are on the decrease. As more and more restrictions are put on what they're alowed to broadcast on their stream and the uncertainty. Many Canadian stations went off the air just because of the uncertainty on what they were allowed to actually play. Its too

  • Operation Costs (Score:2, Interesting)

    by JohnSearle ( 923936 )
    Can anyone tell me what the costs of operating a station such as WOXY? The subscription fee they are calling for is $9.95/month. Their website states that their goal is 7k people... So, if you calculate that out (rounding up a bit) it comes out to $840k for the year, which is an extraordinarily large amount I would think.

    Perhaps someone could explain why an INTERNET station would need so much capital. People are running them for free out there... perhaps the problem with their station is a matter of was

  • WOXY, follow Oprah, Howard Stern... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by csorice7 ( 913655 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:43PM (#14688712) Homepage
    I lived in OH, went to Miami University and for any of you that are/were locals, this station represents independent radio. Sure, there are others nationally, but this one is hard to match in its variety, its zest for new artists and the unique way they can pull in bands for sets, interviews, etc. Is any radio/media venue worth $120 a year? Boy, WOXY's two streaming stations v. XM and Sirius at ~$15/month is a tough match up. HBO at ~$10/month is also a tough pricing comparable. With Oprah getting $55mm, why can't they just partner up with a sattelite provider for who they are? Howard Stern sure did. In the end, I've subscribed for one reason - I've learned more from this station about new artists than anywhere else. Who can put a price on knowledge and credibility?

  • Legal issues - Not technical or economic issues... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:43PM (#14688713)
    It would be very easy and very economical to run an internet radio station. It would be fairly simple to build a p2p broadcast client that operated like bittorrent (so as to eliminate the need for a single server to serve bandwidth to everyone). And find people who would want to DJ and play music is easy. There is nothing inherently expensive or technically difficult about that. Because the costs are so cheap, it wouldn't take much to make it a profitable buisness.

    The hard part of Internet radio is dealing with all the legal restrictions, licencing, ASCAP payments, and whatever.

    Like all government regulation, the regulations and legal restrictions are designed to create fixed costs such that the barrier to entry is so high that there are only a few large competitors in the industry.

    Eliminate all the restrictions and regulations, and Internet radio will take off.

  • WFMU and the Internet (Score:3, Informative)

    by sphere ( 27305 ) on Friday February 10, 2006 @01:52PM (#14688784) Homepage Journal
    A good example of successful simulcasting is WFMU-FM, a non-commercial non-NPR freeform station in Jersey City, NJ. They play lots of obscure and strange music, and they also have a weekday Jewish music and chat show called "JM in the AM." The station has two morning webcasts - one for JM and another that features the usual odd brew that is WFMU's specialty.

    From what I understand, the transition to Internet simulcasting was quite successful and led to improved fundraising (now the world funds the station instead of New York City). The station streams in Real, WMA, AAC, Ogg, and two flavors of MP3 (128 Kbps/32 Kbps). Each 128 Kbps MP3 stream (usually 3 hours long) is stored for three weeks, but the Real version is permanently archived.

    I've found the WFMU streams to be very reliable. Now I hear that the station is going to be streaming direct to mobile phones. Well, good luck to them 'cause I'm a big fan.

  • Will digital music distribution fall solely to giants like XM and iTunes?

    I think this is very short-sighted, and in fact I think it is going to go the exact opposite, XM and Sirius are going to be in toruble evry soon.

    As more and more major metropolitian areas get cheap or free blanket Wi-Fi access, it will be harder and harder to justify paying 6.95 a month to listen to digital radio, when you can tune into an internet-based digital stream for free. Personally, I already find the quality of a 192kbps str

  • Not a popular word around here, but *whispers* podcasting! I used to listen to the radio a lot. I was actually a DJ for a few years. Now I fill that need with podcasts. I have talk in the morning for my commute and music shows during work. It's an opportunity to hear new music. Better still, the music I find is RIAA-free which means I can buy it with a clean conscience (and I do).

    My car doesn't have wi-fi, but it does have an Mp3 player that can sync podcasts. Advantage podcasts there too

  • Its a slow, long death (Score:3, Interesting)

    by randomErr ( 172078 ) <.ervin.kosch. .at. .gmail.com.> on Friday February 10, 2006 @02:28PM (#14689087) Journal
    Internet Radio is being killed by four factors:

    1. Podcasting - I can podcast a show to millions of people and they can listen any time they want with a 10th of the bandwidth and equipment.

    2. Preimium/Subscriber Based Content - A lot of broadcastors are setting up commercial free broadcasts and podcasts with all the behind the scenes audio in place of the commercials for a price.

    3. Cost - It costs a butt-load of money to set up a streaming server and internet connection that can handle then load of any broadcast. If you use someone else to do the streaming for you, it still costs a lot and you loss control of your broadcast. P2P solutions for live broadcasts just don't work now and I'm not sure they ever will.

    4. Laws - Its been 2 minutes since you looked at the the FCC/EFF/MPAA/ABCDEF page. Better refresh it to see what the new rules are. Can someone point me to an update set of rules and regulations for broadcasting is?

    Just for the mobility factor you need a way to transmit your message over the radio waves. If someone could come up with a simple way for me to broadcast my message to say a five mile radius from my home to some I would love you.

    CB sucks. LPFM is dead (thanks to my church). Shortwave/Ham radio requires to many licenses (see #4).

    If someone could make a simple transmitter in one of the unlicened bands for $200, and then make a reciever that will re-transmit the signal into FM so my car or home stero could pick it up for $100 or less, I would be eternally greatful. The exact frequency wouldn't matter because the listener would ID themself by a digital call sign that people would find your station.

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