The Infinite Dial

The odd thing about the SoundExchange controversy and the upcoming rate hike is that the labels have effectively chosen to subvert the entire system, and charge the wrong people for their inability to suss a new revenue model in the post-peer-to-peer world. Take my Sansa Wifi player, for instance--in order to get full usage out of this device, you need to subscribe to Yahoo Unlimited, which is a subscription-based all-you-can-eat music download service. For $14.95 a month, I can download unlimited (DRM-hobbled) songs and albums and listen to them on my PC, burn them to a disc, and move them to my Sansa to listen to wherever I choose. With the WiFi functionality and tight integration with Yahoo's Launchcast radio streams, I can listen to a song over a webcast stream, and with one click on my device have it downloaded to the Sansa in seconds, with no money changing hands whatsoever--it's part of my $14.95 subscription.

So consider this--I just listened to a song on Launch, clicked on it, and got it on my device for free. No friction. The new SoundExchange rates are designed to make someone pay for this, and that someone will be Launch/Yahoo for every person who hears the song on one of their streams. The subscription music model has done more to devalue and commodify music than the original Napster ever did, and now the webcasters who actually play and promote music in their streams have to bear the cost. Imagine if my doctor had to pay Wyeth for every sample of that pill that holds my stomach together he gives me, but I can refill it for free at the pharmacy. My doctor would be stupid to do that, wouldn't he?

Well, he would be--unless he jacked up my bill to compensate. With the subscription audio streaming market reaching maturity, there is really only one way to make mainstream America 'pay' more for listening to a webcast, and that is with advertising.

EDIT: For more on this, do check out Accuradio CEO Kurt Hanson's take on his new blog.

Posted by at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At least once a year, Clear Channel unleashes an interesting slew of format changes--as evidenced by the real estate they've occupied on this page recently. The most recent was last Friday's change at WSNP Rochester, N.Y., from Rhythmic AC--never a format that seemed like a fit for the market--to "Country 107.3." In its initial publicity, the new station promised to play never more than two minutes of commercials an hour--not quite the commercial free/all-sponsorship model of sister KZPS (Lone Star 92.5) Dallas, but the closest we've seen to commercial free we've seen with a mainstream format.

Clear Channel has obviously never been afraid to unleash a hard-to-respond-to flanker on a competitor before. The young-end/more rhythmic WKFS (Kiss 107) Cincinnati was meant to mess with the more adult leaning WKRQ (Q102), but it still came as a surprise to some of those involved when it ended up becoming the Mainstream Top 40 leader in the market and nudging Q102 further into Hot AC (at least for a few years). And WSNP, like ABC's WGVX Minneapolis--which also changed formats last week--is a signal-challenged outlet that has been frequently redeployed for competitive reasons. So it's not surprising to see WSNP now aimed at Country perrenial WBEE.

But short of going commercial-free altogether forever, there's nothing more existential than taking a station to only two units an hour. Unless, of course, what develops at KZPS gives the station the eventual ability to add sponsorships eventually and stay at two minutes an hour.

Also worth noting, the URL for the new station is "MyCountryFM.com," which is also used as the sole identifier on one of the station's drops. Does that handle portend a multi-market rollout of the concept?

Posted by Sean Ross at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

However it may do long term, and my colleague Tom Webster certainly has some strong feelings about it, the change from Tropical to an Adult Modern format at WUBA (Radio 104.5) Philadelphia will go down as the first format change prompted by PPM ratings. Even if Philly's one Spanish-language FM was flat, not diminished in the way its Clear Channel Urban sisters WUSL and WDAS were, the first PPM quarterly made a bigger, more tempting target out of stations with AC and Adult Rock functionality.

The new Radio 104.5 has elements of both. It's along the lines of recent Clear Channel launches like KJMY Salt Lake City and WDVI (the Drive) Rochester, N.Y.--stations that straddle the line between Modern AC, Modern Rock, and Triple-A. That, not surprisingly, was the turf occupied by WPLY (Y100) during its most successful period in the mid-to-late '90s, and while triple-A WXPN has moved in that direction, the hole for a female-friendly Rock station had never been exactly filled.

Here's WUBA at 8:20 this morning:

Green Day, "American Idiot"
Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Aeroplane"
Evanescence, "Call Me When You're Sober"
Bob Marley & Wailers, "Three Little Birds"
Barenaked Ladies, "Brian Wilson"
Midnight Oil, "Beds Are Burning"
Modest Mouse, "Float On"
R.E.M., "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?"
Semisonic, "Closing Time"
Killers, "Mr. Brightside"
Republica, "Ready To Go"
Foo Fighters, "All My Life"

Posted by Sean Ross at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

An advertiser pulls spots from XM...for censoring O&A.

Posted by at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Courtesy of Dooce, here's what happens when you mix a traffic report with Nyquil. Look what Imus hath wrought...

Posted by at 5:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lance Venta posted a comment to my earlier post on Radio 104.5 that bears a quick revisit. He is right, of course, that viewed through the lens of PPM in Philadelphia, Radio 104.5 might not need a top-of-mind brand to be a cume magnet--by playing "one great song after another" and remaining jockless it might slip under the radar and "stealth" its way to a respectable share. Still, my points about its Internet brand are still valid.

The more sinister issue is this: if we react to passive measurement with passive branding, will we be adding further fuel to radio's relentless retreat from the passionate edges of the bell curve (as further explicated by Fred Jacobs, Mark Ramsey and other folks who care about the future of the medium) and concomitant 'ascent' to that curve's mediocre middle?

Posted by at 4:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Clear Channel blew up Philadelphia's 'Rumba 104.5' today in favor of Adult Alternative outlet "Radio 104.5." I won't comment here on the product, which I will leave to my programming bretheren, but in an era where co-opetition with Internet properties is demanded, this brand is distinctly success-proof on the web. There are three reasons why this brand was just not fully baked to compete on the Infinite Dial:

1. The brand is too generic--it means absolutely nothing in terms of attitude, behaviors or benefits (or if it supposed to say something in a kind of anti-branding way, I don't get it)
2. 'Radio' as the integral brand identifier is not just non-descript, it constrains the ability of the brand to leave deeper footprints
3. '104.5' is a meaningless Internet brand

A much better execution of this is DC's The Globe, which is a brand equipped to compete both on the air AND over the web, which is the right answer.

I have mixed feelings about calling Clear Channel out on this one, as I worked on that frequency for several years throughout the 90's, and it's been a tough nut to crack, from Star to The New Sound of Philadelphia, from Alice to Sunny. But there is no gettting around this fact--in a time when brands MUST resonate online as well as off, this one fails to inspire.

Posted by at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (45)

As Internet radio stations grapple with the likelihood of music licensing costs and terrestrial stations look anew at the notion of selling sponsorships, not spots, the two trends come together at heritage Triple-A outlet WMVY Cape Cod, Mass., which announces today that it will switch from spot sales to a "listener- and corporate underwriting-supported station" -- at least on its on-line mvyradio.com streams.

WMVY has engaged Public Radio Capital to develop a new "Friends of mvyradio" organization, modeled on public radio's business model. The move does not change anything on WMVY's terrestrial signal. Mvyradio.com is currently offering at least six separate streams in addition to another suite of local music channels.

Posted by Sean Ross at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)