“The world’s first all-podcast radio station will be launched on May 16 by Infinity Broadcasting, the radio division of Viacom. Infinity plans to convert San Francisco’s 1550 KYCY, an AM station, to listener-submitted content. The station, previously devoted to a talk-radio format, will be renamed KYOURadio.”
— Wired
David Goldberg is VP/GM for Yahoo! Music, the home of LAUNCHcast. From his keynote speech at last week’s RAIN (Radio and Internet Newsletter) Las Vegas Summit:
“We really want to replace broadcast radio for music discovery. We believe music will migrate off of terrestrial radio to the services we are offering because we can deliver the music consumers want, when they want it, where they want it,” he explained. “We don’t believe music will continue to be broadcast on analog radio. Terrestrial radio will continue as a very successful, profitable business — but it will be mostly talk (he cited the only formats growing on terrestrial radio as Talk and Hispanic),” he said. And, he explained, this goes for satellite radio as well.
Susquehanna Radio Senior VP Dan Halyburton claimed that since Yahoo! Music couldn’t bring the “personality” and “local community” like AM and FM radio, it’s “not real radio.”
XM Satellite Radio announced Monday it has signed a multi-year content agreement with Air America Radio, making XM the exclusive satellite radio network for the left-leaning radio network. Financial terms were not disclosed. When the deal begins in May, Air America Radio will no longer air on Sirius Satellite Radio, which has 1.2 million subscribers to XM’s nearly 3.8 million.
Have you seen Left of the Dial, the excellent HBO documentary about the start-up of Air America? Painful but I could not look away.
Okay, this is neater than I expected. The new subscription structure includes XM Radio Online (doesn’t include all channels). As a rule, I don’t care to listen to anything while I’m online. Breaks my concentration. But XM has an excellent UI and it all just works. I might look into some of the wireless appliances (is it a radio?) you can tote around the house, listening to your favorite XM channels. Or any Internet radio for that matter. Stay tuned.
Lex & Terry’s regular Friday morning “Drunk Bitch Friday” feature (on University of Florida-owned WRUF-FM) leads the Gainesville school – concerned about student alcohol abuse – to at least temporarily drop the syndicated duo’s Friday show. The idea is to derive some entertainment from a women who’s driven – by a sober friend – to the studio for a live interview. Lex & Terry also drop in reminders about not driving drunk. They’ve recently started calling the feature “DBF”, by the way.
Some Canadian guys developed the concept for Trivial Pursuit in 1979 and released the board game two years later and the game’s popularity peaked in 1984. But we had been playing trivia on the air at KBOA for a number of years by then and it was about as much fun as anything I ever did on the air. While cleaning out a closet this afternoon, I found a tape of a show (first half-hour) we did in May of 1981.
[Download/listen]. Team members: John Robison, Jeff Wheeler and Tom Colvin. Good friends, then and now.
An intriguing open to a thoughtful article by Jay Rosen (PressThink). The piece (Laying the newspaper gently down to die. And keeping the spirit of journalism alive.) looks at challenges facing the newspaper business and how it is (or is not) meeting those challenges. But I believe there’s something here for all traditional media. My big take-away was a concept called “harvesting market position.” A last-resort business model for companies undermined by substitute technology.
“An industry that won’t move until it is certain of days as good as its golden past is effecively dead, from a strategic point of view. Besides, there is an alternative if you don’t have the faith or will or courage needed to accept reality and deal. The alternative is to drive the property to a profitable demise.
Drive the property to a profitable demise. You won’t see that in the company mission statement. But my favorite quote from Professor Rosen’s article came from Craig Newmark (craigslist):
“I realize I’m no news guy, not an activist; just like everyone else, tired of news that I can’t trust. My favorite irony is that Jon Stewart produces fake news that’s honest; and the White House produces allegedly honest news that’s really fake.”
“In early 2004, a group of investors set out to launch a liberal radio network that would challenge the dominance of America’s airwaves by conservative talk radio. The creative, financial and logistical challenges were immense, but on March 31, Air America Radio became a reality. LEFT OF THE DIAL chronicles the trials and tribulations involved in starting up – and sustaining – a nationwide radio network during a highly charged election year.”
Left of the Dial is another fascinating documentary from HBO.
Taking a stand against syndicators that air programs on both terrestrial and satellite radio, Saga Communications has begun methodically canceling shows where its exclusivity has been compromised. Ed Christian, president and CEO for Saga said he hopes his actions will sound a wake-up call to the industry while conveying to syndicators that they can’t have it both ways. [Story in Mediaweek]
“A friend who relocated to California from NY said she missed hearing all the odd variety of music that was played around the office here. I miss hearing what you all are listening to,” she wrote. This “radio” is my response. It will stream for a few hours and then it will recycle. Maybe it will run longer in the future. The artists played here are respectful of one another and gunplay is forbidden.”
David Byrne explains why he started his own Internet radio station. What an interesting idea. I confess I like most of the songs I’ve heard, even though I’ve never heard of any of the artists. Other Internet radio stations to which I would listen: Radio McVey, Virettarama.