NEW ROYALTY TALK CAN GO BOTH WAYS Veteran webcast attorney David Oxenford argues that a new royalty on FM could encourage broadcasters to charge labels for airtime. In a podcast interview with Mark Ramsey, Oxenford inspects arguments from both camps, but ultimately predicts some unintended consequences should Congress support the recording industry’s efforts. Oxenford says that the promotional “bargain” between labels and broadcasters would be void with new legislation, so “broadcasters would be in the position where they could charge the labels or the artists money for playing those songs and getting promotional value.”. Ramsey’s 3-part podcast series with Oxenford can be found at his Hear 2.0 blog.

BORRELL: RADIO IS LOSING THE INTERNET TO OTHER MEDIA Consultant Gordon Borrell recounts that radio broadcast companies properly understood the disruptive potential of television when that technology dawned — and became a part of the industry and benefited from TV’s growth. But radio’s missing the boat when it comes to the Internet, he writes for Inside Radio. Consider: The Net is already a larger ad medium than radio. Borrell ads, “In virtually all markets, the largest local Web site (typically run by a newspaper company) is now grossing more ad revenue than the largest radio station in that market.” (By the way, Borrell says a recurring pattern he sees is former radio reps are now the stars of the sales team at lots of local web companies.) Radio could be using the Internet to recapture the young audience it’s lost, to leverage its “entertainment expertise” to be more useful to listeners (as an example, he cites services like Metromix), and to win audience from other media franchises by getting involved in classifieds, local directory info, and video advertising.

RAIN ANALYSIS This is all true, and good advice — but isn’t this the sort of thing radio should have gotten started on 5 years ago? Then again, CBS’s nifty move in partnering with AOL gives some weight to the “wait and see” strategy. — PM

8.5 MILLION IN VC FOR TARGETSPOT TargetSpot, which has launched partnerships with numerous broadcast companies online, has closed a $8.6 million Series B financing round led by Bain Capital. Last week, TargetSpot CEO Doug Perlson wrote that online radio advertising may be in a position similar to that of search ads before their meteoric rise [RAIN coverage here]. It seems like he might have some big budget believers. According to the news report in the Silicon Alley Insider, TargetSpot “will use the money to expand its sales and tech teams.”

CONTENT STILL KING, EVEN WITH FACEBOOKERS While there’s been big buzz about social networking (and community-building for years has been considered an integral part of establishing a local radio brand), don’t let it take your eye off the “content” ball. An Online Publishers Association’s Internet Activity Index report shows that consumers only spend 7.5% of their time online on sites featuring user-generated content and social networking like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace. Content sites garner the lion’s share of consumers’ online time: 42.7%. Read more about the Activity Index in AdAge here.

R.E.M. GO “RADIO FREE” TO DEBUT NEW ALBUM The alt-rock veterans will premier their new album “Accelerate” via a free stream through social music service iLike. The album stream will debut March 24, nearly a week before its street date. The iLike service, which has recently drawn big numbers of users (and press) on behalf its Facebook application, will also offer users video interviews and commentary from the band.

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