Enjoy great online radio at AccuRadio

SOME NEWS SOURCES CONTINUE TO FUEL ROYALTY CONFUSION; L.A. TIMES GETS IT RIGHT: Several news sources continue to characterize yesterday’s announced royalty settlement (see RAIN here) as a “solution to Internet radio’s worries” or “the end of the Internet radio crisis.” However, as RAIN, industry attorney David Oxenford, several other radio trade publications, and even Jim Puzzanghera in his blog for the L.A. Times (here) have explained, this deal does not save Internet radio — in fact, it has nothing substantial to do with most webcasters.

The settlement, announced yesterday by DiMA, the NMPA, RIAA, and other industry groups, concerns (i) “mechanical” royalties, (ii) payable to the owners of “composition/publishing” rights, and (iii) payable by “interactive and limited-download” services. While some in the Internet radio industry are encouraged that yesterday’s deal exempts Internet radio from a mechanical royalty, and shows that a marketplace agreement (however difficult) is possible — this deal does not otherwise impact Internet radio. The crisis facing webcasters (i) is over “performance” royalties, (ii) for the owners of “sound recording” copyrights, and (iii) payable by “non-interactive” streaming services, like AccuRadio, Pandora, DI.fm, and Radioio.

LANE SUGGESTS ADS DESIGNED FOR ON-AIR MAY NOT BEST SERVE ADVERTISERS ONLINE: Jennifer Lane, in her new blog, Audio4cast, explains the impact of AM/FM online simulcasts on the Portable People Meter and Arbitron market ratings. While stations can encode their online simulcasts to be measured by PPM, Lane (pictured) argues that typical Arbitron samples can’t effectively measure the much-smaller Internet radio audience. She also suggests that streaming a 100% duplicate of the over-the-air programming (necessary for online listening to contribute to a station’s overall market rating) may not be the wisest move. Not only is it “unlikely that any station’s online audience will at this point significantly increase its market share,” according to Lane, but running ads designed for AM/FM fails to exploit the advantages of a captive, online audience. “Internet radio’s… audience is online — and can react to an online call to action in an ad,” she writes. “Broadcasters of AM/FM stations should develop a streaming business model that encourages advertisers to create ads for online listeners.” Lane is former president of Net Radio Sales, now owned by Katz Media. Read her blog, Audio4cast, here.

Yesterday in RAIN (here) we covered two radio exec’s calls for running online simulcasts identical to the over-the-air signal.

CBS AND CC HOLD TOP SPOTS, RADIO ONE DEBUTS IN WEBCAST METRICS AUGUST RATINGS: Most services on AndoMedia’s Webcast Metrics ratings panel saw modest increases in August over July, with CBS Radio and Clear Channel holding the top spots (157,517 and 130,190 AQH, M-F, 6a-8p ET, respectively). Broadcast group Radio One debuted in 14th place on the panel, for both dayparts (Webcast Metrics also ranks webcasters M-Su, 6a-12M ET). See the Top 20 below. The Webcast Metrics ranker for July 2008 is here.

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