 RAIN 5/21: Webcasters still confident tomorrow's ad market will support their businesses ·May 21, 11:47 AM WEBCASTERS DISCUSS MONETIZATION ISSUES AT SANFRAN SUMMITThis past Monday, RAIN publisher Kurt Hanson moderated the “Webcasting Issues” panel at the SanFran MusicTech Summit. Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy, Radio Paradise founder Bill Goldsmith, SoundExchange counsel Mike Huppe, Zeitgeist Artist Management’s Jordan Kurland and GOOM Radio Chief Sales Officer Drew Hilles participated in the panel, which discussed — among many topics — the continuing monetization of Internet radio.
The feeling on advertising was optimistic: Kennedy said Pandora was seeing “tremendous acceleration” in the amount of advertising coming their way. Pandora expects to be profitable in 2010, thanks to increased listening, especially on the iPhone, and increasing ad sales (RAIN coverage here). Additionally, GOOM Radio’s Hilles said a New York ad agency told him that advertisers will begin an exodus from terrestrial to Internet radio this year and the next. However, there was still a lingering question about what type of advertising will be most effective in the future. Radio Paradise’s Goldsmith (pictured left) pointed to Hilles of GOOM Radio — a New York web radio station run by radio professionals that will rely on advertising to cover costs like New York-area studios, live jocks and experienced programmers (more RAIN coverage here) — agreed, saying, “We have a responsibility to reinvent the advertiser/listener relationship…if the content is meaningful, people will sit through some sort of short-form burst of advertisements.” He sees a future where listeners tell advertisers what sort of ads they want in their radio stream. Read more about the SanFran MusicTech Summit at the Washington Post here, or watch videos from the webcaster panel at UStream here. YOUTUBE OWES $1.6 MILLION IN ROYALTY FEESYouTube, which has been recently caught up in disputes with record labels and royalty collection agencies, owes $1.6 million to artists represented by ASCAP, according to a federal court ruling. That payment is for the 2005 to 2008 period, and YouTube will pay $70,000 per year going forward, the court ruled. The ASCAP had suggested a payment of $12 million, while YouTube argued they only owed $79,500. For more, read TechDirt’s coverage here.NEW IMEEM APP OFFERS PERSONALIZED RADIO STREAMSThough Imeem is known for offering on-demand music downloads, it’s offering personalized radio streams as part of the company’s iPhone application. The app, free to download from Apple’s App Store, creates radio streams based on a favorite artist (similar to Last.fm or Pandora). It also offers pre-built streams, like Top 100 songs. The application also lets users buy tracks from iTunes on-the-go and accesses music users have uploaded to Imeem’s cloud server. Jennifer Lane has more on the Imeem iPhone app at her Audio4cast blog here.
BIA SESSION: BROADCASTERS NEED TO LEVERAGE NEW MEDIA TO HELP LOCAL ADVERTISERSA local New Orleans pizza shop called “Naked Pizza” was brought up in BIA Winning Media Strategies session because the shop says 15% of their daily business comes from Twitter. “How many other local advertisers are going to figure out how to market their business online, before we [in the media] figure out how to help them?” asked McVay New Media’s Daniel Anstandig. “Radio’s got serious, serious catching up to do,” writes Tom Taylor in his Inside Radio newsletter. Moreover, the radio stations that are doing well “aren’t relying on their ‘call-letter.com’ sites. They’re branching out. They have new brands, and those brands are lifting them above” the traditional reach, according to researcher Gordon Borrell.
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CommentCommenting is closed for this article.  Other stories RAIN has upgraded (and moved)! RAIN 9/13: RAIN Summit Chicago takes place today! RAIN 9/12: First Summit in RAIN's hometown takes place tomorrow RAIN 9/9: Summer holidays, "doldrums" impact July Webcast Metrics, but audience up over last year RAIN 9/8: Clear Channel launches new customizable iHeartRadio beta; RAIN goes hands-on RAIN 9/7: Meet more speakers you'll hear at RAIN Summit Chicago in less than a week RAIN 9/6: Clear Channel taps The Echo Nest to take on Pandora RAIN 9/2: RAIN reviews Spotify's radio-like product Artist Radio RAIN 9/1: UK online radio aggregator Radioplayer campaigns b'dcasters to create "all radio" ratings RAIN 8/31: Execs from Merlin, Triton Digital, jacAPPS and more to appear at RAIN Summit Chicago |
Hulu as an example of Internet users’ “unwillingness” to sit through advertisements — any ad over 15 seconds, and users start to leave. “That same kind of resistance to advertising is going to be a huge factor in online radio because there’s always going to be an alternative that doesn’t include you listening to commercials,” he said. Radio Paradise does not air ads, relying instead on listener contributions. 
