Posted by chicagomedia.org on September 01, 2008 at 08:48:48:
Portable radios are becoming a thing of the past -- when was the last time you saw someone carrying a transistor radio or a boombox? -- and smart operators are working hard to figure out how to get their station streams on mobile phones.
Why? Because 146 million mobile handsets were sold in 2007, according to NPD Group. And Apple’s iPhone 3G sold 1 million units the first weekend it was available, according to the company.
CBS Radio, Entercom and Greater Media are among the broadcasters that have succeeded in making it possible for iPhone aficionados to listen to at least some of their favorite local stations. (Meanwhile, 100 Clear Channel stations have been available on a number of music-enabled phones via a partnership with mobile innovator mSpot since 2007).
All CBS stations are available on the newest iPhone via the company’s partnership with AOL Radio. Meanwhile, Entercom, which is making stations available on the iPhone 3G in Seattle, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., has partnered with FlyTunes to gain access to iPhone users. Greater Media can thank Billy Clanton, an enterprising Internet director at its New Jersey cluster, for its ability to stream stations in New Jersey, Charlotte and Detroit on iPhone 3Gs. Entercom and Greater Media say they will roll out additional stations soon and make streams available on additional platforms, including BlackBerry devices.
Tom Bender, the Detroit-based senior VP/GM of Greater Media Interactive, rues the day that radio loses its place on the dashboard. “Not only is the Internet losing its tether to a cable or a desktop, the next evolution will be wireless Internet to cars,” he says.
“Radio has lost a lot of its portability gift,” Bender says. “We need to make ourselves available on as many wireless devices as possible as a way to plant the flag and not lose any more portability function.
“We don’t control the marketplace,” Bender continues. “We don’t control what people decide to put on their person or in their pocket. The cell phone clearly is winning the gadget race. It’s turning into the Swiss Army knife of the 21st century.”
Enter Greater Media/New Jersey Internet director Clanton, “an iPhone geek,” according to Bender, who wanted to listen to radio on his device. He wrote a code to keep the company’s streams stable when listening on an iPhone. “It was Billy’s hard work that gave us the piece of code and the technology to be able to put the streams up,” Bender says. While the numbers are not “gargantuan,” Bender says people are listening.
Service The Core
Streaming content to iPhones and other mobile devices isn’t, at least initially, about advertising opportunities or monetization, Bender says, although he does point out that “listeners to the stream count against the streamed spots, so it does generally increase the utility in the pie.”
The real goal, he says, is to “service the core customers of the radio stations in new and different ways. If we don’t get across to them that we understand what their demands are and what their lifestyle is like, they’ll find somebody that does. It’s really that simple.”
That said, and given the myriad of audio choices available to consumers, Greater Media is making a conscious effort to make sure stations’ Internet streams, which are pitted against Internet-only stations with little or no spotloads, are competitive. “[There are] radio stations out there that are running commercial loads of four units an hour on the Web,” Bender says. “We have to view the consumer as a little more informed.” Sooner or later they’re going to find those stations. The solution includes creative approaches to replacing terrestrial commercials -- which, because of AFTRA and Screen Actors Guild agreements, can run on over-the-air radio but not on Internet streams -- with something other than public service announcements. “We’re trying to balance the amount of inventory and cover with additional songs and entertainment content,” Bender says.
(R&R)