Internet On-Ramp: Listeners tune in, log on to Internet radio stations

Listen up, people.

Streaming audio, or the ability to listen to a continuous stream of audio over the Internet, has become reality.

If you have a 28.8 speed or faster modem and Progressive Networks’ Real Audio 3.0 Player, you can listen, and if you’re in an office with a T1 connection or better, you can hear almost compact-disk-quality sound right out of your computer’s speakers.

There are certainly no lack of sites to listen to audio on the Internet. Record-company sites, trade-show and conference sites, even corporate public-relations sites with pre-recorded news conferences allow users to hear what they want to hear when they want or need to hear it.

Streaming-audio technology is also being used by radio stations and production companies. At most radio-station Web sites, you can click on a location to hear the station’s broadcast.

According to iRadio, an Internet-oriented newsletter targeted to radio broadcasters, the number of radio stations with Web sites has grown almost 300 percent since 1995, with 2,657 worldwide as of December 1996. This number doesn’t include Internet-only radio stations, whose numbers are also growing.

Howard Freedman, publisher of iRadio, is a 17-year radio-industry veteran who consults with stations on their uses of the Internet.

“The Internet is the greatest marketing tool ever invented,” Freedman said. “My goal is to get all broadcast stations on the Internet so they can utilize it to promote themselves.”

Freedman believes that all broadcast stations can benefit from the Internet, from using it as a source for talk-show hosts by luring in news groups to helping advertising representatives sell radio spots by offering low- or no-cost banner ads on a station Web site.

He thinks that stations will boost their local market share because they now have the ability to reach potential listeners who work inside large office buildings, where a regular FM signal can’t penetrate.

The question is, why would someone listen to a local radio station over the Internet if they can get the same signal “for free” on their radio? Why, for example, would someone in Fort Collins listen to an alternative rock station based in Omaha, Neb., when KTCL is so easily accessible, and focuses on local events and promotions? They wouldn’t, says Joe Pezzillo, general manager of the Eclectic Radio Co. LLC, a new Internet-only radio company that is producing what he calls “branded radio” for the Internet.

The only reason to listen to radio on the Internet is to hear music and information you can’t get in your local radio market. This is the design behind all of ERC’s “stations.”

ERC, based in Boulder, recently announced the launch of its first radio station, called GoGaGa Brand Radio (www.gogaga.com).

“GoGaGa focuses on genres of music that people can’t hear on canned format FM stations,” Pezzillo said. “We’re attracting sophisticated listeners who want to hear new sounds, bold styles, different cultures, and musicians with something more than just chart status on their minds.”

GoGaGa’s format is called a free-form, eclectic mix of music from jazz to hip hop to country to rock and even kitsch. Pezzillo likens it to the programs once heard on community and college stations across the country such as KGNU in Boulder, where he has been a music DJ for the past 10 years.

“Most of those stations have gone the way of more mainstream stations to attract more advertisers,” Pezzillo said. “By focusing on a national and global audience, we’ll be able to attract national advertisers who want to reach a techno-savvy, pre-qualified, educated audience of computer users who are looking to the Internet to provide them with alternatives to the music and entertainment venues that exist in their communities. We want to give these people what they want and what they can’t get – something different and outside the mainstream.”

ERC’s stations are similar to broadcast radio stations in that they follow a regular program schedule, where you have to tune in at a particular time of day to hear a favorite show.

GoGaGa’s Web site features music reviews, request by e-mail, a live StudioCam, record company contacts, a real-time play list, the “E Five O” eclectic top 50, and a 360-degree interactive panorama of the on-air studio. The site has pages on the station’s programs, including “Infinite Spins,” “Evenings with Tabitha Angst,” and “Jackin’ The Box.”

ERC plans to launch other stations to hit different segments of the market. The goal of each will be to attract listeners who can’t find what they want to hear on FM or AM radio.

AudioNet (www.audionet.com), the largest distributor of audio content on the Internet, began with the idea of providing unique audio content (broadcast of college basketball games) on the Internet.

“We pull content from other sources,´ said Dan Routman, spokesman for the Texas-based company. Audionet has exclusive rights to broadcast some events on the Internet, such as college basketball games. Audionet generates revenue by selling audio and banner advertising during those events.

Audionet does archive a lot of its content, allowing users to “tune in” whenever they want. There is also a jukebox, where you browse the selections and listen to a favorite cut, as well as special programming and a breaking-news channel, where browsers can get up-to-the-minute information on breaking stories.

Corporations can buy a one-day audio event for $5,000, and stations that want to be linked to Audionet pay through barter advertising on their Web sites. Routman said the model has been so successful that Audionet now sells these barter sites to major advertisers.

Routman thinks that the Internet will become a major distribution medium for audio and video.

“With the advent of hand-held wireless devices, people will be able to retrieve whatever content they want,” he said. Audionet hopes to be the largest source of audio and video content on the Internet.

So far, no one has stepped up to challenge them.

E-mail Robin Seidner at outright@indra.com with your ideas for Internet On-Ramp.

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