In case you haven't noticed, audio on the Internet has really taken off.
Here's an article that talks about one aspect of it.
kelly
the New York Times
January 16, 2000
The Web Catches and Reshapes Radio
By CLEA SIMON
As I sit down to write, an accordionist accompanies me,
embroidering a fast, bluesy riff over an ancient melody. This kind
of music -- part swamp pop, part zydeco -- doesn't get much play on
my local Boston radio. But the station that is helping me get down
to work comes straight out of Eunice, La., and the reception on my
little iMac is just fine.
[INLINE]
Logging on to Disc Jockey.com connects a listener to Internet-only
stations like Love Beat, which plays only old love songs.
_________________________________________________________________
Although we are still in the minority, my friends and I are among
the growing number of computer-literate radio fans who are logging
on, tuning in and dropping out of our local market to listen
instead to the global offerings popping up around the Internet
dial. Whether we choose to hear our international news delivered by
the refined voices of the BBC or from a Chinese perspective,
courtesy of Joy FM's English-language service out of Beijing, we
can find a source on the World Wide Web. If we seek to share our
disappointment with this year's football results, we can catch
postseason griping by members of the Patriots and Packers coaching
staffs on Sportsfanradio.com. If we simply yearn for a little
fantasy travel, we can eavesdrop on the pop, rock and samba of the
Brazilian top-40 station JB, which broadcasts at 97.7 FM out of Rio
de Janeiro and at jb.fm on the Web.
Browsing Around the Dial
Audio servers like Broadcast.com from Yahoo! and BRS Media's Radio.FM
are clearinghouses for hundreds of traditional and Internet-only
stations. Broadcast.com connects listeners to stations like the BBC
World Service, in English and Spanish, with news-only options -- no
cricket scores -- as well as extensive listings by genre, location or
call letters.
Radio.FM offers connections to Radio Deutschland (which can be looked
up directly at www.rtlradio.fm) and China's Joy FM, which maintains
archives of speeches and political ceremonies as well as features,
like an interview with a Beijing music teacher and choir leader.
DiscJockey.com also acts as an intriguing starting point, with dozens
of Internet-only stations, including all-Brazilian, all-Native
American and all-love-song options.
In addition to such network-style offerings, individual stations of
interest include:
npr.org
National Public Radio lets browsers listen in to its 24-hour news
stream and provides access to archived shows from "All Things
Considered" to "Weekend Edition."
kbon.com
This 25,000-watt station in Eunice, La., plays primarily country,
Cajun and zydeco.
kcrw.org
This public station in Santa Monica, Calif., has live broadcasts and
archives of the popular and aptly named "Morning Becomes Eclectic"
world music program.
francelink.com
This clearinghouse site connects Francophones and fans of European
news and music to such French stations as Radio Sorbonne, Europe 1 and
Radio France (which can also be reached directly at radio/france.fr/)
whrb.org
Harvard's student-run station is best known for its monthlong
"orgies," as it calls the music marathons it broadcasts during the
reading periods before exams in January and May. Highlights this month
include the Steve Lacy orgy, featuring the avant-garde soprano sax
player; it begins Thursday at 3 p.m.
wmbr.org
In addition to its own eclectic, largely rock programming, this
community station in Cambridge, Mass., offers extensive links to Web
radio stations around the world.
orf.at/roi
Radio Österreich International broadcasts Austria's daily news in six
languages and music programs and has extensive archives.
sportsfanradio.com
This New York-based, Internet-only station offers live coverage and
extensive interviews.
wwoz.org
This popular public station in New Orleans features Louisiana music
and jazz shows, and broadcasts the Jazz and Heritage Fest each spring.
CLEA SIMON
Entering its fifth year, Internet, or Web, radio is a newcomer
among electronic media, but its potential to change the way we
listen is enormous. Right now, its audience across the country is
relatively small: according to a recent survey by Edison Media
Research for the Arbitron ratings service, only about four million
listeners -- an audience roughly the size of Philadelphia's regular
radio market -- tune in each week. But at the dawn of the sort of
Internet/content-provider interchanges symbolized by the
announcement of the planned merger of AOL and Time Warner, new
technologies are increasing the quality of Web radio's sound and
are making logging on easier, sometimes almost computer-free.
And since radio is already ubiquitous -- what Thom Mocarsky, an
Arbitron vice president, calls "the thing you do while doing
something else" -- the next step seems obvious. If at its best Web
radio can deliver better-than-FM audio, and the Internet can offer
you thousands of choices ranging from Radio France to little KBON
in Eunice, then your mouse may soon be an indispensable companion
while you prep dinner, or the tool you turn to for truly global
news.
Strictly speaking, Web radio is not really radio. The nearly 3,000
stations that broadcast over the Web -- a number that grows by more
than 100 every month, according to BRS Media, an Internet company
that tracks Web stations -- have largely adopted the forms of
radio, with hosts or disc jockeys announcing programs or leading
discussions. Most of the audio comes from established outlets,
stations like KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., or organizations like
National Public Radio. And the more than 240 sites that broadcast
strictly on the Web -- such as Radio SonicNet and Rolling Stone
Radio -- are usually careful to use the word "radio" in their name.
But radio, at 105 years of age our oldest electronic medium, is
audio transmitted over airwaves. Web radio is not; it's a
changeling, a powerful new means of broadcasting audio. Radio, by
its nature, has been limited by space, or distance from a tower or
transmitter, and by time, since traditional stations present shows
in sequence. Web radio is limited by neither. Because of its medium
-- telephone or cable lines -- it does away with the geographic
restrictions of radio. And because of the computer's virtually
unlimited storage capacity, Web radio can archive nearly any number
of programs indefinitely and offer them for access at any time.
Moreover, because the world, not to mention our government, has
been unable to agree on how to regulate the Internet, Web radio is
exempt from F.C.C. licensing and restrictions. Any hacker is free
to set up a guerrilla site, and listeners will be able to tune in
from around the world.
S TILL, most Web radio operates much like traditional radio. A
broadcaster creates a show. It could be CBS or "some 19-year-old
who stays up nights writing HTML code," in the words of Tom Taylor,
the editor of M Street Daily, a broadcasting industry newsletter.
The broadcaster then hooks up with a company that acts as an audio
server, which translates the material for computer use. This
translation involves converting the radio signal into a digital one
that the computer can understand and then retransmitting, or
streaming, it to online users.
Some servers, like Broadcast.com, are very visible. Listeners log
onto its Web site, which is set up as a clearinghouse for the
stations it carries, like WSIX-FM, a new country station in
Nashville, or KEOM-FM, the public station in Mesquite, Tex. Others,
like Magnitude Networks, are a sort of invisible broker for
stations. The listener finds the originating station's Web site;
the signal, which is processed by the server, seems to emanate
directly from the site -- the one set up by KCRW in Santa Monica,
say.
Listeners receive these signals through audio player software, like
RealAudio's RealPlayer or Microsoft's Media Player, which can be
downloaded free at most radio Web sites. Like an old-fashioned
transistor, the players grab the signal and reinterpret it as
sound.
Of course, the translation is not seamless. In fact, early computer
radio was handicapped by the size of the files needed to hold
sound. Larger files take longer to download, of course, and are
less likely to do so smoothly. But various compression techniques
have made it possible to pack sound into smaller files; more
powerful connections have made it easier for bite-size chunks of
audio to travel from source to listener; and players have become
more proficient at translating those chunks into a continuous flow
of sound. Tune into louisianaradio.com, and you will wait for about
six seconds as the signal comes in, but once that happens, vintage
Chubby Checker comes through loud and clear.
And soon, tuning in Web radio may not even require a computer. Now
most listening is done via a traditional Web browser -- often,
according to Edison Media Research's reports, at the office, where
high-speed T1 telephone lines are more common. But manufacturers,
under pressure to make the new medium accessible (and universal),
are once again aiming to make radio wireless. Through Macintosh
iBook's wireless Internet connection, called an Air Port, and
dozens of similar devices currently under development, and through
the increasingly common cable modem hookups, which utilize existing
cable television connections, Web radio is becoming detached from
the computer modem.
The ideal is something very like the familiar kitchen or bedside
radio, a small, inexpensive receiver that does not have to be
directly connected to a modem and that can find a place in any room
in the house. Media watchers predict that such devices will be
widely available within two years. "As the technology increases,
and the bandwidth to the home increases," said George Bundy, the
chairman and chief executive officer of BRS Media, "well, then
there will be no barriers."
These technological breakthroughs are happening at one of the most
vulnerable times in commercial radio's 80-year history. Radio
audiences that had bounced back from the rise of television began
declining again in the 1990's, with some reports revealing as much
as a 13 percent dropoff. Some studies, like those by Edison,
attribute the loss in listenership to competing media and what
Larry Rosin, the president of Edison, calls "the general squeezing
down of people's discretionary time."
But the Telecommunications Act of 1996 played a part as well. This
deregulation permitted large corporations, like Clear Channel
Communications and CBS, to amass a greater number of stations than
was previously allowed, and critics say that the corporate
takeovers that followed have homogenized the medium. For music
listeners, that has meant more mainstream formats. For talk-show
fans, it has meant more syndicated shows and less chance of
chatting with the host. "Some people who are listening to less
radio are disaffected people who just don't have the choices they
want," Mr. Rosin said.
All of which sets up Web radio as a highly attractive alternative.
Yes, the corporations are heavily represented on the Internet. The
Web giant Yahoo! recently acquired Broadcast.com, which (as
AudioNet) pioneered the medium in 1995 by streaming KLIF in Dallas
and now acts as the audio server for some 450 radio stations. And
MTV Interactive, the Internet branch of the global music television
company, purchased Imagine Radio, absorbing that site, which
originated the model of listener-determined programming, into its
new Radio SonicNet.
Plus, the traditional radio companies have an edge in experience
and resources. The game, the media watchers say, is the big
corporations' to lose. "The real question," Mr. Taylor said, "is
whether radio people can move fast enough."
Indeed, the country's 11,967 conventional radio stations have been
relatively slow to take advantage of Web radio's capabilities. More
than 8,000 stations use their sites only for online promotion,
posting pictures of hosts and program schedules. And most of the
stations that have made the leap into Internet audio are simply
simulcasting -- that is, streaming the same audio through the Web
site that regular listeners are hearing over the airwaves. Only a
few traditional stations have begun to expand, with some, like
KISS-FMi (for FM Interactive) in Los Angeles "flanking itself," in
the words of Mr. Mocarsky of Arbitron, by playing more extreme
music than it can on air to keep its trendier listeners interested.
As perhaps could be expected, it is primarily the Internet-only
stations that are pushing the new medium's creative limits.
About.com, for example, is the host of weekly discussions and
interview programs that invite listener feedback from around the
globe. A handful of other Web-only broadcasters, including Radio
SonicNet (radio.sonicnet.com), have adopted the Imagine Radio
model, which allows listeners to design their own "stations," which
will play only requested artists or desired song types.
In addition, sites like these are leading the new medium in using
the Web's vaunted interactivity. Justin Herz, the general manager
and senior vice president of SonicNet, said, "Traditional radio
programmers say they want to excite the listener every three and a
half minutes" -- the length of the average pop song. Web radio, Mr.
Herz said, has the potential to use that same three and a half
minutes to link listeners to another track by that artist, to a
biography of the artist or to hook them up with a group of
listeners.
For radio watchers, these possibilities -- and these spunky
newcomers -- evoke memories of the late 60's and early 70's, when
FM came into popularity. Although the FM format offered much higher
fidelity than the older AM transmissions, it, too, was initially
used only as an auxiliary outlet. F.C.C. rulings in the mid-60's,
which opened additional frequencies to the new form and restricted
the quantity of material that could be simultaneously broadcast on
a station's AM and FM outlets, spurred broadcasters to experiment
with FM's stereo capabilities. Listeners got accustomed to the
better sound quality, and FM took over. Today, FM accounts for
close to 80 percent of all radio listening, Mr. Taylor said.
Considering the exponentially greater options of the Internet, it
might be only a matter of time before Web radio leaves traditional
radio in its wake.
In fact, traditional radio's only advantage may lie in its main
handicap: its ties to a specific region or city. While Web radio's
global reach is clearly a boon for audiences craving diverse music
or for transplanted sports fans eager for the home team play by
play, it does nothing for the vast number of listeners who tune in
for useful, local news. That lack, radio watchers say, is where
traditional radio could grow, using the Web's interactivity to
increase hometown loyalty through online chats with on-air
personalities, for example, or by providing links to on-the-spot
traffic updates or live video footage.
"Radio will serve as the local on-ramp to the Web," said a
confident Chuck Armstrong, senior vice president for AMFM
Interactive, the Internet branch of the media conglomerate
Chancellor, touting the strength of listener loyalty to familiar
stations.
Even if the niche exists, however, the question remains whether
radio will tune in to its own history. "When FM came along," Mr.
Bundy said, "a lot of people in the industry ignored it. But those
that did take advantage of it positioned themselves to become major
media moguls in the late 70's and 80's. You see an awful lot of
parallels with the Internet."
Technologically, Web radio may be just starting out, but those
willing to listen to it may be hearing radio's future.
Clea Simon writes about radio for The Boston Globe.
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