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Everyone's on the same wavelength now

GRANT ROBERTSON

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 11:54 AM EDT 12/03/07

No regulatory restrictions, no limited space on the dial; Web radio may be the biggest threat to radio since the advent of TV ...Read the full article

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  1. D K from Canada writes: Don't do it. I hope it stays the way it is now...commercial free! Just buy a media centre or computer to your stereo and away you go, commerical free music. And no worries from the RIAA!
  2. Walt O'Brien from Binghamton, NY, United States writes: Whatever the media used, what makes or breaks a station is the programming. It's amazing to note the migration of the technically high-quality satellite radio (people are actually paying for this) and online radio into the practices which killed FM: 20 minutes of talked-over music an hour, 20 minutes of zombified announcer bluh-bluh-bluh, "nooz" and call-ins an hour and the rest advertisements.

    It seems that radio is always testing the limits of what minimum they can get away with providing to their listeners after they spend 3 to 5 years building up market share through providing what people what they want to hear...for a while. Can you say "bait and switch ?"

    www.xfm.co.uk and www.jazzfm.com seem like positive models. I don't care much for pre-programming preferences and that sort of control-freaky procedure like last.fm, but each to his or her own. I can't think of a radio station that isn't UK based that excites me very much. It's not snobbery: US and Canadian stations play the same music over and over every two hours, the UK stations don't.
  3. Stephen McPherson from Bradford, Canada writes: Web radio! Get off the pipe! The - at best tenuous - infrasturcture of the internet has a long way to go to provide the type of coverage that most listeners want - toodling down the byways on their daily commute. Case in point - I live less than 25 miles from the CN tower in the core of Canada's largest city. The only access to the internet is dial up. Web radio is not going to fly. Just follow the money. Conservatively, over 50% of all revenues on the web are for pornography. The next biggest revenue generator is online gambling. Stack up eBay, AOL, Yahoo, etc. in front and that doesn't leave much money on the table. You can't fly if you can't pay for a ticket!
  4. Trillian Rand from Canada writes: For anyone who hasn't tried internet radio - do it. I have a dozen of my favourite stations programmed into my media player and have one of them playing whenever I'm at my computer. When not, I have a small Bluetooth device that broadcasts the sound to my home sound system.

    Most stations have few or no ads. You can listen to almost any type of music you like - I am currently listening to Hawaiian Rainbow - all Hawaiian music all the time, but also have some big band, jazz, salsa and other stations on hand. If you like music, this is the only way to go.
  5. Ron Shaw from Toronto, Canada writes:

    Of course everyone wants there to be no ads on Internet radio, and no subscription fees, and no money for royalties, and no talking over songs, and unlimited bandwidth for free----hey what's next? Get somebody to buy your computer/cell phone/WiFi ----or just steal it?
  6. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: I think the future is www.pandora.com - create your own ad-free "station" with your own music preferences. Enough of those of pseudo-insider announcers with their deep tobacco voices and stupid humour.
  7. Cold Clear Water from Canada writes: Trillian Rand, thanks for the tip on Hawaiin Rainbow, I can feel the warm sun again. What I usually like about internet radio is tuning into time zones where it is the middle of the night, few if any ads, almost no talk, just music all the time.
  8. Vic Vegas from Vancouver, Canada writes: Radio, whether it be internet-based or other, has been challenged from the time of Marconi. If people just wanted endless music streams without interuption, then pay-for sites would be dominant now. There is a place for satellite radio, internet radio and the equally-important community-based broadcasters who often represent a strong social thread in small and medium markets. The major-market jukeboxes programmed by broadcasting consultants are in serious trouble, and they should be. Since dumping all staff and any pretence of trying to produce local, meaningful content, they have become syndicated, uniform, boring old wastes of bandwidth.

    What emerges as idiotic in this debate is the response from the music industry, a move to try and tax the internet-based competition out of business. It's a move to protect the interests of the gigantic broadcasting conglomerates, lacklustre syndicates run by mouthbreathers who want us all to listen to what they want and nothing else. Take your Britney Spears and your other manufactured for mass consumption, no-tallent crud and go out of business just like every badly-run business should. Lead, follow or get out of the way.
  9. Stude Ham from Outremont, Canada writes: This is news??? Web radio has been around for a long time now and provides infinitely more radio than that overcrowded radio tuner dial and audio only channels off satellites. The best part is that web radio is absolutely global in its sweep and endlessly varied in its programming. And even more enjoyable is that web radio is not subject to the idiotic dictates of programming demanded by such pseudo-regulatory agencies as the CRTC.
  10. Scott Conley from Bowmanville, Canada writes: Internet radio killed the radio star. Internet radio killed the radio star. In my mind and in my car, we can't rewind we've gone to far Oh-a-aho oh, Oh-a-aho oh..
  11. allcanadian allamerican from american sector of, Canada writes: I gave up on radio in all its forms long ago, nothing but commercialistic crap, and if its not commercial, it soon will be, advertising always seems to squeeze its way into your life. There is always something that interferes in the enjoyment. AM/FM, satelite, now web radio, it all sucks. Best thing to do is buy the music and play it on your stereo without all the garbage attached. That is still the best way to listen to music.
  12. Old blue from Canada, Canada writes: The CRTC becomes more redundant every day.
  13. aloysuis paczjoskteyochuk from Canada writes: Allcanadian, if you like only music no talk listen to CBC's galaxie,30 channels of different variety music, my favorite new age instrumental.
  14. ex- Easterner from Calgary, Canada writes: If you haven't tried it go to shoutcast.com. Over 800 stations to choose from. If you like it you can send the signal from your computer to your amplifier/receiver ... I use Logitech.

    No more mindless dribble and commercials from FM. goodbye CRTC ... hello listen to what you want to. My only question is who makes money off of this?
  15. ej Fromaway from Canada writes: A few commercials aren't that bad, but what drove me
    away from some stations was their self-advertising, if
    you like. Listen to the FM frequency and the cute
    station nickname, plus the "dot com", 50-plus times
    per hour?...no thanks. Branding carried to the point
    of brainwashing, invented in the early-1930's. TV is
    bad enough but to catch up to radio the brass would
    have to replace the static network logos(which we don't
    notice anymore) with flash videos of randomly chosen
    advertising managers, etc.

  16. Angus S Miskers from Victoria, Canada writes: Internet radio is the BEST! I suppose those satellite things that you pay monthly for must be OK, but FM and Galaxy are just horrible. FM never has 99% of genres available, and mindless voice-over/commercials make it excruciating. Galaxie is a bunch of low-sound-quality top40 music for each genre, repeated over and over ad nauseum. Internet radio gets you what you want, with often very high sound quality and no voice (unless that's all you want). I'm into the latest Euro techno, and you won't find that anywhere in Canada, but internet radio (through Itunes) has about 100 channels in this one field. When I want reggae, it's there. Same with all types of jazz, classical - dozens of unique mixes in each genre. I hope the folks at the CRTC never find out about it - they'll just set out to ruin it like they do everything else!
  17. Bill Avery from Canada writes: The problem that internet radio poses to the RIAA(and their lackeys) is that how do you control what is brodcast. If everyone is listening to different sources how do you convert that to sales? How do you push the latest "star" if your perceived target audience is listening to asian pop or african tribal music? Or even worse what if they are listenign to music that the record labels don't own the rights to?

    Sadly it's a case of "business as usual" at all costs for the RIAA, they have had any number of changes to embrace the changes in technology. Suing your target audience is not good for business.
  18. Rick L from Canada writes: I think this news article comes up just in time. The big news is the RIAA and copyright royalty board (CRP) apparently is implementing a hefty increase in royalty fee which would force most of the independent web radio operator to shutdown. A lot of them run on volunteer donation and this would just be too much for them. Webradio cater to such a wide variety of taste that mainstream radio won't even touch. It's sad really. I saw a link from a favorite webradio site that I visit.

    http://www.petitiononline.com/SIR2007r/petition.html

    It's an ongoing online petition. There's 16,670 at this time. Not sure if that would make a difference or not.

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