Internet streaming costs compared to broadcast radio.

[antimatter98]

According to the StreamGuys website, to stream internet audio (that is, internet radio live)
to 10,000 listeners using an audio fidelity that is reasonable to listen to (not FM, but better than
AM) costs $10,000 per month. (http://www.streamguys.com/ratecard.html)

So this would mean that a daily streaming show that had 10,000 listeners a day to the stream
would pay $10,000 month to stream the audio out to listeners.

Unlike broadcast radio, it costs money PER LISTENER on the 'net to transmit an internet stream to each listener.

The way internet radio works is, you have one digital bit stream from the radio station to each computer
that is listening.

The way broadcast radio works is, you put an AM or FM signal on the air, and a theoretically unlimited
number of local listeners can tune in, but what the broadcaster pays for the the cost of power to the
transmitter and the studio. (for a 100kw FM transmitter and studio running 24/7, allowing for rate discounts,
this is about $8,000 a month, and similar for a high power 50,000 watt AM transmitter)

So, over the air broadcasters DO NOT PAY a cost per listener. Internet broadcasters do.
And, the cost per listener for an AM/FM station is less than it is for an Internet broadcaster, assuming
we don't count staff and admin. costs for either over the air or Internet.

I think that these costs should be equalized, so that and AM/FM or Internet station pay the same amount
of money to basically operate.

I would be this: if AM and FM radio stations had to pay the same cost per listener costs that Internet
radio does, that you'd see the Internet stations' cost come way way down, since the AM/FM stations would not
want to pay the higher rates that Internet stations do for listeners.

I got these numbers from various sources, and some of you may have variations on the numbers, but the idea
is that Internet radio is at a basic cost disadvantage for LARGE AUDIENCES compared to AM and FM stations
that have the transmit power to cover a large area---such as metro areas.

If we made AM/FM stations pay on the basis of the population areas they serve, equated to Internet streaming
costs, I bet suddenly we'd see Internet radio becoming very cheap to operate, OR we'd have a ton of revenue
coming in from fee collections from AM and FM stations.

Point is: equalize the costs, stop subsidizing AM and FM broadcast stations at the expense of Internet radio.
Develop rates that reflect back to AM and FM stations as if they were internet broadcasters--- $10,000/month
fees for 10,000 listeners peak each month. Just like the Internet stations pay.

Good Luck and thanks for reading this.

[metapunditedgy]

1. I don't know what the airwaves cost for radio, but cellular operators

bid on spectrum and pay much higher rates in highly-populated areas. There are probably a lot of other pricing issues in play, too.

[Speck Tater]

2. Airwaves DON'T cost. Transmission equipment costs. nt.

[metapunditedgy]

5. Airwaves DO cost, at least for cellular. I don't know if the gov't

charges radio/TV stations or auctions off their spectrum, or charges them license fees, or has grandfather rules, or what.

But at least in the cellular market, the gov't charges to use the "public" airwaves. Companies paid billions and billions for the rights back in the 90's.

I'd love to see internet radio flourish, but I think more info is needed before this is an apples/apples comparison.

[Speck Tater]

6. The subject was not cellular service, but broadcasting. Different animal. nt

[NashVegas]

8. Salaries Cost, Too

A radio station can't serve its community without a staff.

[kungfutiger]

3. SEO

I know what you're thinking, and no, I haven't completely lost my mind. If you want to see the power that the ODP and pre-existing links can have on your site, Amish go karts are your window in.

Greg Boser had a great post yesterday to help site owners appreciate the full impact that links can have on their site, specifically pre-existing links. For those that think buying up expired, formerly high ranking domains is a good way to get instant authority for your site in the search engines, you may want to rethink your strategy.

To prove his point, Greg encourages readers to head over to Google and do a search for Amish furniture. Do you see the completely off topic http://expressatvs.com site sitting high up in the SERP?

Ooops. According to Greg, that's what happens when site owners don’t pay attention to pre-existing anchor text.

Hey, it's not all bad. I'm sure there are lots of people looking for Amish furniture who are ALSO interested in go karting. Or maybe they're looking for Amish go karts? Hmm, okay, probably not.

So, why does http://expressatvs.com rank for the term "Amish furniture" when there's not one mention of that phrase on the entire site?

"It turns out that the domain amishfurnitureandcrafts.com, which is listed in the ODP, now resolves to the same IP as expressatvs.com. It’s hard to say whether or not this was done intentionally, because the hosting location and registration information is completely different for the two domains. That means there’s a chance that the owner of the gokart site has no idea this has happened. (competitive sabotage??…)"
Whether it was competitive sabotage or intentional by the owner makes no difference. Because of weight given to ODP links (remember that the ODP is also Google Directory and the base for hundreds of other directories), Google thinks both domains point to the same site and has combined the anchor text for the two domains -- essentially leaving this site with little chance of ranking for its intended keywords.

I found this point particularly interesting because it seemed to negate what Matt Cutts was saying earlier in the week about how using on-page elements can be enough to rank well in niche industries. Here, on page elements were clearly not enough to get this site to rank well for its intended keywords or to negate an ODP link.

Matt commented to Greg's post and tried to place the blame on the site's web host since both sites are on the same IP. Greg didn't buy that, especially since Google returns the same number of backlinks for both sites. Clearly, to Google, they are one and the same.

Based only on this one example, it's hard to say that ranking for off-topic terms will kill your shot at ranking for your intended keywords, but it might, especially for searches as targeted as "Amish furniture".

Today's lesson, kids: Be caution when buying up expired domains. And if you're going to do it, try and match the two site themes as close as possible. Otherwise, your go kart and mini bike site might rank for loads of off-top anchor text terms, like Amish furniture.

[elocs]

4. "Point is" I was really hoping the point would be reached sooner.

"Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief."
~William Shakespeare, Hamlet

[NashVegas]

7. Just Because Webcasters Got Screwed, Doesn't Mean Screwing Terrestrial Radio Is Going to Solve ...

anything.

Anytime anyone with an audience - terrestrial or webcaster - plays a record and says anything remotely nice about it, they are promoting that artist/record and providing a service with value, and record labels know it. They're just trying to get radio to pay for their own horrible choices in what music to promote, just as they forced webcasters to pay 7 years ago.

Mark Cuban fucked over independent webcasters and radio stations, alike, when he negotiated the TARP rates he did, and he did this on purpose. He is on the record as saying as much:

The voluntary royalty deal between Yahoo! and the RIAA that the Librarian of Congress announced as his template for the entire industry last week was a deal crafted by Yahoo! to shut out small webcasters and decrease competition, Broadcast.com founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban revealed to RAIN on Friday.

Although he had left the company by the time the deal was signed, Cuban explained in a "RAIN Reader Feedback" e-mail, printed in its entirety below, that the deal conceded a high royalty price to avoid a "percentage-of-revenue" royalty rate.

By doing this, Cuban explains, he hoped that low-revenue webcasters would be unable to compete against the well-funded Yahoo!

Cuban also explains that he wanted a per-stream deal because he intended to use "multicasting" technology to serve multiple listeners with a single stream and report only the initial streams to the RIAA!

http://www.kurthanson.com/archive/news/062402/

Take that to your congressman, if you want a break, instead of trying to fuck over others.

If it's logical for radio - whether it's terrestrial or internet - to be forced to pay up additional monies because we're using records for content, then I and all of my colleagues should be able to bill the artists for anything we say about them that leaves a positive impression with listeners (personal endorsements), in addition to the 3-5 minutes of advertising their product.

If this legislation goes through, what's going to happen is that what *few* radio playlists haven't already tightened to 40-400 songs will go ahead and do just that, or be forced to fire even more staff. The artists who have been fucked over by labels for 20 years will continue to be fucked over as labels will have ALL cross-over promotional power to make a song a hit. Any artist that doesn't dance to Warner Bros, UMG, Sony, and EMI's tunes will stand even less of a chance of being played on a successful radio station than they do now.

In the meantime, more and more of my colleagues, who have dedicated their professional lives to helping serious music listeners find the good stuff have more and more reasons to look at people like Billy Corgan and Lyle Lovett, who go to Capitol Hill to testify about how radio stations are cheating them of money, and go, "dude, no one in radio EVER got rich playing your records, but gee, that sure is a nice swimming pool you've got there."

Any you, dear OP, want to fuck us over even more, just because you trusted Mark Cuban to negotiate for you.

Bite me.