Tuesday April 17, 12:05 pm Eastern Time
TheStandard.com
The Day the Streaming Died
By Keith Dawson
The law of unintended consequences struck Internet broadcasting last week. Many large radio stations stopped streaming their content on the Internet because of a clause that was negotiated in the settlement of a two-year-old strike. A few outlets carried news of the outage last week; this week, reporters are still finding new angles.
Washington, D.C., news radio station WTOP explained the beef most cogently. Managing Editor Steve Dolge explained that the settlement terms of the 1999 strike by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or AFTRA, included a 300% bonus fee payable to voiceover artists whose commercials are run on the Web. Last week, two groups of ad agencies, whose members are on the hook for the fees, demanded of their client radio stations that they pull the affected commercials off the Web. A number of large station holders elected instead to shut down Webcasting altogether.
Various outlets listed the affected stations as those owned by Clear Channel Communications, Radio One, Emmis Communications and ABC/Disney. (Clear Channel runs 1,710 radio stations, according to the New York Post, and operates 750 Web sites, according to InternetNews.)
InternetNews introduced a new angle on the story and Reuters fleshed it out yesterday. InternetNews' Clint Boulton reported that companies offering ad-insertion technology are encouraging radio stations to bypass the AFTRA union and its demands for a new royalty stream. What royalty stream? Boulton quoted the COO of StreamAudio: "Everybody still wants a piece of the Internet pie that doesn't exist yet."
Crediting unnamed analysts, Reuters reporter Sue Zeidler recited a list of ad-insertion companies that stand to win big in the tussle: RealNetworks, Hiwire, Lightningcast and StreamAudio. These companies can help stations insert Internet-specific - and royalty-free - ads into their Web broadcasts. We guess content just wants to be free.
Radio Stations Turn Chilly on WebcastsExcite
Bad 'Air' Day 'Nets ProblemsNew York Post
When the Music's Over...InternetNews.com
Tech Firms Offer Ways Around Streaming Radio Ad Problem (Reuters)Interactive Investor
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