August 13, 2001– Newsletter #143

Greetings, Weekend Silicon Warriors,

Did you hear…

In Australia, Soprano Design and Wilson Equipment
Services have installed 404 wireless-enabled parking
meters in the town of Leichardt. You can still use coins if
you’d like but to be really hip, you can use voice
commands over a wireless device.
Just ask for an hour and it magically shows up on the
meter. Then it shows up on your bill. I’ll bet you dollars
to doughnuts that there’s a fee to use the voice messaging
system. That fee most likely would have paid for another
half hour.

Those of you who are searching the Web to download a
pirated copy of the film, “American Pie 2” may get a
little more than you bargained for. A French porn film
has been given the same name and is being downloaded
by unsuspecting surfers. I don’t know that a lot of young
men will be overly upset that they were duped with this
one.

The Red Worm virus was not much more than a small
brush fire, but that darn Sircam will not go away. Its
latest big-name victim is Ukrainian President Leonid
Kuchma. Press releases from his offices say that his
staffers are being bombarded with the attachments.

As a side note, Message Labs is reporting that the Sircam
virus is still the number one detected virus on the Web.

Dell has stopped offering Linux operating systems as an
option on its desktop and notebook PCs. The reason is
simple lack of consumer interest. The company’s Web
site was a little behind the corporate decision team though.
The discontinuation never got to the Webmaster
and when people attempted to choose the Linux operating
system as an option, the browser threw an error page.

Now onto today’s topic…

Oh, come on. Give me a break. Really?

Radio stations need to pay more for broadcasting their
signals over the Internet?

Come on. Really? You want to do this?

It seems that a federal judge has stepped up to the plate
and once again ruled in favor of copyright and, in a round
about way, the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA).

Last Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Berle M. Schiller
agreed with a ruling by the U.S. Copyright office stating
that even though technology has grown, and that it would
make sense for Congress to “treat Internet broadcasts in
the same manner as traditional broadcasts,” he agreed
with pre-existing laws and stated that the National
Association of Broadcasters (NAB) must pay to cyber-
play.

Now, here’s the rub before you all start bringing
NAPSTER into the argument. Radio already pays
royalties. In fact, last year it was estimated that radio
paid out over $300 million in fees. Those fees go to pay
licensing costs to ASCAP and BMI songwriters and
music publishers.

Notice who’s missing in that short list? The record
companies.

Oh yes. Radio has always had a nice little deal with
record companies. Radio plays the music. The music
radio plays is perceived as popular and people in turn buy
the music. It’s a well documented although not causal
effect. There have been research studies on the effects of
radio airplay throughout the history of music radio. My
entire doctoral dissertation dealt with radio’s effect on the
ability to create perceived music popularity through
repeated airplay.

So now the RIAA wants to throw a wrench into the works
by requiring that radio stations pay and extra fee to
broadcast over the Web.

So I ask, why? Why would you want to do this? I say
that to…

…the radio stations.

You got it. I say that to the radio stations. If this is the
thanks you’ll get, then why do it?
Since I was in radio before becoming a professor, you
might think I would be all for Internet broadcasting. I
was once approached my university dean regarding
broadcasting the school’s radio signal. I told him I didn’t
think it was such a great idea.

Here’s my thinking. Radio is now, and will always be,
predominantly a local signal. It serves a local audience.
Taking a signal to the Internet will not broaden an
audience and even if it did, the ratings, on which we base
our commercial rate cards are local and won’t pick up the
increased listeners.

Then there is the cost. The server system and the upkeep
will need to be offset somehow. How will we do that?
Will we sell banner ads? Those aren’t being seen as such
a great value anymore. Will we approach current
advertisers and ask them to pay more since the signal is
being broadcast on the Web? I’d like to be in the meeting
with some of those car dealers when you pitch that.

My guess is that putting a signal on the Web will be
purely an out-of-pocket expense. If you feel the status of
having a signal on the Web is enough, then pay it. I
wouldn’t. My radio stations weren’t in the business of
losing money.

Now, someone is immediately going to say that putting a
signal on the Web will help the local listening audience.
Who? Those who cannot get the signal? Those who
have moved away and still want to hear a morning show?
OK. I’ll give you that. The thing is that that slice of the
audience pie is so small that I would ask if it is worth it.

The RIAA is fighting radio signals going on the Web for
profit. I say, don’t give it to them. Use the Web as your
local medium. Play contests over the Web. Take
requests. Post your playlists. Interact, but interact with a
local audience.

Hey, you want to pay? Pay. Put your radio signal up and
on the Web. Radio General Managers are strange people.
They’ll fight a DJ all day long over the cost of repairing a
piece of equipment but then spend a bucket load of cash
on Web broadcasting. I could never understand some of
the logic I ran into.

If I were your Program Director, I would say forget the
Web broadcasting. It’ll cost too much and benefit too
few for the return it’ll bring.

Furthermore, I would suggest that the nice cozy
relationship radio has with the RIAA should become
suspect. Now that we know who our friends are, maybe
it’s time for radio to start programming away from the
wants and views of the record industry. I for one would
certainly like to hear some throwback to 1970s FM radio
before record companies and consultants homogenized
broadcast signals into RIAA-approved playlists of 40 top
singles.

That’s the problem with setting up an ultimatum.
Sometimes the deal is not too good to refuse.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

That’s that. Thanks for reading.

Joe Burns, Ph.D.

And Remember: College football is going to get
underway soon and already people are talking about who
will win the Heisman Trophy. I can’t comment on that
but I can tell you that the model for the trophy was
Warren Mulrey of Fordham University. Frank Eliscu
sculpted the face. Trouble was, the first sculpture showed
a smile on the stature’s face. Eliscu changed the face to a
snarl because he felt football players were fighters. The
uniform Eliscu used for the sculpture was taken from a
photo of Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago.
Those of you who know football trivia might find that
last fact rather interesting past the historical. Jay
Berwanger was the first player to win the Heisman. Go
figure.