Buy Windows Products 
Buy Mac Products In the past few days, Clear Channel has changed how their online radio stations work. They have made it harder to acquire a static URL that tunes properly to their stations. This is unfortunate, as it interferes with your legal right to automatically schedule recordings for listening later. A lot of online radio directories are similarly hosed.
Fortunately, we’ve come up with a solution in Replay A/V. If you’re looking to record a Clear Channel station, just open Replay A/V and add it from the Media Guide using the Shows menu option. Until Clear Channel changes something, this works great! If your station doesn’t work, just tell us, and we’ll update our radio station database.
Speaking of Clear Channel, poking around on their site uncovers some interesting discoveries. They are trying to compete with XM/Sirius in the content space with their new Format Lab service. And they have some interesting on-demand music and video content too.
Some people say Clear Channel is getting too large, but the innovation they are doing is pretty impressive, and they are poised to do to the online radio space what they’ve done to the terrestrial space. Watch out!
Posts Categorized: Media Business
Clear Channel Radio Online
Silent Radio Day
Today is Radio Silence Day, when thousands of online radio music stations go silent to protest the upcoming increase in music fees. This canard promoted by the RIAA basically insures that any internet radio station goes out of business. Not only will fees increase, but they are retroactive to the past 18 months!
Pandora says it best. Read their home page here:
http://pandora.com/
Mad yet? Call your congressman!
Google Audio Ads
This is one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in a while: Google is setting up an Adwords-like system to be able to place and track radio ads. It’s called Google Audio Ads.
No, this isn’t online advertising – these are ads placed on terrestrial AM and FM radio stations. Ads are tracked by a callback phone number in the ads itself.
Why would Google undertake something so far outside their core area of expertise? Either it’s incredibly stupid, or really smart.
Perhaps Google thinks it can take over another advertising area, duplicating the success of Adwords and Adsense. Adsense works well for the hosting sites, but in our experience it doesn’t do nearly as well as targeted keyword advertising. Radio ads are usually expensive to run and ineffective unless you have a huge budget.
The other possibility is that they are setting up infrastructure for local advertising of all kinds. Location-based ads are hot in the investment community, and show a lot of promise, so perhaps this is Google’s way of trying to dominate the sector before the other location-based technologies take hold.
Google Audio Ads an interesting development, but don’t be surprised to see it become a total flop.
Save Pandora
Pandora – the awesome music recommendation internet radio site – is likely to shut down if the new rates for Internet Radio broadcasters are upheld. This is an RIAA backed initiative that will essentially kill Internet Radio, or at least force it overseas.
Read Pandora’s letter to learn more.
New Video Technologies from Adobe, Microsoft
Adobe and Microsoft are gearing up for battle in the next wave of internet video delivery technology. This article from Streamingmedia.com gives a great summary of what we have to look forward to.
FAIR USE? Sort of.
Ars Technica has a nice analysis of the new pro-consumer FAIR USE bill being proposed in the USA. It’s a start, but there’s still a long way to go before true “fair use” recording rights are protected.
Basically, the bill gives hardware companies an exemption, but does nothing for software. To me, it seems like a way to get the content companies and the hardware companies on the same side, and then crush the software companies, where all the true innovation is taking place.
Go read the entire article.
PERFORMance Anxiety
Looks like the PERFORM act just won’t die. This is the nonsense legislation – sponsored by the RIAA – that would force satellite, digital, and Internet radio providers (but not over-the-air radio) to implement measures designed to restrict the ability of listeners to record audio from the services.
On the Internet side, given the plethora of radio stations all over the world, this would basically kill American Internet radio.
You can read more from Ars Technica.
Once you’re sufficiently outraged, contact your senators here.
Sling Media’s Clip and Sling
Sling has finally announced their “recording” solution for Sling Box owners – “Clip and Sling”.
I don’t think it placates any of the hundreds of people who come to us looking for a way to record their Sling streams on their PC. But it does have some “gee whiz” appeal.
*sigh*
Avoid Windows Vista at all costs?
This article in Techworld paints a picture of a business disaster waiting to happen, all because of overzealous DRM (copy protection) in Microsoft’s new Vista Operating System.
Clearly Microsoft has gone out of their way to disable recording of premium content in Vista. It will be interesting to see what customers think.
PERFORM act will kill Internet Radio
I just received this email from iPAc (reprinted in full):
Few power plays are as blatant and harmful as the PERFORM Act (S. 2644)
from northern California’s own Dianne Feinstein. Simply put, PEFORM revokes
your right to tape radio shows while imposing draconian DRM on all internet
radio.
The Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) explicitly allows a person to record
radio programs for their own personal use. In exchange, we all pay a
Hollywood Cartel tax on some blank CDs and tapes. It’s a bill that has
served us well for over a decade, but now with advanced satellite radio
receivers that allow paying subscribers to time shift their favorite
programs the Hollywood Cartels are asking for ‘backsies’ on the AHRA.
Always eager to please her real constituents in Hollywood, Dianne Feinstein
stepped up to the plate and introduced PERFORM.
But, if overturning the AHRA wasn’t enough, Feinstein slipped in a
provision that changes the Copyright Act to force Internet radio stations
to impose the most severe and draconian DRM possible. All of the Internet
radio stations that you know and love will be forced to abandon MP3
streams. Innovative companies like Pandora are already heavily burdened and
taxed by the DMCA, forcing them to spends additional money to license DRM
is an undue burden.
Who does Dianne Feinstein represent? Is it Northern California, the
economic engine for the entire state and the nation? Or is it Southern
California, the repressive monopolists that seek to limit expression and
technology?
You can find out how you can stop Senator Feinstein’s PERFORM Act at
http://ipaction.org/action/perform
Thanks very much for your continued support of IPac.
Sincerely,
Jake Fisher
Executive Director
IPac.org