[cr-india]Internet radio has found a niche...

[Frederick Noronha (FN)]

URL :  http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030425/wr_nm/technology_radio_dc

   Technology - Internet Report
   Internet Radio Takes Off Bit by Bit
   Fri Apr 25,10:01 AM ET
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   By Peter Henderson

   LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Internet radio has found a niche. Lots of
   them, in fact.

   The Internet offers a staggering variety of music streams from radio
   stations' Webcasts to playlists customized by advanced software.

   More than 100 million listeners have tried Web radio and the number of
   regular monthly listeners has tripled in the last three years,
   according to rating agency Arbitron.

   Anyone eager to listen to hometown stations from far away can look for
   a Web broadcast at http://www.radio-locator.com, which finds stations
   based on U.S. zip code, country, format and other criteria. And that
   is only the beginning.

   "What consumers go online to listen to and what works best is content
   they can't listen to through traditional sources," says Bill Rose,
   general manager of Arbitron Internet Broadcast Services.

   Clear Channel Communications (NYSE:[46]CCU - [47]news), the No. 1
   radio operator, had seven of the top 25 stations in the Arbitron March
   ratings survey. However, some jazz and classical individual radio
   markets were top-10 stations on the Internet, such as Pacific Lutheran
   University's public jazz station in Seattle, KPLU, at
   http://www.kplu.org.

   Part of the appeal of Internet radio, however, is the availability of
   what is not widely popular, industry executives say.

   "There is the explosion of niches and different genres that are all
   acceptable," said Raghav Gupta, chief operating officer of live365.com
   (http://www.live365.com), where individual disc jockeys -- and they
   can come from anywhere in the world -- create their own stations. The
   curious can pick from thousands of those stations -- or set up their
   own Webcast.

   Live365, which also Webcasts a number of terrestrial stations, was the
   No. 1 network in Arbitron's March ratings, with users listening to 7.6
   million hours of programming.

   But the thousands of stations provided by live365, with names like
   morphsounds, BAGeL Radio and Latin Bass Network, may be too much
   choice for some.

   Launch, at http://launch.yahoo.com, the music service of Web portal
   Yahoo uses software to create customized playlists. It calls its Web
   radio Launchcast.

   "It is a combination of familiar and discovery," Yahoo's general
   manager of music, Dave Goldberg, says. Launch says it plays about 13
   million hours of music per month to listeners, who average two to four
   hours each.

   Both of the services let listeners buy what they hear. Each offers
   advertisement-supported and subscription radio services.

   In the same way that Web retailer Amazon.com's software suggests
   albums and novels by comparing what people with similar tastes are
   buying, Launch lets users rate songs and then searches out hits from
   listeners who have the same preferences.

   Collectively, Launch has 1 billion ratings from users, so it can find
   matches, Goldberg says.

   Web radio works best on high-speed Internet connections, although the
   technology is still being perfected. Listeners usually need to sit
   next to a computer.

   "Internet broadcast prime time is the work hours," Arbitron's Rose
   says, adding that many professionals have found the perfect schedule
   for sitting back and relaxing: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m..