Internet
radio offers sex and sermons, rock and ragas
PALO ALTO, Calif, (Reuters) -
Bill Goldsmith has converted the upstairs
floor of his two-storey California home into a radio
studio that broadcasts his favourite rock, blues and
folk tunes over the Internet.
What started six years ago as a labour
of love has turned into a viable business, and the recent
introduction of stand-alone Internet radios could bring
even greater success as people change how they receive
their radio music and news.
“So far it is working out very
well for us,” the former FM radio disc jockey
said, explaining that he lives off listener donations.
“People really enjoy our programming enough so
they feel its worth paying for.”
On Radio Paradise, he offers about
59 minutes of music per hour, compared to about 40 to
50 minutes per hour on most conventional commercial
FM stations. Even former commercial-free FM areas such
as National Public Radio now repeatedly air sponsorship
announcements akin to advertising.
The flood of ads on traditional radio
and the subscription costs of satellite radio are driving
listeners to Internet radio, whose stations either rely
on government funding (such as the commercial-free BBC),
donations (such as Radio Paradise), or advertising (including
FM stations that also stream on the Internet).
Some companies are also hoping to
earn money through Internet radio subscriptions. Enthusiasts
with fast connections have been able to tune into Internet
radio through their computers for a decade or more.
But now the long-delayed arrival of stand-alone Internet
radios from equipment makers such as Roku or Philips
could greatly expand the market by making it easier
to tune in.
At its best, Roku's $400 SoundBridge
Radio allows users to listen to a station at the touch
of a button.
“As time goes on, everyone is
going to have Internet radio,” said Roku head
Anthony Wood, 40, who invented the digital video recorder
at Tivo-competitor ReplayTV and started Roku four years
ago with $9 million of his own money. “It's a
huge market but for some reason it is under-recognised.”
According to a survey by Arbitron
and Edison Media Research of 1,925 people earlier this
year, more than one in five Americans over the age of
12 listen to Internet radio monthly.
Even though Wood considers Roku his
sixth company (Roku means sixth in Japanese), the place
still has the feel of an Internet start-up. He showed
off his offices dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, and
unpackaged Internet radios lined the office hallway
in this Silicon Valley bedroom community.
The unfinished process of creation
sometimes manifests itself in the firm's music streaming
and Internet radio products. As with many software programs,
sometimes things go mysteriously wrong, making Internet
stations or audio ripped onto your computer unavailable.
Still, the products are a hit with hardcore audio enthusiasts
and other patient music fans.
“It's a lot better than it was
two years ago,” Wood said. “It's got a little
ways to go before it's perfectly seamless.”
The reward for the occasional snafus
are a huge choice of Internet stations, which range
from global media corporations to enthusiasts operating
from their garages.
Some stations focus narrowly on bands
such as the Beatles or Grateful Dead. Others offer music
from Cuba, Iran, China or even Antarctica, from where
Anetstation.com broadcasts guitar blues music. Others
focus on talk, from the sacred to more profane topics
such as on YNOT Radio, which focuses on the adult film
industry.
Some are small hobbyists with few
listeners, others are real businesses which pay royalties
on the music they play.
“We're not coming from a basement
at this point,” said Sandy Shore of Smoothjazz.com,
which has been on air since 2000. “The cream of
the crop of Internet radio will rise to the top.”
The path to finding new stations involves
searching Internet sites such as AOL's shoutcast.com,
vtuner.com or live365.com.
Shore, who broadcasts about five minutes
of ads and talk per 55 minutes of music, started in
FM radio. “I was growing more and more frustrated
by the direction radio was going,” she said.
At Roku, Wood sees his company's future
in licensing its software at the heart of a $25 wireless
computer chip to make Internet broadcasts a standard
feature on radios and stereos within five years. Such
components soon will make possible the $99 Internet
radio, he predicted.
Roku started to turn a profit in the
last few months, Wood said. His firm had revenue of
$4.2 million in 2005 and expects $5.8 million this year
and $10 million next year. U.S. retailer Best Buy <BBY.N>
is Roku's biggest outlet.
One obvious obstacle to growth is
limited mobility of Internet radio. But the spread of
citywide Wi-Fi networks may one day make car Internet
radios and other devices possible.
“As the Internet becomes more
and more of a mobile medium,” Goldsmith of Radio
Paradise said, “the increase is going to grow
rather more rapidly.”
|