Re: Clear Channel ends streaming broadcasts ... please explain

["Sid Schweiger" <sid@wrko.com>]

>>Sales have been flat or down for the last several years and the industry blames digital copying and internet distribution for the drop in sales.<<

Nothing more or less than a distinct unwillingness to clean up their own act.  The cost of CD's bears no relationship to the cost of production plus royalties, and the buyers are finally waking up to that fact.  File sharing would be a non-issue if CD's were priced reasonably.

I've now posted this in about four different places, so it's virtually memorized:  Streaming is a non-starter at this point in time.  Consider:

1) Commercials have been effectively priced out of the streaming equation, with union talent fees equal to 300% of the fee for a broadcast commercial.

2) The Digital Millennium Copyright Act forces webcasters (and broadcast-web simulcasters) to, in some cases, alter their programming so as not to violate the law, to wit:  No playing of an artist twice in a row.  No pre-announce of song titles.  Additionally, the DMCA imposes extensive and burdensome recordkeeping requirements which most broadcast operations don't have the manpower to cover.

3) The newly required royalty payments bear no relationship to either audience or market size, and are many times the payments required for over-the-air broadcast.  Given the fact that, with few exceptions, the streaming audience is a small fraction of the over-the-air audience, the streaming royalties don't make any sense at all.

4) Out-of-market audiences don't add to the ratings and don't matter to advertisers.

5) Syndicators almost always specify "no streaming."  Either they are honoring their market-exclusivity agreements with the stations, or they're streaming themselves, often for a fee.

I guess people really stared to notice the death of streaming this past week, when Clear Channel joined Viacom, Entercom and other broadcasters that have shut 'em down.

Sid Schweiger
MIS Manager, Entercom Boston LLC
WAAF-WEEI-WQSX-WRKO-WVEI