Technology360

Pandora aims to level economic playing field with radio

Antony Bruno has a good article outlining Pandora’s economics and economic strategies.  Of note to radio broadcasters is Pandora’s support of the Performance Royalty Act.  Bruno writes:

The $30 million in performance royalties paid by Pandora last year represents 60 percent of its revenue. Compare that with satellite radio, which pays 15 percent of royalties for the same content, and terrestrial radio, which pays nothing. …¶… [the RPA] would force terrestrial radio broadcasters to pay performance royalties for the first time. While beneficial for labels and artists, such a requirement would also help put Pandora and traditional radio on more equal footing.  ¶  To achieve the kind of scale that [Pandora founder] Westergren envisions would require expansion to new platforms, particularly to TV and the automobile. Most of Pandora's daily traffic -- about 60 percent -- still comes from computers, …

Link:  Reuters.  Thanks to tweet from @markramseymedia.  --Dennis

Pandora leads U.S. webcasts in May

Radio Ink is reports on Ando Media’s May webcast ranker which shows Pandora on top domestically in the 6a-8p M-F daypart:

… Pandora saw AAS of 402,978 in May, with session starts at 43.2 million and average TSL of 1.62 hours. CBS Radio is in second, with AAS of 166,644 and session starts at 148.4 million, with average TSL of .79 hours, while Clear Channel Radio came in third, with AAS at 117,828, session starts at 24.7 million, and average TSL of 1.38 hours. …

While CBS leads in all streams domestic and international, Mel Phillips says that Pandora isn’t measured there.

Link:  Radio Ink.  --Dennis

Solution to #iPhone 4 reception problem - #iphone4

There are a lot of reports (e.g., ars technica) that the iPhone 4 has both better and worse reception than previous iPhones depending on how you hold it.  Here’s a way to address it through a proposed application.

The newest iPhone comes with a number of internal sensors – proximity, accelerometer, and compass among them.  Some developer with access to the iPhone 4 SDK should build an app that uses these sensors along with the signal strength metering output to enable users to train themselves to hold the phone optimally (otherwise impossible when you’re yelling, “Do you hear me now?” into the phone).  The app could vibrate the phone or provide an audible indicator of optimal signal strength.  --Dennis

Listening to Pandora at 65 mph

I commute on weekends to the farm about 55 miles west of Washington, DC and have tried Pandora a few times with my iPhone plugged into my Jeep’s sound system.  During rush hour, it’s hard to even complete a phone call on this route (the iPhone’s carrier is AT&T 3G), so of course streaming Pandora is spotty, too.  But tonight, when I drove back from there to my condo in Falls Church, I was able to listen to my “Bonnie Raitt station” all the way from Hillsboro with no drops at all.  It was flawless.  The difference, of course, is that I left Hillsboro at 10:00 p.m.

It worked so well because contention for the network was low then.  If there were as many 3G streams going on at that time as even a low-rated Washington radio station has listeners at that time of night, you can bet it would have brought the wireless system to its knees.  We’re a long way from being able to scale listening over smart phones and dashboard IP devices.  Consumers will want to do that, so it’s also a safe bet that the appetite for spectrum will continue unabated.  --Dennis

Mobile TV's elusive economics

Yesterday, the WSJ quoted Qualcomm's CEO as saying its Flo TV service hasn't found the audience they'd hoped for and that its service model would be broadening to encompass other data delivery (link:  Wall Street Journal).  Then today I read that advocates of television broadcasting's entry into this space have demoed their similar service using broadcast spectrum in Detroit (link:  TV Technology).  Meanwhile, non-driving passengers are already viewing YouTube and other videos on their 3G smart phones for free.  Seems as though both camps have a long way to go to demonstrate there's a business here.  --Dennis

Death of the open web

Check out Virginia Heffernan's essay with this title in yesterday's New York Times Magazine. I'm in the UK reading on my Kindle, so no link, but this is important enough to look it up.

Update 25 May 2010:
I'm back.  Here's the link.  --Dennis

Will the Internet kill traditional car radio?

As I posted here back in January, user-customized audio stations like Pandora, et al. are being added to automobile sound systems.  Here is more on it from John R. Quain, who writes,

… But using … a service [like Pandora, Slacker and Last.fm] on a phone in the car usually meant looking away from the road to switch channels or skip a song on the phone — a major distraction. So companies are marrying these services to existing in-car controls, essentially making it no different than switching between 1010 WINS and Q104.3.  ¶  Alpine, a car stereo maker, for example, offers the $400 Alpine iDA-X305S Digital Media Receiver with Pandora Link. Using a special iPhone-compatible cable, the in-dash receiver lets listeners skip through their customized stations and even give songs a thumbs up or thumbs down by pushing in and turning the receiver’s front dial. …

Link:  New York Times.  Thanks to Lyle Logan for the tip.  --Dennis

Mobile DTV “consumer trial” underway

TV Technology reports that the Open Mobile Video Coalition “launched its ‘Consumer Showcase’ program, which is designed to build public awareness about the potential of Mobile DTV service.”  The trial is in Washington, DC, a location no doubt chosen for its access to Congress and the executive branch of government.  A search for “Mobile DTV” on the Washington Post web site produced a “We’re sorry” message, so guess they didn’t think it was newsworthy.  In fact, while a Google News search of the same terms produced lots of hits, all from U.S. locations were in specialized magazines and blogs, not consumer-oriented news media. 

There are good reasons why new technologies tend to be rolled out in Washington and Las Vegas, but we've got a long way to go to make this a consumer product.  --Dennis

12 TV groups form JV to develop mobile content service

From the joint venture’s news release:

Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Fox, Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., ION Television, Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., NBC, Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media today announced plans to form a standalone joint venture to develop a new national mobile content service. Utilizing existing broadcast spectrum, the service will allow member companies to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, as well as sports and entertainment programming.  ¶  Broadcast spectrum to be utilized for the new mobile service will come from the three owned-and-operated station groups -- Fox, NBC & Telemundo, and ION -- and the nine local broadcast groups, which are Belo, Cox, E.W. Scripps, Gannett, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom. Separately, these nine local broadcast companies formed Pearl Mobile DTV Company LLC as a vehicle for their involvement in the venture.  ¶  By aggregating existing broadcast spectrum from its launch partners, the new venture will have the capacity to offer a breadth of mobile video and print content to nearly 150 million U.S. residents. In addition to broadcast spectrum, the partners will commit content, marketing resources and capital to the new venture. The service will employ ATSC-M/H, an open broadcast transmission system developed by the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) specifically for mobile devices. …

Link:  PR Newswire. 

Here's Brian Stelter's story in the NY Times:  Local TV Stations in Venture for Mobile Programming.  Link:  New York Times.--Dennis

Entering new audio-friendly digital era

Arthur Cohen of the Public Radio Program Directors Association has posted notes from Kinsey Wilson’s (NPR SVP&GM Digital Media) Monday keynote to the RAIN Summit in Las Vegas.  Link:  PRPD News for Programmers.  --Dennis