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THE INDUSTRY STANDARD'S

B E A T S H E E T

The Latest Digital Music News - and It's Free

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Wednesday, June 27, 2001

TOP STORY:

* Radio Returns to the Net

NET NOISE:

* Junior's Juke Joint

BEATS:

* Nuh-uh, Napster

DOT DOT DOT:

* Palm to Blame for MP3.com Mistrial? ... Courtney Love's Night Out ...

Alanis Signs with Maverick, Finally ... Aimster Update

SOUND OFF:

* This week's question: What compels you to tune into your favorite online

radio station?

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TOP STORY

~~~~~~~~~

Radio Returns to the Net

Clear Channel's decision to bring back its Internet streams marks a victory

for die-hard Net radio fans. But will advertisers want to target listeners

directly?

By Julene Snyder

The sound of silence may soon be forgotten, as hundreds of radio-station

streams are likely to be back online in the next few months.

Clear Channel Communications, which operates about 1,200 radio stations in

the U.S., signed a deal last week with Hiwire, a Los Angeles-based

ad-insertion company, to replace so-called terrestrial ads with commercials

targeted specifically at Internet audiences. This marks a victory for Net

radio listeners who want to hear streams of their favorite terrestrial radio

stations; for the past several months, they've been forced to listen

elsewhere.

In mid-April, Clear Channel and other radio companies yanked their broadcasts

offline, citing the royalty fees the American Federation of Television and

Radio Artists (AFTRA) requires radio companies to pay ad agencies to

compensate union actors and announcers if terrestrial ads are broadcast on

the Internet. Clear Channel then said it wouldn't bring back its Internet

streams until it made "legal and financial sense" to do so. That time has

apparently came: About one-fifth of Clear Channel's stations are scheduled to

be back on the Net by late summer.

That's a good start, but why not put all of the radio stations online? "It's

a pretty big undertaking just to get 250 stations in the top markets up and

running," says Hiwire spokesman Wayne Hickey. "We'll see how it goes."

Hickey says Clear Channel opted to use Hiwire's technology because the

company supports a variety of formats, including Windows Media and MP3.

Hiwire's service will prompt would-be listeners for their age, gender and zip

code, so the ads they hear can be targeted directly to them. Presumably, this

means a 13-year-old boy from New Jersey gets a different corporate come-on

than a 55-year-old woman from Miami - although it's easy to hypothesize

situations where they both wind up urged toward the same big-bucks advertiser.

The former scenario is what radio market researcher and consultant Kurt

Hanson, who runs the Radio and Internet Newsletter - a daily Web publication

covering the industry - says is potentially the most exciting aspect of the

whole brouhaha. "Targeted ad insertion, where each listener hears different

commercials, has incredible potential for Internet radio," he says. He

believes it's just a matter of time before advertisers begin to see the value

of targeting their audience so specifically, and says it could translate to

increased revenue for everybody involved.

For the most part, Hanson blames the two-month lag in bringing radio back to

the Net on corporate executives' inability to see the financial payoff in

streaming radio shows to an online audience. But he says it's early enough in

the online radio game that the months of silence may not turn out to be a

major blunder. "Clear Channel should be commended for at least addressing the

issue and getting a solution together," he says.

Meanwhile, Jefferson-Pilot Communications, a company that operates about 20

radio stations in seven U.S. cities, has begun to implement a similar deal it

struck with RealNetworks in December. That agreement - which affects the 190

stations that make up an Internet broadcasting alliance known as the Local

Media Internet Venture (LmiV), of which Jefferson-Pilot is a part - promises

that alliance members can generate "in-stream advertising" while "providing a

rich interactive online user experience to nationwide listeners." Jefferson

Pilot says all of its stations will be back online by summer's end.

And that's a good thing, according to Nick Upton, Web master for the

Jefferson-Pilot stations in San Diego. He told the San Diego Union-Tribune

that listeners most definitely want their Net radio back: "We've been getting

postcards and e-mail from listeners in Australia, Germany, England and Japan."

Read more about the Net radio controversy:

http://click.email-publisher.com/maaacxlaaP9FabVBqYpb/

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NET NOISE

~~~~~~~~~

Deltablues.net (Junior's Juke Joint)

Last week's passing of the great Delta bluesman John Lee Hooker brought

poignant tributes from musicians he influenced. Guitarist Carlos Santana

summed up his feelings about the 80-something legend most stirringly: "When I

was a child, he was the first circus I wanted to run away with." Hooker made

more than 100 albums, recorded with Van Morrison and Canned Heat, appeared in

the film "The Blues Brothers," was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of

Fame in 1991 and owned a San Francisco nightclub called John Lee Hooker's

Boom Boom Room. While the man himself is gone from this world, the blues live

on. In fact, they live online, at least at Junior's Juke Joint, a one-man

operation run by cultural anthropologist John Lee Doughty Jr., who swears his

momma named him after John Lee Hooker. (Judging by the "junior" in his name,

it's probably more likely that she named him after his daddy.) Regardless, he

promises to take visitors "inside the places where the blues began," and says

it like he means it. "I'm not talking about white-people blues bars filled

with college students. I'm talking about edge-of-a-cotton-field juke joints

filled with real Delta folks." Because a visit to Junior's Juke Joint is

about as close as some of us are likely to get to these out-of-the-way spots,

it's great fun to travel vicariously to joints like Bubba's in Melrose, La.

("The ragged interior walls and the worn-out floor are stained because of the

leaky roof. A big brown water-blot covers one end of the pool table. Bubba's

is my kind of place.") and Gully's Alley Inn in Moorhead, Miss. ("The

atmosphere of everything - the music, the people, the place - was like

1938.") Along with detailed directions to Junior's favorite juke joints,

you'll find lots of photos, a heap of straight-talk and recipes for hearty

fare such as chicken and dumplings on a campfire, blues beans and cracklins.

If John Lee Hooker's passing leaves you bereft, there's some comfort to be

found in the sheer love of Delta blues evidenced at Junior's Juke Joint.

R.I.P., Mr. Hooker.

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BEATS

~~~~~

Nuh-uh, Napster

An appeals court denies the company's request for a rehearing; Napster inks a

deal with Euro indie labels

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Friday that denied a

rehearing of the injunction that has all but crippled beleaguered

peer-to-peer service Napster. The court's decision, made public Monday, was

not unexpected. In fact, Napster general counsel Jonathan Schwartz released a

statement saying the company knew its bid for a rehearing was a long shot.

But legal buffs can take heart in the news that there's a whole lot more

lawsuitin' goin' on in Napsterland with the possibility that Napster could

appeal a number of decisions to the Supreme Court, the modified injunction

still pending in the appeals court and the major labels' appeal of a ruling

saying they must submit lists of file names of copyrighted music to be

blocked to Napster. Whew. It's exhausting just following it from a safe

distance.